Henrietta’s face-ache is quite well, and I don’t mean to give any more bulletins to-day.  I hope your ‘tolerably well’ is turned into ’quite well’ too by this time.

In reply to your query, I will mention that the existence actually extended until Thursday without the visit here—­a phenomenon in physics and metaphysics.  I was desired by a note a short time previously, ‘to embrace all my circle with the utmost tenderness,’ as proxy.  Considering the extent of the said circle, this was a very comprehensive request, and a very unreasonable one to offer to anyone less than the hundred-armed Indian god Baly.  I am glad that your alternative of a house is so near to the right side of the turnpike—­in which case, a miss is certainly not as bad as a mile.  May Place is to be vacated in May, though its present inhabitants do not leave Malvern.  I mention this to you, but pray don’t re-mention it to anybody.  The rent is 15L.  Mr. Boyd[9] will not be angry with me for not going to see him sooner than I can.  At least, I am sure he ought not.  Though you are all kind enough to wish me to go, I always think and know (which is consolatory to everything but my vanity) that no one can wish it half as much as I myself do.

Believe me, dear Mrs. Boyd, affectionately yours,

E.B.  BARRETT.

[Footnote 8:  Octavius, her youngest brother.]

[Footnote 9:  Hugh Stuart Boyd, the blind scholar whose friendship with Elizabeth Barrett is commemorated in her poem, ‘Wine of Cyprus,’ and in three sonnets expressly addressed to him.  He was at this time living at Great Malvern, where Miss Barrett frequently visited him, reading and discussing Greek literature with him, especially the works of the Greek Christian Fathers.  But to call him her tutor, as has more than once been done, is a mistake:  see Miss Barrett’s letter to; him of March 3, 1845.  Her knowledge of Greek was due to her volunteering to share her brother Edward’s work under his tutor, Mr. MacSwiney.]

The fear 1832 brought a great change in the fortunes of the Barrett family, and may be said to mark the end of the purely formative period in Elizabeth Barrett’s life.  Hitherto she had been living in the home and among the surroundings of her childhood, absorbing literature rather than producing it; or if producing it, still mainly for her own amusement and instruction, rather than with any view of appealing to the general public.  But in 1832 this home was broken up by the sale, of Hope End,[10] and with the removal thence we seem to find her embarking definitely on literature as the avowed pursuit and occupation of her life.  Sidmouth in Devonshire was the place to which the Barrett family now removed, and the letters begin henceforth to be longer and more frequent, and to tell a more connected tale.

[Footnote 10:  Mr. Ingram, in his Life of E.B.  Browning (’Eminent Women’ Series) connects this fact with the abolition of colonial slavery, and a consequent decrease in Mr. Barrett’s income; but since the abolition only took place in 1833, while Hope End was given up in the preceding year, this conclusion does not appear to be certain.]