1283. RB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 184.
New Cross, Hatcham,
Friday Mg [ca. mid-June 1843] [1]
My dear Horne,
More of your generosity, &, alas, more of my inability to thank you for it! [2] —And you, who write thus to me, and about me, wrote that “Orgy” I have just seen in a Magazine,—to your glory! [3]
When do you redeem your promise and delight us all by coming here? The sun will surely enjoy his own again ere very long, and our hills be traversable.
Ever yours,
R Browning.
Moxon has probably sent by this time “Paracelsus,” “Sordello,” & the “Bs & P.s” to the Office of the P.T. [4] I saw him yesterday.
N B. (a picturesque bit of ghastliness: in this little writing-room of mine are two sculls, each on its bracket by the window; few brooms trouble walls & ceiling, you may be sure—so here has a huge field-spider woven his platform-web from the under-jaw of one of these sculls to the window-sill—and, (the two sole remaining teeth keeping the jaws just enough apart) the spider’s self is on the watch, with each great arm wide out in a tooth-socket—thus.
Publication: LRB, p. 8 (as [ca. December 1842]).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. It is apparent that RB wrote this letter to thank Horne for a copy of Orion, which was published on 29 May. In a letter to George Moulton-Barrett on 13 July (no. 1323), EBB quotes from this letter and refers to it as one of several shown her by Horne concerning Orion. We therefore place it between these two dates.
2. RB’s copy of Orion appeared in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1253).
3. Perhaps a reference to extracts from Orion seen by RB in one of the reviews; bk. I contains the lines “And bade them to an orgie on the plain” and “High swelled the orgie” (p. 34, line 5 and p. 35, line 10).
4. We have failed to interpret these initials. It is possible that they represent “Post-Town,” meaning that RB had instructed Moxon to send the books to the Kentish-Town post office, to be held there for collection.
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