[Postmark: May 22, 1846]
Thursday.
Dearest, when your letter came I was cutting open the
leaves of Dickens’ ‘ Letters from Italy ‘ which Papa had
brought in — so I am glad to have your thoughts of the
book to begin with. Before your letter came I had sent
you the review, as you will find. What changes, what
changes ! And the sonnet was purely manuscript, and for
the good of the world should remain so. Oh — you cannot
care for all this trash- such trash ! Why I had a manu-
script sonnet sent to me last autumn by ‘ person or persons
unknown,’ … ‘ To EBB on her departure from England
to Pisa.’ Can you fancy that melodious piece of gossipping ?
Then a lady of the city, famous, I believe, for haberdashery,
used to address all her poems to me — which really was
original . . for she would write five or six ‘ poems ‘ on an
evening, and sweep them up and send them to me once a
fortnight, upon faith, hope and charity, seaweed and moonshine,
cornlaws and the immortality of the soul, and take
me for her standing muse, properly thou’d and thee’d all
through. What a good vengeance it would be upon your
unjust charges, if I set you to read a volume or two of those
‘ poems ‘ . . . which all went into the fire — so you need
not be frightened.
And to-day I had a rose-tree sent to me by somebody
who has laid close siege to me this long while, and whom I
have escaped hitherto . . but who has encamped, she says,
’till July ‘in 16 Wimpole Street. She writes too on her
card . . ‘ When are you going to Italy ? ‘
Ah ! you, who blame me (half blame me) for ‘ seeing
women,’ do not know how difficult it is to help it sometimes,
without being in appearance ungrateful and almost brutal.
Just because I am unwell, they teaze me more, I believe.
Now that Miss Heaton . . oh, I need not go back, but it
was not of my choice, be sure. You being a man are
different, — and perhaps you make people afraid and keep
them off. They do not thrust their hands through the bars
where the lion is, as they do with the giraffe. Once I had
this proposition — ‘ If we mayn’t come in, will you stand up
at the window that we may see ? ‘ Now ! — And there’s the
essence of at least ten MS. sonnets ! —— so don’t complain
any more.
As for Mr. Kenyon, he had his ‘ collation,’ I understand —
and he said that he was expecting Mrs. Jameson and sundries
— but he referred to some ‘ friends from the country who
would not be so mad as to come,’ and whom I knew to be
yourselves. You were quite, quite right not to come.
To-day you are right too . . in thinking that I — was out.
I was in the park nearly an hour, Arabel and Flush and I :
and perhaps if to-morrow should be fine, I may walk in the
street ; so think of me and help me. This is my last letter
before I see you again, dear dearest. Oh — but I heard
yesterday . . and it was not a tradition of the elders this
time . . it was ‘ vivid in the pages of contemporary history ‘
… in fact one of my brothers heard it at the Flower Show
and brought it home as the newest news, . . that ‘ Mr.
Browning is to be married immediately to Miss Campbell.’
The tellers of the news were ‘ intimate friends ‘ of yours,
they said, and knew it from the highest authority —
Laugh ! — Why should not they talk, being women ?
My brother did not tell me, but he told it down-stairs — and
Arabel was amused, she said, at some of the faces round.
At that turn of the road they lost the track of the hare.
Not an observation was made by anybody.
May God bless you — Think of me. I am ever and
ever
Your own
Ba.