[15 May 1845]. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett to Browning, Robert.

              Thursday- 

But how ‘mistrustfulness’? And how “that way”? What have I said or done, I, who am not apt to be mistrustful of anybody & shd be a miraculous monster if I began with you! What can I have said, I say to myself again & again.

One thing, at any rate, I have done, “that way” or this way! I have made what is vulgarly called a ‘piece of work’ about little,-or seemed to make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:-& by position & experience, .. by having had my nerves shaken to excess, & by leading a life of such seclusion, .. by these things together & by others besides, I have appeared shy & ungrateful to you. Only not mistrustful. You could not mean to judge me so. Mistrustful people do not write as I write, .. surely! for was’nt it