Correspondence

3213.  EBB & RB to Harriet Everilda Stewart

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 125–126.

[mid-] June– [1853] [1]

My dear Mrs Stewart, [2]

We both thank you much for your kind sympathy about the play,—and I must. You will understand how that is, just as you understand many other things which are difficult to people in general. It gave me the greatest pleasure to have your little note, .. the touch of a friend’s hand at the right time. Thank you.

Yes, I should have liked to have seen ‘Colombe’. And I should like, and so would Robert, to see England this summer, to see our friends, to see you, to see Mr Millais’ pictures [3] … and as much sunshine as is national, at the same time. But we are under an oath to see Rome first, & we cant get to Rome before next winter. Therefore we are thrown forward into another year with the load of our affectionate intentions toward you all. See what helpless hands we stretch! Do not forget us anyhow.

We remember you, indeed—how very good you were to us .. how you fed us with sweetmeats & music when we were near you, and smiled upon Colombe when we were far. Our child has a myth about you, dated somewhere at the beginning of time, & carrying out a dispensation of jams. Such things do not happen in these modern days, he thinks pensively—the gods were elder.

Most truly yours always, dear Mrs Stewart!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

[Continued by RB]

Dear Mrs Stewart– An omnibus-carrier of such weighty matter as this note,—together with a trifle or two from the minister—leaves to-day. I wish he could take more than mere written thanks for so much kindness. I daresay the play is done for & done with by this time—not so your pleasant assurance of sympathy & good wishes, which are the chief gain I find in the adventure. We shall think of you, your words & deeds, till some mild July day next year, if Heaven please, we see & speak to you again. Meanwhile, with best remembrances & regard, to your family,

pray know me for

yours very faithfully,

Robert Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.

1. Year provided by the references to Colombe’s Birthday. The approximate date in June is suggested by EBB’s mention of this note in letter 3216.

2. Harriet Everilda Stewart (née Gore, 1806–84); see letter 3092, note 3.

3. John Everett Millais was exhibiting two paintings at the Royal Academy that season: “The Proscribed Royalist” and “The Order of Release.” Although The Times critic was disappointed in the former, he wrote of the latter: “A more beautiful and finished work of art has seldom graced the walls of the Academy” (30 April 1853, p. 6).

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