SD2757. Julia M. Sterling to Julia Wedgwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 318 (in part).
[Falmouth]
5 March 1865
Judge what I must have felt in receiving your letter and enclosure this morning. I know what a mournful death-knell it must seem to you. But yet we can rejoice together that since it had to be rung there is no jar in it to his mind. With all the evident pain he feels in giving up what has been precious to him, there is not even a reserve in his mind of reproach for you—and it is transparent throughout that he knew this separation must come: he too felt you were both in an untenable position; but as you had pointed to it he could hardly withdraw till you showed him you desired it. Such a friendship the longer it is indulged, the more absorbing it becomes in the nature of things—and now your heart must be torn out by the roots. I am so touched when he says “Certainly you are right in being sure that I understand you!” — For it shows me what a real effort you must have made in your appeal to him to conceal the fact that your heart had betrayed you. If he guesses the truth, he certainly most honourably ignores it—and makes the path easy to you which you now have chosen.
Text: RB-JW, p. 14.
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