3964. EBB to Elizabeth Clementine Kinney
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 3–4.
Casa Guidi.
Tuesday morning [?10 February 1857] [1]
My dear Mrs Kinney I do not know how to thank you for your too generous … éloge, rather than criticism. [2] When one is quite over-praised, it makes one feel humble,—but this is a pleasant kind of humility because associated with a sense of warm sympathy & friendship. One hears a friend’s voice, expecting to hear a reviewer’s. Who could object to such a surprise?—or to such an exchange?
For my part, I wish I could go & thank you face to face. My husband hearing from Isa Blagden that she would see you tomorrow night, proposes to go too, & represent me,—& you know his feeling, & that what you have done for me, you have done twice for him.
Dear Mrs Kinney, we both hope that in a little time you will be able, without doing violence to your feelings, to spend a very quiet evening with us, to meet Isa Blagden. Will that be soon possible, do you think?
I can’t tell you how much I have felt with you & for you lately. [3]
With our united regards,
believe me dear Mrs Kinney
very affectionately yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Address: A Madame / Madame Kinney / Casa del Bello.
Publication: Bosco, p. 113 (in part, as [September 1854]).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dating based on EBB’s reference to Mrs. Kinney’s review of Aurora Leigh (see note 2 below) and an estimated three-week interval between its publication and arrival in Florence.
2. Mrs. Kinney reviewed Aurora Leigh in the 17 January 1857 issue of the Newark Daily Advertiser. She called the work a “vision of truth and love” and “a grand opera, to be judged, not by its melodious airs, but by its harmonious whole.” For the full text of this review, see vol. 23, pp. 372–374.
3. EBB alludes to the death of Mrs. Kinney’s elder sister, Mary Abiah White (née Dodge, 1808–57), on 5 January in New York City. She was the fifth child and third daughter of David Low Dodge (1774–1852) and his wife, Sarah (née Cleveland, 1780–1862), and the closest to Mrs. Kinney in age.
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