3097. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 200–201.
58 Welbeck street.
Saturday. [28 August 1852] [1]
Thank you, dearest Mr Kenyon, for thinking of me on Windermere. Almost thou persuadest me [2] that there are Alps in England—but not quite. Because, you see, (among other becauses) you might as well maintain the beauty of a face without eyes, as of a mountain without snow, against those glorious spiritualities of the earth which we may look at in Switzerland– The peculiar outlooking countenance of the Alps up against the heavens, .. nothing can rival that, surely, in the world. I, at least, must be forgiven for thinking so, as long as I have not seen your famous English & Welsh hills. As to Malvern, which I have seen, I could as soon compare a child’s marble to the globe, as the Malvern hills to the hills about Lucca even!!——let alone the Alps.
The weather here is thick & heavy, but warm, & there is not much wrong with me so far. Robert & Wiedeman are well—& now, do you know, you have set yourself right with Wiedeman by sending him a kiss. After your last visit to us, he sadly confided to Wilson that “Tenyon” (the child has not arrived yet at a knowledge of the courtesies of life) .. “Tenyon non ama bene Peninni”, [3] .. because you did’nt kiss him.!! A kiss is his “credo” of love, poor little darling!–
So glad I am that you are coming. We miss you dreadfully. Yet we have been turning round & round in a circle of invitations, not able to do half we were asked to do. We went to Mr Milnes’s christening luncheon: & think of his having the goodnature to write from Paris (where he went for a week) to desire that my child should be asked—and think of my vanity not resisting the temptation of it, in spite of Robert & common sense! It was a brilliant luncheon—plenty of fine people, & fine spirits, which is such a different thing!—the baby, carried round the room in India muslin & Brussels lace to humanize us all—an admirable baby who understood her position & never once cried. Mr Thackeray was there, & Edwin Landseer, with the rest. And my child behaved like an angel, & knocked the table when the host had made a speech .. only refusing to kiss the baby, .. which was a fault certainly.
Then, we went to Farnham for two days, on a visit to Mr & Mrs Paine—& there, we met (besides the purple heath) Mr Kingsley, & I liked him extremely, & so did Robert. He is original & intense, & full of kindliness & goodness, it seemed to me. [4]
The Procters go away to Brighton next tuesday, .. on the same morning that their son [5] leaves England .. which is well contrived. Today, we met Mrs Procter at Rogers’s, when we went there to breakfast. He was in great force, & pleasant to hear & see, .. & he asked us to go again on monday morning, .. to which we said ‘yes’, of course. Mr Forster paid us a little visit yesterday, & I was quite pained to observe the melancholy into which he has dropt from physical suffering & seclusion. He, too, goes to Brighton on saturday—& we are to pass tuesday evening with him in manner of farewell.
Yesterday, too, came the Belgian minister to thank Robert for his essay, [6] but Robert was not at home, so he had to throw away his graciousness (and he was very gracious) upon me instead. He will come again, he says, to see Robert. We two foreigners (meanwhile) talked about you English, with much analytical philosophy & a little criticism.
Are you aware that Miss Bayley, not only dreams of Rome, as you & ourselves do, but seriously makes a question of it? Mrs Jameson, too, turns her face towards Rome, notwithstanding her resolutions against it–
Here are the two or three words you asked for. We use many in talking of you, dearest cousin. Come back soon!
Your ever affectionate & grateful Ba.
Publication: Ross D. Waller, “Letters Addressed to Mrs. Gaskell by Celebrated Contemporaries,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 19 (January 1935), 39–41.
Manuscript: John Rylands University Library.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to breakfasting with Rogers, which took place on 28 August 1852 (see letter 3103).
2. Acts 26:28.
3. “Kenyon does not really love Peninni.”
4. For Kingsley’s impressions of this meeting with the Brownings, see SD1598.
5. Montagu Mitchell Procter (1833–85), only surviving son and the fourth of six children of Bryan Waller Procter and his wife Anne Benson (née Skepper). According to Hart’s Annual Army List, he began his military career on 31 August 1852 (the day he sailed for India), rising to lieutenant-colonel in the Bengal staff corps, and retiring with the honorary rank of major-general, 24 February 1885. He died the following October at Dinan, France.
6. Jean Sylvain Van de Weyer (1802–74), who played a principal role in the founding of Belgium as a nation in 1830, was (except for brief intervals) his country’s minister to England from 1830 to 1867. He had received a presentation copy of Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. With an Introductory Essay, by Robert Browning via John Kenyon earlier in the month (see SD1594). This copy, now at Princeton, is inscribed by RB: “To His Excellency M. Van Der [sic] Weyer, with Robert Browning’s compliments. Aug. 7. 1852.” Van de Weyer is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3) at 50 Portland Place.
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