803. EBB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 30–32.
[Torquay]
March 27th 1841
My dearest dearest Georgie,
It is, surely in equity & law, my turn now to write to you .. & just as surely my wish to do the same thing. I want to write to you. I want to thank you too,—for your kindness in thinking of me more than you need have done, as proved by letters two or three. Thank you dearest George,—dearest!–
But still being human I am discontented—& being desirous of hearing some thing of your degree of legal success, you never say a word upon the subject– We saw your name in the paper quoad [1] one trial .. so that you cant be altogether briefless—which information was’nt enough to satisfy the most easily satisfied among us. You are turning your face to London by this time .. are you not? You go, I think, from Monmouth to London?– Would that I were you. And do you know, dear George, I am really going to London in May, or very early in the next month .. & that Dr Scully considers me “quite right” in meaning to do so. He has said more over that I may pass the winters in London: & that I may do so with perfect impunity if with care. He thinks in fact, that I must be shut up in one room during the winter anywhere, & that under such circumstances, I might as well be in London—to say nothing of the advantageous adjacency of medical advice, better there than in other places– So if it shd please the Infinite Goodness to withdraw His hand from striking, we shall be at home late in May, or very early in June. Remember that. And dearest George, I beseech you, never to say a word or offer a gesture against it. All that remains to me of earthly happiness seems to me dependent upon my return to Wimpole Street. Dr Scully’s honest opinion is in its favor. I want to be with you all—none away, but those whom God has taken. And as to this air, however I may eat & drink or even speak & smile in it, it is & always must be to me by day & night like the air of a thunder-storm.
There was a letter from dear Set yesterday—no—from Set the day before, & from Henry yesterday. The only news is that Papa has dined twice with Mr Kenyon, & met Joanna Baillie the poet Milnes, Mrs Coleridge, & Babbage. That sounds brilliant—does’nt it? Mr Milnes professes Puseyism[.] [2]
I had a letter from Wolverhampton & Mr Horne this morning. He still has “millions of pots & pans for a background” but has been able at last to enclose to me the skeleton-process of the first act of our Drama. You wd like to look at it I know, but have’nt time to copy it out—more especially as Dr Scully has come while I was on the verge of post-time, to push me down the precipice. And so much as I had to say to you! Mr Horne desires me not to write a line of the drama, till the whole skeleton is completed. Did you hear of his sending me his picture “showing” how he looks when fresh-black from the pits—? [3] What a national dishonor it is, that high spirits shd be thurst [sic] upon such work! Two thousand a year & a title for man-slaying, & for man-helping & glorifying, naught!–
My writing improves—does’nt it– And indeed I am improving, as a whole. I think so at least.
Stormie wont go out now I am sorry to say [4] —but take no notice. Occy & Arabel & Mary [Hunter] walk every day & Henrietta visits. The visiting-love is stronger than I had ever supposed.
God ever ever bless you–
My own dearest Georgie’s Ba.
Address: George Goodin Barrett, Esqr / On the Circuit / Monmouth.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 53–56.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. “As far as.”
2. Adherents of Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–82), Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford. He worked with Newman to oppose the spread of rationalism, current in Germany, to English religious beliefs and to contribute towards the practical revival of doctrines, such as apostolic succession, which were in danger of becoming obsolete. These efforts gave rise to what became known as “the Oxford Movement.”
3. Horne was currently a member of a Royal Commission investigating the employment of children in mines and factories. What Horne told EBB of conditions there prompted her poem, “The Cry of the Children,” published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in August 1843.
4. Because of the “wall of insuperable shyness” mentioned in letter 833.
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