SD2274. Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Blake Shaw
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 360 (in part).
Wayland,
June 17th 1859.
… I delivered your note to Mr. Sears. You did not need to make any apology; for when I suggested his sending his book to Mrs. Browning, I copied that portion of your note, where you spoke of trying in vain to procure it in New York. Mrs. Browning’s admiration of his book evidently did him a great deal of good. Like all shy, delicate, and sensitive nature, he needs the sympathy of kindred souls. They are proud of him here; but there are not more than two or three in the parish, who know how to appreciate him. For his sake, I wish I was in the same state of mind I was twenty five years ago; for I could be a great comfort to him, and he could greatly administer to my happinesss. As it is, I regard him with affectionate respect, as a good, sincere, poetic-minded man; but our spirits are far apart. I do not, and I cannot believe that Jesus was God; and that doctrine is the pivot on which all his theology turns.
Mary Silsbee spent four days here last week …
Publication: The Collected Correspondence of Lydia Maria Child, ed. Patricia G. Holland and Milton Meltzer, Kraus Microform, Millwood, New York, 1980, letter 1112.
Manuscript: Harvard University.
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