Correspondence

3234.  EBB & RB to Elizabeth Clementine Kinney

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 188–190.

July 25. ’53.

My dear Mrs Kinney,

We have been some little time in subsiding into our old lazy life in this new place—but a week is got thro,’ and I shall take a pleasant repayment of sundry nothings in the way of work & business,—which seemed somethings at the time,—in writing as you bade me and, moreover, in hoping that something may come of it—for I can testify that this beautiful & joyous little place is looking its best,—very green, very cool, very picturesque or even more. There are the old magnificent mountains and chestnut-woods, and great moonlights—won’t you come & see? If Mr Kinney continues to recover health—(as you shall make us very happy by assuring us) he shall direct me,—and “the Pelican,” [1] here, shall put you both in the coziest corner of his pouch. (Have you got to such touches of poetry in America, by the way, as to have an Inn style itself the “Pelican”? Here the thing is a common-place. The landlord, it is taken for granted, tears up his very breast to feed his young, his visitors—and, besides, has a good long bill at their service!)

I have read your verses with great interest and satisfaction that, as “many waters cannot quench love,” [2] so, much Diplomacy and Court-practice need in nowise extinguish a firm & generous nature’s feelings and impulses. As for your criticism, I take it thankfully from your hands—the “good nature” you appeal to, won’t answer, because, the business is not with it– What? Shall I be graced by not a few kind pats of encouragement on the cheek, and refuse to profit by the occasional lift of an admonitory finger? No, I shall mend my ways, I assure you, get as smooth as I can, and as plain as I can, [3] and you shall re-criticise, if you will be so good, and take due credit to yourself for my improvement—which Ba (my wife) declares is manifest already. But what a pleasure it will be to talk over these matters under the chestnuts—will you not try and give it us? There are many Americans here—the best chance having befallen us, too, in the apparition of the Storys the day after our arrival– I shall leave my wife to speak for herself—and only repeat very heartily & sincerely that we remember you too pleasantly not to hope for as much more of you as we ought to have had at Florence but for the untoward departure. With all kind regards to Mr Kinney, pray believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

Robert Browning.

[Continued by EBB]

Dear Mrs Kinney, we are waiting to catch up the dropt stitch of your pleasant society—I hope you will come as you promised– It is cool & the scenery is beautiful, and I cant help fancying that a breath of mountain-air would strengthen Mr Kinney as it does me. Tell him, with thanks & regards, his conversation interested us too much for us not to desire to have some more of it.

Most truly yours

Elizabeth B Browning

Address, in RB’s hand: À Son Excellence / Monsieur Kinney, / Ministre des Estato-Unis à la Cour de Turin, / etc etc etc / Firenze, / [In bottom left-hand corner:] Casa del Bello, / Via della Fornace.

Publication: Bosco, p. 75 (in part).

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. The Pelicano hotel is recommended in Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1852): “Bagno Alla Villa. Here Orlandi’s excellent hotel, the Pelicano, has an active and obliging master and mistress” (p. 412). The proprietor, Domenico Orlandi, owned another hotel of the same name in the city of Lucca. At some point prior to the publication of the 1854 edition of the Handbook (part II), the Pelicano at Alla Villa was taken over by Gustavo Pagnini (see p. 397).

2. Song of Solomon 8:7.

3. The lack of smoothness and plainness are points of criticism made by Mrs. Kinney in her review of RB’s Poems (Boston, 1850) in the Newark Daily Advertiser: “Mr. Browning’s poems have not the first element of popularity. With little of smoothness, grace or harmony, full of idiosyncracies—sometimes grotesque, even to the extreme; they nevertheless indicate originality of conception and intellectual force—often being weighty with thought—and are enriched throughout with gems of sentiment and fine imagery; but they require to be studied, and consequently give little of that pleasure to the general reader which poetry seems designed to impart. … He seems to have studied to be singular, and has proved himself an apt scholar; he scorns the ruling taste for the old British poets, and yet there is something almost pleasing in his audacity, betokening, as it does, that self-consciousness which is always, in a greater or less degree, an attribute of genius. … But we confess that when an author sings of a ‘meandering name,’ and of quenching the speed of a boat in ‘the slushy sand,’ etc. his meaning is not so easily apprehended” (4 December 1849, p. 2).

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