3633. Dante Gabriel Rossetti to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 274–275.
14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars.
Sunday evening. [23 September 1855] [1]
My dear Sir
I have been remembering all the past week your kind intention of calling; and the only time I have been absent for more than a few minutes during daylight, was, I believe, the early part of Monday, when I went out for the express purpose of borrowing (to show you) a design by a lady [2] my pupil, from Pippa. [3] I had not expected the pleasure of your visit so soon after seeing you; but if by unlucky chance you should have called just then, pray accept my sincere apologies. I was, and am, very eager to show you the little design, (which is of the scene where Pippa meets the girls,) as, in spite of immature execution, I think you would agree that it is full of very high genius.
Was Mr Patmore right in thinking you would remain in town a fortnight from the time we saw you?—and if so, should I have a chance of benefiting by your being up this way? I will take care to be at home, in that hope, all daytime Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday; or after that any time you might appoint for giving me the great pleasure of a visit. [4] Were it not for the kind wish you expressed to see the few beginnings of things I have in hand, I should probably have tried to bring the Pippa sketch round to you to-day.
But if I am unlucky enough not to see you after all, I must console myself with your forthcoming volumes, which would serve at any time to put me out of mind of many annoyances till I have well mastered their contents. Pray excuse this lengthy note; and with kind respects to Mrs Browning, believe me,
dear Sir,
Yours sincerely
D. G. Rossetti
Robert Browning Esq
Publication: Rossetti, 2, 70–71 (as [14 October 1855]).
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Date provided by Rossetti’s reference to “borrowing” Elizabeth Siddal’s sketch “Pippa Passes” on Monday. In a letter to Ford Madox Brown, dated [19 September 1855], a Wednesday, he also mentions having already “borrowed” the sketch (see SD1859).
2. Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (1829–62), daughter of Charles Siddall, a London ironmonger, and his wife Elizabeth Eleanor (née Evans). She came to the attention of the Pre-Raphaelites and began modelling for them. She posed for “Ophelia” (1851–52) by John Everett Millais but was soon posing only for Rossetti, whom she married in 1860. Miss Siddal dropped “the final ‘l’ in her surname … to please Rossetti” (ODNB).
3. This pen and ink drawing, “Pippa Passes” (1854) by Elizabeth Siddal, depicts the “Talk by the way” scene of “Poor Girls sitting on the steps of Monsignor’s brother’s house” between the third and fourth parts of Pippa Passes (1841). The drawing is now at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It is reproduced facing p. 305.
4. Evidently, RB made the visit. In a letter to William Allingham, Rossetti wrote: “In London, I showed Browning Miss Siddal’s drawing from Pippa Passes, with which he was delighted beyond measure, & wanted excessively to know her” (25 November 1855–8 January 1856, ms at Morgan).
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