Correspondence

3257.  EBB & RB to Christopher Pearse Cranch & Elizabeth Cranch

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 250–251.

Aug. 25. ’53.

My dear Cranch—(for you must let me think we have gone on good & better friends all this time)—I am wholly at your mercy, I know. You wrote me the kindest of letters long ago—which gave me all the feelings you intended it should, do believe: but I delayed answering it, as my foolish way is, till I set off for England—then came other engagements, & calls on time & thought—& see the result! I hardly know if I should dare to write but that Story undertakes that you shall forgive & be your very self of old. I don’t make the excuse of having little to say or tell—you would bear with that. We went to London, two years ago, then to Paris—thence returned to London—and now here we are since last autumn—that is, in Tuscany—and we shape our course for Rome this winter, and England again in the spring—if one dares look so far. On the whole we are in a somewhat livelier way than when you saw us—go out now & then, and see a new friend from time to time. My wife’s health is much improved—or her strength, at least—and our child (do you just remember the little beginning of a creature?) is, & always has been, quite strong & well, a good gracious little fellow who makes this house sing with his laughter from morn to night. Story assures me you are well,—you & yours: but you must go over all that ground again, and tell us how painting advances, and poetry, and as much about yourself as your beneficence chooses– I know, I have never once made a fresh American acquaintance that I did not question, the first thing, about you, and Geor. Curtis,—Hillard & Norton. “There are no better hearts on earth,” [1] —as your & our Emerson says. Since I saw you, we have known & parted with poor Margaret Fuller—so strangely & mournfully—but I won’t write of it here—and now there is poor Greenough gone: let us hold to what we have, the faster. You may think what a joy it was to have the Storys run down to us on the day after our arrival here—(they are on the hill-top,—we house in the clefts of the rocks—) we came in ignorance that they were in Tuscany. Now we see them daily—or nearly so—& our weeks go only too fleetly by, with them to speed them, in this delightful place,—for such it is, spite of a clot of Dukes & Kings-Kinsmen [2] who are sojourning here also—the beauty is more than they can spoil. You were never here, I think—shall you never want to replenish your portfolio with fresh Italian studies,—such as I remember to have filled it when I used to call on you in that old wrecked convent, turned into the painters’ nursery,—your room, with that ghastly model of a horse? I have been in it since, and missed you exceedingly. I shall let my wife finish this scrap,—all the limits of Story’s letter allow—but do believe, as if I had sufficiently expressed it, or attempted to express it,—my true & entire remembrance of you & Mrs Cranch, your kindness and sympathy: keep all you can of these, my dear Cranch,

for your’s ever very faithfully,

Robert Browning.

[Continued by EBB]

My dear Mrs Cranch, if ever you forgive us which is possible though improbable .. on the whole within the bounds of human nature .. do tell us of the children. The sight of Mrs Story’s reminds me that I must not any longer think of them as babies—indeed even my own boy might suggest as much– Do you remember the small creature with fluent arms & legs? Now he has grown to be an intelligence, you are to understand– Blue eyes, light long ringlets, & a tendency to run in the way most like flying! Try to believe that we never have forgotten any of you, nor are likely to forget you ever. The truth is, my husband is deep in the corruption of neglectful or procrast[inat]ing letter-writing, & though I have cried in his ears as loud as Conscience itself, he put off from one week to another & from one month to another, writing the letter due to you, till he covered up his sin in the ashes of his shame, & made up his mind never to dare to do it. Try to forgive him for the sake of the regard to you & yours under all offences.

You see we are back again in Italy, after a year & a half in Paris & London. Will you come back? Do you ever think of it, dream of it, long for it?—or are you caught up in the great whirlpool of American life & stunned deaf to the music called Italy? For my part, absent or present, the tune of it sings on in my head. I liked Paris much—but the love of my Florence would not go out.– The Storys are looking in high force—and as pleasant as ever– Indeed we grow closer, I think, & have to thank their affectionateness & agreeableness for much of our enjoyment here– Will you kiss your dear children for my child and me?—and will you both remember us with the affectionate thoughts we bear you?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Address, in William Wetmore Story’s hand, on integral page: Christopher Pearse Cranch Esq.

Publication: Leonora Cranch Scott, The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch (Boston, 1917), pp. 195–198.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Cf. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Dirge” (1847), line 52.

2. Grand Duke Leopold II was King Victor Emmanuel II’s uncle, and Charles Louis, former Duke of Lucca, was a son-in-law of King Victor Emmanuel I.

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