3423. RB to André Victor Amédée de Ripert-Monclar
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 227–228.
[Rome]
Thursday. 4. p.m. [25 May 1854] [1]
My dear Amédée. How unfortunate we have been! I cannot hope to tell you how sorry we feel—my wife and I—that you should have made so many and so fruitless attempts to see us. All the winter we staid at home .. incurring a multitude of social debts which we were obliged to discharge altogether and all too ineffectually. We have been engaged every evening for this long while. But you will forgive us and compassionate us, will you not? We carry away a great delight—my wife, in having seen face to face one of whom she had heard so often,—and I in again seeing the dear affectionate friend of my youth. What we carry away we shall not only keep, but hope to eventually augment—for surely Paris will be more propitious to us than Rome has been, and we shall see you and those you love so much. We leave early tomorrow. [2]
Goodbye from us both, & God bless you.
Robert Browning.
Mr Page’s Portrait of myself is finished,—and a wonderful work it is: pray go and see it at his Studio, Via di S. Basilio, Piazza Barberini, the last house to the left. [3] And beg him to tell you how you may see his picture of Mrs Crawford at Villa Negroni. [4]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to the Brownings’ departure from Rome “early tomorrow,” 26 May 1854.
2. Preserved with this letter on a separate sheet, in EBB’s hand, are the addresses of RB, Sr. and Arabella.
3. Monclar would not have been able to see the portrait. On the morning of the 26th Page gave it to the Brownings, who carried it with them to Florence; see the end of the first paragraph in letter 3430.
4. Murray’s A Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy (1853) describes this villa near Santa Maria Maggiore as “formerly one of the most beautiful villas within the walls of Rome. It is now let, after having been long deserted, and its extensive grounds are converted into kitchen gardens” (part II, p. 241). We have been unable to trace Page’s portrait of Louisa Crawford.
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