Correspondence

3553.  EBB & RB to William Page

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 164–165.

May 28. ’55.

My dear Page–

When your very welcome note came, I was wholly unable to decide on our movements. We certainly go to England,—I now can say—in about a fortnight—passing thro’ Paris but making next to no stay there. It would be a real comfort to me if I could know you were likely to leave Rome this summer—you cannot but suffer if you stay. Nothing but the absolute want of the money one needs for travelling prevented me from going to Rome months ago to see you for myself. I hear you have begun new & admirable pictures, and are considerably advanced in some of them—but nobody’s description is satisfactory to me. I know & can say one thing—your portrait here is much lighter—(and with no loss, to say the least, of its old effect)—than at this time last year—your prognostications are thus justified entirely. I have kept it in the light—the crack has not re-appeared. I shall take it to London & Paris and tell you what the understanders say. We spend the summer in London, the winter in Paris: it would be idle to begin wishing—but have you given up all thought of going thither? I hear nothing of you since Mr Jarves’ visit—he spoke enthusiastically of what he saw—(as he now writes of Miss Cushman’s portrait which he saw a few weeks ago in London)– He is in America by this.

—How I should delight in talking out yet another long morning—or rather in hearing you talk—have you completed your studies and discoveries of the proportions of the figure? [1] Where am I to send the book of verse I go to London to print—and my wife’s, soon to follow? [2] If you would but come & take them! I shall let my wife write on the other page. Kindest remembrances to your daughters. We are well, you will like to know,—my wife & boy– So may you become or continue, dear Page! God bless you ever & always!

Yours affectionately

Robert Browning

[Continued by EBB]

My dear Mr Page, it’s dreadful to go away from Italy, & it makes it none the better to think that you are not coming after us, to Paris … that we shan’t even have your Venus there to comfort us. [3] Still, the Venus is in the world, and that’s something– Robert told you how vexed we were about not being in time with the portrait for the London exhibition .. (the frame-maker’s fault & not our’s) & how we look forward to next year to do better by it– Meanwhile it grows more & more beautiful as to colour & life—and I must say that as far as a frame can go, the frame of it offers no disparagement– I hear of dear Mrs Shaw at Paris, as well—better than she was in Italy—which is extraordinary, considering, too, the severity of the winter. You know of course that she goes this summer to America–

I wonder if you know besides of the wonderful medium Hume who is in London, & of Mr Jerves’s experiences in this way– His letters on the subject to his friends here have been stirring up Florence from its foundations—and Mrs Trollope & her son have gone to England on purpose to investigate the subject– Mr Jerves not only heard musical instruments played on without human means, but saw the spiritual hands as distinctly as his own, he says .. saw & clasped—“a touch softer & more thrilling than any woman’s”—to sight “beautiful” “transparent.” Then he asked to see “a head”—upon which a figure rose up, dim, the features indistinct, proving its life by movement, & by taking up papers from the table– I dare say you have heard all this from Mr Tilton,—but I could not help guarding against the possibility of your not having heard–

May God bless you dear Mr Page– Give my love to your daughters, & keep us in your thoughts as affectionately as you will ever be remembered by

EBB–

Publication: Joshua C. Taylor, William Page: The American Titian (Chicago, [1957]), pp. 135 and 139 (in part).

Source: Microfilm at Smithsonian Institution.

1. See letter 3489, note 7.

2. We have been unable to determine whether Page ever received a presentation copy of either Men and Women or Aurora Leigh.

3. See letter 3543, note 13.

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