1212.5. RB to Thomas Carlyle
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 7.
[London]
Thursday Eg [13 April 1843] [1]
My dear Sir,
I am delighted, more than I could hope to say, by this offer of yours:—at present, I must make haste, not to lose the post.
Precisely at 3½ p.m. an omnibus leaves the corner of Cockspur St, Charing Cross, for the New Cross Railway Station—our place. Or, should you miss that conveyance, another bound for Woolwich is sure to be found at Charing Cross. If your Brother & yourself will take either of these, and eat our family dinner (of indigenous mutton) at 5,—I will ensure you a safe return, at any time of the evening, by railway or omnibus as aforesaid. Our house is the smallest of three detached ones that front the Railway Station—and is next to one “Mr Holcombe’s[”]—a patriarchal sort of ’squire of these parts. But see!— Illus.
Once more, my truest thanks for your kindness,—and, with best respects to Mrs Carlyle and your Brother, believe me,
Yours ever faithfully,
R Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Jagiellonian Library.
1. Dated by Browning’s reference to Carlyle’s offer to call, written earlier in the day. See volume 7, page 405. Attached to the letter is a docket dated 1843, in the hand of Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, to whom Carlyle presented the letter and in whose papers it is preserved. Carlyle has written on page four: “Robt Browning Author of ‘Paracelsus, a Drama’, and much else of the like sort; a young Londoner of much genius, but greatly straitened (naturally in these times) to find fit utterance for it.”
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