5359. RB to Moncure Daniel Conway
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 37–38.
[London]
Wednesday. [20 April 1864] [1]
My dear Mr Conway,
Here is your newspaper with many thanks: I did not know Fields had republished those pieces. [2] I will contrive with you soon how we may hear sermon [3] and anthem—I take the last to be by poor Miss Flower, my old friend, gone long ago: I know, she did set those words once. [4]
You shall have my “proofs” [5] soon, if you still care about them.
All kind regards to Mrs Conway [6] and yourself from
Yours ever
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Dated by RB’s mention of “proofs,” which are, presumably, the same proofs of Dramatis Personæ that he hand-delivered six days later (see letter 5363, note 1).
2. RB may refer to Sordello, Strafford, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day (Boston, 1864), which was issued by Ticknor and Fields on 27 February 1864. The Boston Evening Transcript of that date carried an advertisement announcing the book’s publication.
3. Perhaps a sermon by Conway or, considering the context (see the following note), one by William Johnson Fox.
4. The “anthem” is probably that consisting of lines from RB’s Paracelsus (1835), V, 885–889, slightly altered, which Eliza Flower (1803–46) set to music:
I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud.
It is but for a time: I press God’s lamp
Close to my breast: its splendours soon or late
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge some day.
These lines were published In Hymns and Anthems, [comp. W.J. Fox] (1841), no. 146, though Miss Flower’s musical setting was not acknowledged until the second edition appeared in 1845. Years later, Conway recalled: “In my memorial discourse on the death of W.J. Fox (June 12, 1864) I alluded to a favourite anthem of his, from Browning’s ‘Paracelsus,’ and it was sung by the choir” (Autobiography: Memories and Experiences, 2 vols., Boston and New York, 1904, II, 29).
5. Of Dramatis Personæ (see letter 5363).
6. Ellen Conway (née Dana, 1833–97); see letter 5302, note 6.
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