5681. RB to Rudolf Lehmann

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 35.

19. Warwick Crescent, Up Wb Terr. W.

Friday. [ca. 1866] [1]

My dear Mr Lehmann, [2]

The more I think of your Picture, the more I fancy that the lines I quoted would suit it exactly.

… Eyes more bright than clear

Each about to have a tear. [3]

Coleridge.

Always supposing that the tears are to be not yet “had,” nor fallen. I know I should be attracted to a picture with such a motto in the Catalogue. [4]

Ever faithfully yours

Robert Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dating based on a watermark of 1865 and RB’s formal greeting. In the 1870’s he addressed Lehmann less formally.

2. Rudolf Lehmann (1819–1905); see letter 4400, note 4.

3. “Christabel” (1816), lines 290–291.

4. A search through the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition catalogues from 1862 to 1871 did not find a picture by Lehmann with this motto.

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