830. EBB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 84–86.
[Torquay]
July 20, 1841
Dearest dearest Georgie,
I dont promise faithfully to fill you this goblet up to the brim [1] —but my own little half pint sheets have all, I find, been put into the post at different times & nothing is left to me but to “speak small” [2] on a large surface. Dearest George, I meant & meant again, to write to you before. Two or three letters of yours have witnessed to your thoughts of me, while mine of you said nothing. Mine of you, were nevertheless. I have been whetting my patience upon silence—or rather muffling my impatience in my silence—for that is the right metaphor after all. And then I felt smitten in conscience about having vexed Papa,—& made a deep vow at the moment, not to say a word more directly or indirectly .. not even if it became clear, as I half feared it might do, that I was’nt to go at all. I wd rather stay, than really vex him—and particularly if, as depended more on my own resolve, I got everybody away, except myself & Crow.
But however, Papa said something yesterday about the present fine weather being open to the experiment—& that sounds as if he had not given me up. George, you are a very violent tempestuous person!– First, you look fierce at me for my impatience,—& then at others for their dilatariness [sic]!– No– No!– Georgie!– There is no unkindness ever, & least, now– It wd have been better for me (that is my immoveable impression) to have performed this journey some weeks ago—better in several ways—but others did not account it so, or I shd have gone. And then—delay—delay—delay!– The sum about the snail is the “full sum of us”. [3] We cant go on at all without stopping short– Our lagging is a part of our progression. And nobody knows quite (not even you, George!) the degree & detail of the repulsion with which this place acts upon me, whenever my mind is left, as all minds, however their will-organs may sternly turn them into abstracting occupations, must be sometimes, to the full influence of the locality.
Well—but never mind!– It will end, I dare say now, in our going. Papa’s expression in last Sunday’s letter certainly seems, as if even he thought the time for action had arrived—or was near—although, by the way, he says not a syllable of decision on the point of our destination. May God bless you all,—& grant the blessing to me of seeing you well, when I do see you,—well, and open to the pleasantnesses of life. Now I shd like to know (but without hoping that you will tell me!) if you meet gracious attorneys & take from their smiles any business at all. My fear is, that you look out over the hills, up to the present moment, for prosperity. But I dont fear what is behind the hills– No—not in any measure. A strong will, such as yours, will carry a city. You know my doxy– And Miss Mitford, by a letter I had from her some days ago, extends it into a paradoxy—holding that strong wishes fulfil themselves. Ah! that is not true! or the earth wd be one or two shades lighter. But if it shD be true Georgie, why you have only to “put to” my strong wishes for you to your strong will for yourself, and the two teams will take you up a mountain as steep as the Jungfrau. [4] I do love you, my dear dear George!–
I dont deny my “hankering for Wimpole Street.” If I did .. [‘]‘Thou liest, thou liest, thou little foot-page”, [5] might be said to this page. But honestly, sincerely, I am ready with a full heart of content, for any place very near London. I shd be quite content with Reading—Reading being only half an hour off Marylebone. Or I shd like Twickenham or Windsor. The choice however, is very properly & very pleasantly (for I dont want to choose) out of my own hands.
Dear Miss Mitford is very anxious for Reading—and then I cd write an “and”, and then a “but”. The truth is, I shrink from the thought of looking upon anybody except yourselves—even upon such as I love. Well—no more of the going away.
Arabel gave a rural entertainment yesterday to the school—in a meadow at Upton—Henrietta very wonderfully wrath about it, I cannot make out why. Tea & cake & a run in the grass—were the head & front of the offending. She wdnt go—or—. I was vexed a little I confess—but say nothing of this. A person may be as High Church as one steeple upon another, & yet care for the innocent enjoyment of poor children. Which is my ‘end of controversy’–
Do you hear of the business in London at Moxon’s?—how Miss Sedgewick who was here you remember, two years ago, & received with open arms & kisses on each cheek by all the literati, (they never once suspecting “The deil, amang them taking notes”, [6] ) put everything down about their eyes & noses & other humanities & sent it to the printer’s—and how Mr Kenyon surprised these interesting proof sheets at Moxon’s half an hour previous to the publication, & after reading therein what a delightful person he was in particular, presumed upon the fair author’s good opinion of himself to become her corrector of the press, & positively & then & there cancelled the things which appeared to him objectionable! He said he had “a moral right” to do it, and wrote this distinct opinion to America, to Miss Sedgewick. What is your thought? Is the moral right the legal? Was he justified either way? I doubt stedfastly. I am very sorry for the “altogether” about it. Miss Mitford wrote me a letter full of just indignation, at the wrongs perpetrated against her by the authoress—whom she had received as her friend, & who took advantage of opportunities so derived, to ask questions & take answers from the maid-servant where with to illuminate the new world. With all my love for literary gossipping, this is too much. It is a littleness—if not a baseness—a treachery, in small.
But, on the other hand, I am astonished at Mr Kenyon’s dagger scene at Moxon’s! Think of the consequence, if everyone who pleased, walked into a publisher’s shop, and cut down every writer’s proof sheets to the measure of his own opinions! It wdnt do—wd it?
Tell me–
Oh such a hurry. No time to read over– God bless you ever–
Your ever & ever attached
Ba
Address: G. G. Barrett Esqr / On the Circuit / Stafford.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 63–67.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. A reference to the size of the pages (8vo) on which she was writing.
2. Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, I, 1, 48.
3. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, III, 2, 157.
4. The mountain, 13,667 ft. high, 10 miles S.E. of Interlaken in Switzerland.
5. Taken to be a reference to the “lying page” in stanza XLII of “The Romaunt of the Page.”
6. A play on Burns’s “A chield’s amang you takin’ notes, / And faith he’ll prent it” (“On the Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland,” 1793). EBB refers, of course, to the furor occasioned by Miss Sedgwick’s Letters from Abroad.
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