3317. Thomas Wentworth Higginson to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 52–54.
Worcester. Mass. U.S.A.
January 4. 1854
Dear Sir
May a stranger, [1] in a distant land, take advantage of his sister’s [2] nearness to you, to thank you for many of the best & happiest hours of his life?
After reading Miss Channing’s letters, in which Sorrento & Castellam[m]are, Ischia & Procida, glisten like wonderful beads on some enchanted Rosary,—my wife [3] & I have had recourse to your “England in Italy,” agreeing that that poem, with a few descriptions by Lamartine & Andersen—(add, perhaps, Rousseau) [4] comprise all the real literature of Italian scenery. Yet perhaps I already repent this hasty sentence—for how could I forget Shelley—& I must admit also the propriety of Miss Channing’s opinion that the first necessity in Rome is a copy of Childe Harold! [5]
Still, the first part of my paragraph holds good, even if I must admit more of your brothers, than I intended, into the fraternity of Italian description.
Yet this is not all that I desire to say. “I am not going to compliment myself by saying how much I admire your writings.” Indeed the claim has grown to be a cheaper & more common one since I first entitled myself to make it. But it is not so commonplace a thing to do that which I chiefly desire to do, and thank you for Sordello,—a book in which I have found more of my own experience than in any other single book I have ever read—which has been for some six years a constant companion & resource, after so many others have failed—which has been with me in many summer boatings & many winter journeys—& which has as yet so few readers here that a woman of genius sent me a message lately that she wished to know me, because I was the only person beside herself who enjoyed Sordello!
Mrs. Browning’s poems are household words in Massachusetts to every school boy & (yet more) every school girl—yours will become so more slowly, & Sordello never. When you come to this country, you will be sought & fêted:—my wife & I will not come to see you then; we prefer to send to Italy our tribute of thanks to you both. We shall feel that we have known you, in the person of Miss Channing and (previously) of my dearest friend, Wm Henry Hurlbut, [6] whom you may possibly remember in Florence with Margaret Fuller.
Forgive me if I have taken too great a liberty—& yet I know that I have not.
Farewell.
T. W. Higginson.
(Mary E C. Higginson.) [7]
Address: For / Robert Browning.
Docket, in RB’s hand, on face of envelope: ωριος—θωυσσω—ευκηλος—θυελλα (“Seasonable—will buzz—tranquil—tempest”).
Publication: Louise Greer, Browning and America (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1952), p. 58 (in part).
Manuscript: University of Virginia.
1. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911), writer, Unitarian minister, and reformer, was born in Cambridge, Mass., the son of Stephen Higginson (1770–1834), Boston merchant and philanthropist, and his wife Louisa (née Storrow, 1786–1864). He was the youngest of 10 children and the seventh son. He later wrote biographies of Longfellow and Whittier.
2. As indicated in the next paragraph, Higginson refers to his sister-in-law, Barbara Higginson Channing (1816–80). The niece of William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), she was the eldest child of his younger brother Walter F. Channing (1786–1876), a respected obstetrician who was dean of Harvard’s medical school for many years, and his wife Barbara Higginson (née Perkins, 1795–1822). She later published a semi-fictitious travel book entitled The Sisters Abroad; or, An Italian Journey (Boston, 1857), in which she describes two sisters meeting the Brownings at Rome and at Florence. Miss Channing was travelling in company with her uncle, Stephen Higginson Perkins, and his daughter Elizabeth (“Lizzie”); see letter 3398, note 1.
3. Mary Elizabeth Higginson (née Channing, 1820–77), second daughter and third child of the aforementioned Dr. Channing and his wife, married Thomas Wentworth Higginson in 1847.
4. Higginson may have in mind Rousseau’s Les Confessions (1782), which contains descriptions of his walking tours through Piedmont and Savoy. Lamartine felt an emotional connection to Italy and often wrote of its beauty, as in Les Confidences (1849) and in many of his poems. Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) drew from his Italian travels in writing The Improvisatore: or, Life in Italy, trans. Mary Howitt (1845), which EBB had read and enjoyed (see letter 1869).
5. The fourth canto of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818) is filled with descriptions and meditations on Venice, Florence, Rome, and other places in Italy. Shelley wrote several poems containing passages of Italian scenery, including “Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills” (1818), “Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici” (1822), and “Julian and Maddalo” (1824).
6. William Henry Hurlbert (né Hurlbut, 1827–95), American journalist, attended Harvard Divinity School with Higginson and was for a brief period a Unitarian minister. Travelling extensively in Europe, he visited the Brownings at Casa Guidi, probably in the late winter or early spring of 1850 (see SD1410 in vol. 16). He is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3) at 12 Park Lane in London.
7. In Mrs. Higginson’s hand.
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