Correspondence

3660.  EBB & RB to Alfred & Emily Tennyson

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 312–313.

[16] October 1855 [1]

My dear Mrs Tennyson,

If I had not received your kindest of letters I had yet made up my mind not to leave England without writing to you to thank you (surely it would have been your due) for the deep pleasure we had in Mr Tennyson’s visit to us. He didn’t come back as he said he would to teach me the “Brook” (which I persist nevertheless in fancying I understand a little), but he did so much and left such a voice (both him “and a voice!”) [2] crying out “Maud” to us, and helping the effect of the poem by the personality, that it’s an increase of joy and life to us ever. Then may we not venture to think now of Alfred Tennyson our friend? and was it not worth while coming from Italy to England for so much? Let me say too another thing, that though I was hindered (through having women friends [3] with me, whom I loved and yet could not help wishing a little further just then) from sitting in the smoke and hearing the talk of the next room, yet I heard some sentences which, in this materialistic low-talking world, it was comfort and triumph to hear from the lips of such a man. So I thank you both, and my husband’s thanks go with mine.

As to a visit to you, how pleasant that you should ask us! This year we could not have gone, next year perhaps we shall not be able any more <…> but every year of our lives it will be pleasant to think that you have wished it. Dear Mrs Tennyson, you do not mind the foolish remarks on “Maud” <…> do you? These things are but signs of an advance made, of the tide rising. People on the shore are troubled in their picking up of shells a little. [4]

Kiss your children [5] for me: I hope my child may play with them before long. My husband’s “Men and Women” shall go to Mr Tennyson on the publication, [6] not to trouble him (understand) with exaction of a letter or opinion, but simply as a sign of personal regard and respect.

Dear Mrs Tennyson and dear Mr Tennyson, believe us both very affectionately yours, though I have but the name of

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

[Continued by RB]

P.S. (We leave England to-morrow.) God bless you, dear and admirable friends. My wife feels what she says, and I feel with her.

Affectionately yours,

Robert Browning.

Text: Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son (New York and London, 1897), I, 390–391.

1. Dated by RB’s mention of leaving “England to-morrow.”

2. Tennyson, The Princess (1847), I, 76.

3. Unidentified. In reporting on both evenings he was present with Tennyson at the Brownings’ apartment, D.G. Rossetti wrote to William Allingham that EBB “gave all her attention to some certainly not very exciting ladies in the next room” (25 November 1855–8 January 1856, ms at Morgan).

4. Perhaps an allusion to Maud, XXIII, stanzas 1–4, which RB had quoted from earlier; see the second paragraph in letter 3639.

5. The Tennysons had two children, both sons: Hallam (1852–1928) and Lionel (1854–86).

6. RB’s presentation copy of Men and Women to Tennyson is now at the Tennyson Centre. Tennyson’s name is on RB’s list of friends and relatives who were to receive copies of Men and Women; see letter 3673.

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