3255. Robert Bulwer Lytton to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 247–249.
Florence
24 Aug. 53.
My dear Browning
I am very thankful indeed for the pleasure which your kind little letter has brought me this morning—a black day with me on many scores. I wish mightily that I could get to the Baths & see you; but my colleague’s [1] protracted absence prevents me still from fixing any date to wishes. I have been but so so & sigh for change of air & scene. Palpitation in the heart which I never had before—& hysterical lowness—touch & go with all I meet– Only yesterday I was reading in the Winter’s Tale, & a line in a speech of Perdita’s set me a laughing & crying in one, & I could not stop for half an hour. But by the way of bad spirits, the arrival of the great Spicer is indeed a grand event and he comes, as it seems, heralded by the comet. [2] My father has put me out of all conceit, by a letter wh I have just recd from him wherein he says there is no new thing: that Co[r]nelius Agrippa was all in advance of the Miss Foxes; he will have it there shall be no new Era; but these things are a spurt & flash in the pan, such as have sparkled out and died again from all time: nothing is to be arrived at, and that what perished with the middle Age was more than we think we have found now– In fact a complete damper—but tho’ thoroughly soused, I am determined to shake off the water and hold on. I cant give up the notion of the “good time coming” for any logic. I trust that Mr Spicer will leave us an armoury of weapons to defend his cause. Powers has lent me Swedenborg. I have not dipt deep into him yet; but confess to some disappointment. The form displeases me, and I have not broken thro’ that into his mind yet. He is as severe as St Athanasius [3] whom he puts down; and as free with “the Lord” as any tub-preacher. Then he slaps out some assertion in your face, which quite takes away your breath. “Why is this so?” one falters out. “There can be no possible doubt of it” says he “but if you need authority see my other book page such & such, where you will find the strongest corroboration!”
He is hardly logical. But I dont think I have seen his great things– I should like to look at his scientific works. All great minds speak of him with such admiration, that there must be gold about him. I get the pith and marrow of his theory from Powers who does it noble justice. It is certainly very striking, but far, I think, from satisfactory.
That is certainly very strange which you tell me of the trial of that person. [4]
In what you say of him, you quite hit my own notions. God of course sees the life in the corruption, but it is not the office of charity to seek defiled things nor house carrion. God forbid that I should have sought this. I would not have budged a step towards his a[c]quaintance, either for curiosity’s sake, or any other; but it came upon me in such way as there was nothing for it but plain ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and then I said ‘yes’. For I do not see that I shd have any whiter feet for the kicking of a fallen wretch whom the world even has passed sentence on. And were my own health so unsound that I shd fester at the mere touch of such diseased flesh—were I not, in reality, as rotten as he, for all my seeming?
I know the frightful story well. And how he brazened it out at the first; and went every where to look down, and laugh down, and talk down, all hint of it. And how his fine friends took him by the hand, and how the world was proud to pat him on the back after His Grace the Duke: and how Judas like as it seem’d, being born for perdition, he damned himself at last before all men. That was after the Reform Bill, and I remember my Uncle telling me, that as he was coming out of the House, the old porter, who was a Tory to the quick of the nail, said to him “Shocking things Sir! and an old member, too”! And I dare say the world said “Shocking things, and a fine gentleman too!” And here he is—a wreckd argosy indeed; with all his wealth & all his learning, and all his fine taste, and his shame to crown them! And I hear that he spends all his great fortune, in buying costly works of art, rare manuscripts, graven doors, statues, bronzes &c, to adorn some family mansion [5] in Engd which he will never see as long as he lives, and of which the present heir, is so fast in the grip of the Jews; that the bronzes, and the pictures, and all the fine things, are doom’d before they reach Engd and will be spoiled by the Hebrews; so there is retribution. He, poor shaky old man, thinking that, like Beckford, [6] he is building to his name, so great a monume<nt> of marble, and gilding, as shall o<ut>-stare the shame of it, when he is de<ad.>
Yesterday was the hottest day I have felt here. I put it all down to the Comet: but I dare say you are cooler at the Baths. My colleague Fenton writes me word that he has seen the Stories. I am glad they are still there. Give my best and warmest remembrances to Mrs Browning, and little Pen, and believe yourself my dear friend, how sincerely I am your faithful friend and admirer– O et præsidium et dulce decus meum! [7]
R B. Lytton.
Address: Franco distino / Monr / Monsr Browning / Villa Tolomejo / Bagni di Lucca.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 41–43.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Henry Fenton; see letter 3243, note 2.
2. See letter 3249, note 2.
3. Athanasius (ca. 298–373), Bishop of Alexandria, was a passionate opponent of Arianism, the belief that Christ was not the Son of God.
4. William John Bankes; see letter 3249, note 3.
5. The great house at the family seat, Kingston Lacy, Dorset, about 10 miles N.W. of Bournemouth. From 1835 to 1841, Bankes engaged the architect Sir Charles Barry to make significant alterations to the house, which is now part of the National Trust and contains the “works of art” and rare objects that Bankes sent home, including many of the artifacts he collected during his travels in Egypt.
6. William Thomas Beckford (1760–1844), writer and art collector, had inherited enormous wealth as the only son of William Beckford (d. 1770), owner of vast sugar plantations in Jamaica. In 1784, Beckford was implicated in a scandal involving his relations with another man. He was never charged with a crime, but he subsequently spent much time on the continent and began collecting art. He later built Fonthill Abbey at the family seat to extravagant specifications, partly tearing down the great house known as Splendens. But some of the materials and practices used during construction proved to be unsound, and now only ruins remain.
7. “My bulwark and my glory dearly cherished” (Horace, Odes, I, 1, 2, trans. C.E. Bennett).
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