3161. EBB & RB to Walter Richard Cassels
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 316.
Florence, Casa Guidi,
January 18, 1853.
We shall be very glad indeed to make Mr. Cassels’ [1] acquaintance whenever circumstances bring him into Florence: very glad to receive him, and thank him for his book, [2] which floats in a poetical fragrant atmosphere, and is very well adapted to interest us in the writer. We owe Mr. Cassels many apologies for not saying this sooner, but we found the proofs of his kindness—book and letter—on our arrival in Florence, months after he had sent them, and we too hastily concluded he had been a mere traveller in Italy, who had taken up his staff long since and gone away. It is pleasant, as far as we are all concerned, to be able to correct this impression.
Robert and Elizabeth Browning.
Text: The Cornhill Magazine, January 1924, p. 101.
1. Walter Richard Cassels (1826–1907), man of business and poet, was at this time residing in Leghorn while representing the interests of Peel, Cassels & Co., a mercantile firm based in Bombay, in which he was a partner with his brothers. In poetry, he published Eidolon, Or the Course of a Soul; and Other Poems (1850) and Poems (1856). His recollections of the Brownings were later recorded in an article by Leonard Huxley, entitled “A Visitor to the Brownings at Casa Guidi,” published in The Cornhill Magazine of January 1924, pp. 96–112.
2. A copy of his Eidolon, as indicated in SD1636, where it is referred to as “the book.”
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