Correspondence

890.  RB to Jane Welsh Carlyle

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 196.

New Cross,

Wednesday [ca. 1842]. [1]

Dear Mrs Carlyle,

I will breakfast with you gladly indeed, and sit on the proper side of the Countess. [2] She is very much as you say; and Mr Carlyle knows a great deal more about true beauty than anybody else, “comme de droit” [3] – How good you were to me that day! [4]

Ever yours and his faithfully,

RBg

Publication: LRB, p. 8.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dating inferred from RB’s last sentence (see note 4).

2. Countess Pepoli (née Elizabeth Fergus, d. 1862), a particular friend of Mrs. Carlyle, had married Count Pepoli in 1840. He was known to Miss Haworth (see letter 656, note 12).

3. “As of right.”

4. RB may be referring to the evening he spent with the Carlyles in December 1841 (see letter 884).

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