Saturday. June 11.
Sam told me that Hope End is advertised in the Sun newspaper, to be sold in August—no name, but a full description.[1] He & Bro heard it yesterday from Henry Trant![2] I begged him to tell nobody, & to let me tell Bummy. Ran down stairs & found Bummy in the drawing room by herself. Told her. She shed tears—we both shed tears! When will tears cease to be shed? She seems to fear the worst: but mentioned that Papa had written to Sam,[3] who, he says, is able to assist him. If he is able, he is willing—if he is still Sam! So there may still be hope in that quarter. There is fear in every other. In every other? Can I not still look unto the hill from whence cometh my hope?[4] That hope is a hope of spiritual blessing; but I have found & known it to be one of temporal comfort also! Walked out with Bummy & Arabel, on the bank on the other side of the water. Strangers may soon walk there, with other feelings than mine. Bummy asked why I seemed grave. I felt grave. Read as I have often done lately, not for the pleasure of thinking: but for the comfort of not thinking. Papa in better spirits. How often I thought of Mr. Boyd today! He is the only person in this neighbourhood, whom it will affect my happiness to leave. I shall be very sorry to leave Eliza Cliffe but not unhappy. Why did I scratch that out?---[5] Let me be honest, if I cant be wise!
1. The Sun, London, 6 June 1831, announced the sale by auction “early in the month of August.” The estate was not mentioned by name.
2. The younger son of James Trant (ca. 1773–1804) and his wife, Mary Trant (née Barrett, b. 1779) of South Lodge, Malvern Wells, and a distant cousin of E.B.B.
3. Samuel Barrett Moulton-Barrett (1787–1837), Edward Moulton-Barrett’s younger brother, who was the co-heir to the extensive Jamaican estates of their maternal grandfather.
4. Cf. Psalms cxxi.1: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help.” In this context, E.B.B.’s misquotation, and the underscorings, may have been a deliberate play on the names of the two family estates, Cinnamon Hill in Jamaica, where her Uncle Sam was, and Hope End.
5. The original entry “but not unhappy” was deleted by E.B.B., then reinstated above the line.