1504. EBB to Benjamin Robert Haydon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 161.

[London]

[mid-January 1844] [1]

<***>—and also I recognize the forehead as one for pulling down on us the Alexanders & the Curtius’s [2] – Do you believe in phrenology? Did you ever consult a phrenological oracle?—and did it answer, “My son, thou art invincible”—? [3]

With thanks & kind thoughts

Yours faithfully

Elizabeth B Barrett

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. Haydon’s letter of 21 January (no. 1507) is in reply to this.

2. This is a reference to Haydon’s having said he used his own head as a model (see letter 1173).

3. The answer given to Alexander the Great by the Oracle of Delphi.

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