Correspondence

2970.  RB to Thomas Carlyle

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 149–150.

Paris, Avenue des Champs Elysées 138.

[ca. 22 October 1851] [1]

My dear Mr Carlyle,

Certainly I enjoy & am grateful for any letter of yours after an original fashion: I seem to think that when once I write, you will begin to perceive how little you have got by writing—so I keep silence, like a man spoken to by mistake & over kindly in the dark—that is the good policy. This time, however, I have waited till the trouble of getting lodgings was well over—as it now is, fortunately. We have found pretty much what we looked for—a place somewhat more out of the way than was desirable—but sunny, cheerful, airy & quiet. I observe, you say nothing about returning in the spring—but when that horrible “Eleven-Hours” have done their worst & been forgotten—won’t you reconsider the matter?– And if Mrs Carlyle will so far trust me, and tell me point by point what you both require, it shall go hard but I content you in some sort. Do “try the luck of the third adventure” [2] —as Falstaff did—an ominous coincidence? As it is, we here have had all the good fortune, in your journey with us, and visits to us; the weather is admirable—what I should fancy you would pronounce the perfection of fresh warm clearness—& we get all that to ourselves, too! Well—for Mazzini, I & my wife thank him very heartily: such a letter as you promise, will oblige us greatly, and I shall no doubt be able to find out, from people here, the best way of bringing it to bear with effect on the great person. [3] We heard quantities about her the other night—from what may possibly be an authentic source—how she has grown visibly aged of a sudden (like Mephistopheles at the Brocken when he says he finds people ripe for the last day) [4] —and is getting more resigned to it than she had expected, seeing that with youth go “a Hell of passions”—(which is all she knows about it). Meanwhile, the next best thing to youth, and the Hell & so on, is found to be strenuous play-writing– She writes in the country and her friends rehearse, test effects, prophesy of hits or misses of the Paris auditory; whereat she takes heart & writes again, points this, blunts that: one might as well, or better, try and make articles for Chapman’s review, certainly! [5] I saw him in London by his desire, and he told me all about it—how he had got in some measure rid of his Lombago [6] —under which he must have been stiffened past even writhing. I conceive your kindness in pointing out a way to him, had I wanted it. I have just done the little thing I told you of,—a mere preface to some new letters of Shelley, not admitting of much workmanship of any kind, if I had it to give. But I have put down a few thoughts that presented themselves—one or two, in respect of opinions of your own—(I mean, that I was thinking of those opinions while I wrote)–. However it be done, it is what I was “up to,” just now, & will soon be off my mind. I shall always hope,—for a great incentive,—to write my best directly to you some day. Will you remember me as kindly as you can to Mrs Carlyle—whom, rather than any other woman in the world, I have always wished my wife to know,—as she could tell you. She is grateful for your good word, and now can understand how I am, dear Mr Carlyle,

Yours ever faithfully,

R Browning

Publication: LRB, pp. 35–36.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. This letter is a response to letter 2964 (10 October 1851) and prompts no. 2972 (28 October 1851), both from Carlyle. The approximate date is suggested by RB’s remarking on his delayed reply.

2. Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, 1, 2.

3. George Sand.

4. Cf. Faust (1808), I (“Walpurgis Night”), line 257.

5. See letter 2964, note 4.

6. i.e., Edward Lombe; see SD1498.

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