Wednesday, June 15
Heard this morning that Papa yesterday discharged his women, & told them that they might work for Ken[d]rick but must not expect him to pay them for it. They are all in the garden with Daly, Jack Cook, & a man employed by Ken[d]rick. I will never go there again; unless we are to stay really. Sam has come into my room to say that Papa has called Bro down stairs, & is still speaking with him.
My hand & heart trembled as I wrote those last words: but nothing of the conference has transpired, except Bro’s being sent to Ledbury. What for, I dont know. “What for” is an unanswerable question just now. Papa did not go out of the house until one; & talked a good deal with Bummy in the library.
The Cliffes & Mrs. Best passed several hours here, in consequence of attraction & repulsion, from us & an anticipated thunderstorm. Mrs. Best is going to send me a little tract of hers on Eden, in ms.—& I am to say exactly what I think of it. I hope I may be able to say civilly & conscientiously at the same time. Eliza told us, when I asked her why she looked grave, that she had seen Hope End advertised in the Worcester Herald: and I have since heard that the Hereford Journal has the same advertisement.[1] Oh we shall certainly go. There can be [no] doubt about it: and if some of my feelings were armed “in complete steel,”[2] I should bear it better. I must fix my eyes upon it, & learn to bear the contemplation of it, by God’s teaching. If Mr. Boyd were likely to follow us, the bearing would be a less hard task—but I must not lean too many of my hopes on that if. I wd. rather trust to another if—for if he cared for me as I care for him, he could speak & act only in one way. The Cliffes brought me The Seven Cheifs[3] which Mrs. Best had ordered from Worcester at my request; and I have been reading over again what I read yesterday, & writing in the margin such remarks of his as I could remember. The last day’s reading with him, must soon come, even if it be not past—but I cant bear to think that!— He gave me yesterday his letter from Mr. Barker, to read. Mr. Barker intends “soon to have the pleasure of writing to Miss Barrett”. Miss Barrett never expected to hear from him again.
I did not go out to day. I had another kind of exercise in crying, this evening! I could not help thinking of yesterday which certainly does not “look backward with a smile”[4] & of a thousand tomorrows which may not wear one.
Miss Penelope Biddulp[h] called here with a Mr. Bowers[5]—a vulgarissimus who said “no thank you Miss” to me!— Now I must go down to tea. Papa’s spirits were good at dinner today.
1. The Worcester Herald, 11 June 1831, and the Hereford Journal, 8 June 1831, carried similarly worded notices of the sale, not mentioning Hope End by name, and not naming a specific date for the auction.
2. [John Milton, Comus.] A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634 (London, 1637), lines 419–420: “’Tis chastity, my brother, chastity: / She that has that, is clad in compleat steel.”
3. Presumably the 1824 Blomfield edition which formed Lot 313 of Browning Collections.
4. [Edward Young], The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality. Night the Second. On Time, Death, Friendship (London, 1742), p. 23:
Whose Yesterdays look backwards with a Smile;
Nor like the Parthian wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious Lot! Past Hours
If not by Guilt, yet wound us by their Flight.
5. Penelope Biddulph was one of the daughters of John Biddulph, banker, magistrate, Governor of Guy’s Hospital, and Treasurer of the Royal Geographical Society. He was one of the principal citizens of Ledbury. Capt. Bowers of Boulsdon, a frequent guest of the Biddulphs, had recently returned to England after nine years in South America. In 1832 he was appointed Superintendent of the Seamen’s Hospital Ship at Greenwich.
