814. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 45.
[Torquay]
May 13th 1841
My dear Mr Horne,
I had your note yesterday & have today the second act .. and shall be sorry & remorseful on all tomorrows until sure that you will give up the thought of Psyche till you give up the cough. As to serving me ill .. dear Mr Horne, you did no such thing! I am not a desperate hunter—I like waiting in the dew—and provided we have the antlers, it may as well be in the afternoon as forenoon. Shall the clock make us quarrel?– No—no! I leave unbeaten that “deep dell of silence”, [1] just as long as you please to lie there, and are not well.
What made me write was indeed impatience—there is no denying it—only not about the Drama. Do you know what it is to be shut up in a room by one’s self, to multiply one’s thoughts by one’s thoughts—how hard it is to know what “one’s thought is like”—how it grows & grows, & spreads & spreads, & ends in taking some supernatural colour, .. just like mustard and cress sown on flannel in a dark closet?– First I begin with the simple impertinence of wondering why you did’nt write to me—simple enough—altho’ I dont call it altogether my own fault when I miss your letters– Then came the complex—perplexing in the extreme–
I am very sorry about the cough. Do not neglect it lest it end as mine did—for a common cough striking on an insubstantial frame began my bodily troubles—and I know well what that suffering is, though nearly quite free from it now. So let it be understood, consented & agreed to, & well approved on each side, that until your return to London, Psyche is suspended.
The new act shall go to you in a day or two. Your spiriting is most excellently done—and the Drama half alive already. I am not impatient, but contrariwise satisfied. Yet one thing I must ask .. no—not today—another day.
Ever & truly yours
EBB–
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 82–84 (in part, as 10 July 1841).
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. We have not located the source of this quotation.
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