3238. EBB to Robert Bulwer Lytton

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 200.

[Bagni di Lucca]

[ca. 30 July 1853] [1]

<***> We must consider (among other things dependent on our weak degree of receptiveness,) that it is not easy for the wittiest or wisest of men, to rap out much wit or wisdom. Put your father in one room, and Mr Carlyle in another, and let them communicate by raps alphabetically—we shant get the “French Revolution” or “Earnest Maltravers” [2] from them for all that—now shall we? <***>

Publication: None traced.

Source: Extract in a letter from Robert Bulwer Lytton to his father, dated Florence, 1 August 1853 (ms with Lord Cobbold).

1. Approximate dating indicated by the source. Lytton tells his father on 1 August 1853: “I have just recd a letter from Mrs. Browning” (see SD1670).

2. Ernest Maltravers (1837) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and The French Revolution: A History (1837) by Thomas Carlyle.

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