ABSTRACT
First publ. in Oxford; rpr. in EBB to Arabella i 145; MS in private collection. These lines form part of a letter from EBB. to her sister Arabella, written on 22–3 December 1847. Much of the letter is taken up with an account of a visit to Florence by EBB.’s newly married cousin Arlette and her husband Captain Reynolds, who has clearly made an unfavourable impression on EBB. She implicitly contrasts her cousin’s marriage with her own, and provides various instances of B.’s devotion to her, such as his willingness to get up early on cold winter mornings to light the fire for her: ‘He never has me out of his head, one way or another—there never was a woman, made such a fuss about, since Eve—and she made the fuss herself. The consequence is that I have come seriously to consider all other marriages as not to be named in the same sentence as any way comparable or analogous to mine’ (EBB to Arabella i 143). Later on she reports that Robert tells her ‘two or three times a day’ that she doesn’t love him, ‘& once with ever so many impromptu verses he said & sung it .. (did I tell you what an improvisatore he was?) said & sung that I didn’t love him ..’ She then quotes the lines, adding: ‘& all because I object to turning him out of his chair, when my sofa is as near the fire .. or because I don’t sit with a shawl over my head, or some such fantastical reason’.
