912. RB to William Charles Macready

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 241.

[London]

Wednesday Mg [?23 February 1842] [1]

My dear Macready,

You have given me “some pleasure” indeed– I shall be happy to dine with you on Sunday as you propose, and to talk over the matter—many thanks, meantime.

Ever yours

R Browning.

Qu: “Sine cretâist” [2] —“he who never ‘chalks one’?”

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Macready’s diary entry for Sunday, 27 February 1842, noted that RB had dined with him that day, the other guests being Forster, Anderson and Bucknill (Macready, II, 159). No other Sunday with RB was recorded by Macready; this, together with an 1841 watermark, suggests the conjectural date.

2. “Creta,” the Latin for chalk, derived from Crete, where it was found.

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