3275. RB to William Wetmore Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 316–317.
B. di Lucca,
Friday. [7 October 1853] [1]
My dear Story,
How good of you to write so punctually, and pleasantly besides! We shall follow your track as exactly & as soon as we can—but it will not be tomorrow, after all; on Monday we do go however—so it is fixed—& what a joy to see you all again after such a weary while! If you don’t believe in Monday,—after so much promise breaking,—here is our method of driving disbelief out of you very effectually: will you please (prompts Ba) tell that identical old Porter he is to see that we find (English) Bread, Butter, Milk and Eggs laid in by Monday Afternoon, from the accustomed purveyors of the same—“matters which do not keep .. tho’ our love to you will,”—as Capt Morris probably says somewhere. [2]
This poor dear place has given up the ghost now, & we really want to get away. So you have good apartments! [3] —that is very well. I hear more about the fever at Rome than I care to infect this paper with. It rained yesterday, & to-day,—or did, a few minutes ago. I have taken to write, in default of anything better to do,—wanting to make a sketch or two [4] (in emulation of your pencil, so happy at bridge-sides & bits of rock & water) that may bring back this last happy time when the darker days arrive—as they will, I suppose.
Meanwhile, Ba’s true love to you & Mrs Story goes with that of yours ever truly,
Robert Browning
Penini is duly sensible of the “garden” & will tell Joe & Edith his feelings there.
Publication: BAF, pp. 21–22.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Date provided by RB’s reference to leaving Bagni di Lucca “on Monday.” The Brownings returned to Florence on Monday, 10 October 1853; the previous Friday was 7 October.
2. RB is referring to Charles Morris (1745–1838), a songwriter and anthologist of popular songs, “greatly prized as a witty, bacchanalian performer at the London tavern and elsewhere. Among his numerous songs, set to popular tunes of the day, were shamelessly bawdy ones such as ’The Virgin Minister’ and ’Jenny Sutton’ … First gathered in 1786 as A Collection of Songs by the Inimitable Captain Morris, his lyrics were augmented and republished many times” (ODNB).
3. At the Villino Lustrini.
4. Perhaps an indication that RB was working on “By the Fire-Side” (Men and Women, 1855). The poem contains descriptions of landscape common to the area around Bagni di Lucca and to Prato Fiorito, which the Brownings and Storys visited on 15 September. It can be stated with more certainty that he did compose “In a Balcony” (Men and Women, 1855) during this period, as he dated it “Bagni di Lucca, 1853” in the 1868 six-volume edition of his works.
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