SD2038. Lydia Maria Child to Mary Moody Emerson

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 265–266 (in part).

Wayland,

Jan. 6th 1857.

… Work is my specific for all mental diseases. “Get work!” says Mrs Browning. “Be sure it is better than anything you work to get. I count that heaven itself is but working to a surer issue.” What a magnificent book is that Aurora Leigh! I never before fully realized the greatness of Elizabeth Browning. I was particularly charmed with the grand unconsciousness with which the story rides over mere conventionalities, social and moral. It is long since I have seen a book so strong, and free, and beautiful. …

Publication: The Collected Correspondence of Lydia Maria Child, ed. Patricia G. Holland and Milton Meltzer, Kraus Microform, Millwood, New York, 1980, letter 979.

Manuscript: Harvard University.

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