3747. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 149–150.
Plymouth Grove
March 8th [1856] [1]
My dear Mrs Browning,
The bearer of this note is a Mr Darbishire [2] a great friend of ours, who is stopping for a few days in Paris on his way to Italy, where he will reside for a few months. I have told him that I think it probable that you & Mr Browning, from your long residence in Italy, may be able to give him a little advice as to his proceedings there; and I should also be very much obliged to you if you would give him a few letters of introduction, which may procure him admission into the atéliers of artists. It is so very awkward to make a young man the bearer of his own praises that I shall only add that I do not think that any one who makes our friend’s acquaintance will have cause to regret it—and that I only wish Mr Story had been at Rome, as I think that he and Mr Darbishire would have found pleasure in each other’s Society.
Believe me to remain, dear Mrs Browning,
Yours most truly
E. C. Gaskell
I have written (a week ago) to Mrs Jameson to ask for letters of introduction for Mr Darbishire, but I suppose she is not at Ealing, as I have had no reply. [3]
Publication: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, ed. J.A.V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard (Manchester, 1966), pp. 384–385.
Manuscript: Library of Congress.
1. The only other year the Brownings were in Paris in the month of March was in 1852, before there had been any communication between EBB and Mrs. Gaskell.
2. One of six sons of Samuel Dukinfield Darbishire (1796–1870), a Manchester solicitor, of Pendyffryn Hall, Conwy, Wales, and his wife, Mary (née Blackmore). The two most likely candidates for the “young man” being introduced are William Arthur (1829–1916) and Vernon (1832–78).
3. Anna Jameson had recently been staying in London; see the first paragraph in letter 3752.
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