2975. Bryan Waller Procter to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 163–164.
13 Upper Harley Street, Cavendish Square.
Novr 5. 1851.
I was very much disappointed, my dear Browning, at finding on my return to London, that you had left England. It seems as if I had scarcely had a glimpse of you—so much was I absent on my circuits during your stay. I had reckoned a great deal on seeing you—but you have passed away like a gleam of sunshine—& here we have our fogs again.
—I shall look for you again in the Spring.
—And now let me ask after Mrs Browning. Will you kiss her hand (for me) & thank her for the two pretty books which I find here. [1] I shall make myself better acquainted with them soon, & shall like them—not entirely (however much) for their own sake—but a little for her husband’s sake also. If I am not deceived, she will prefer this sort of admiration to any other which might be more exclusively her own.– When you have less than nothing to do, drop me a line, will you not, & tell me that you are well & happy. Tell me also what you are doing. I should like to see a book of your lyrics—any book of yours indeed;—but lyrics (like your others) indicative of your different moods of thought & feeling—would draw less upon your time than any long elaborate poems—& might be quite as popular perhaps. They might be dotted down at once as the easy expression of your mood—one at a time. Twould amount to a book before you would be aware of it. (Here Mrs Browning joins me I know in urging you to this pleasant little task.) —How many things you will see where you are—how many things you are seeing now—how many dreams—everyone of which will suggest a poem to you. There is one crossing your brain at this moment– Is it about Waring? or whom? Who is Waring? [2] or rather Is he at all? If he be, let us hear more about him. I have been looking over your old account of him, & comparing notes, in order to see whether he was changed, & to what extent. I see, in the refere<nce> to Iphigénia, the old line “In the dome at Taurica<”> is altered. [3] Shall I confess that I, who am generally a stickler for clear expressions,—(& who I am afraid practise this system to the detriment of my verse often,)—like the old line the best—chiefly I believe for its dim allusion, which in this case seems to be in itself a beauty. It is thus I suspect that the lines “Not that Nepenthe &c.” [4] affect me & the rest of the unlearned—by dint of a certain obscureness of reference.
—To descend——
I am to breakfast with Kenyon tomorrow morning & meet Mr Fields, of Boston U.S.– He has published the American Edition of your poems (& of mine also) [5] —& if he should call on you in Paris, as I think he told Kenyon & me the other day that he wished to do,—he will not be the less welcome to you from the circumstance of his having behaved very kindly to one or two poor American Authors (Hawthorne for one. [6] ). You will be glad I think to hear that my daughter (Adelaide) who has been so very ill is now really getting better—at least we hope so. She is in Hampshire. This note is to go under Kenyon’s Cover, so I will only send my & my wife’s kind regards to Mrs Browning & beg you always to believe that I am with great regard your very sincere
B. W. Procter.
Address, on integral page: Robt Browning Esqre / 138 Avenue des Champs Elysées. / à Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Iowa.
1. Probably EBB’s Poems (2 vols., 1850). However, we have been unable to trace this presentation copy.
2. “Waring,” a tribute to RB’s friend Alfred Domett, was published in Dramatic Lyrics (1842), No. III in the Bells and Pomegranates series.
3. In the first published version of “Waring,” line 126 reads: “To the Dome at Taurica”; in RB’s Poems (1849) the line reads “To Dian’s fane at Taurica.”
4. Milton, A Masque Presented at Ludlow-Castle, l. 675.
5. English Songs, and Other Small Poems by Barry Cornwall, Procter’s pseudonym, was first published in 1832 by Edward Moxon, who also brought out a second edition in 1844. Chapman and Hall issued a third edition in 1851, as did Ticknor, Reed, and Fields of Boston.
6. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) said of James Thomas Fields: “I care more for your good opinion than for that of a host of critics, and have excellent reason for so doing; inasmuch as my literary success, whatever it has been or may be, is the result of my connection with you” (Selected Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ed. Joel Myerson, Columbus, Ohio, 2002, p. 233).
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