3769. RB to Dante Gabriel Rossetti
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 192–193.
Paris, Rue du Colisée 3.
Apr. 22. ’56.
My dear Rossetti,
You take my breath away with your entire kindness– How well & kindly all has been done! All but the refusing to send your portrait, [1] about which we both of us here felt more than we said. I suppose Page’s picture would have been certified to you as “refused” if that mischance had befallen it? [2] The frame’s width might be a stumbling block. [3] I hear good news of him from Rome—his “Venus” having been bought by subscription for the Boston Athenæum—price £600, or 3000 dollars. [4]
The extract from Ruskin was strange and pleasant, [5] —I thank you altogether for sending it and so making it more pleasant and a little less strange. I value a word from him at its worth, I venture to believe,—I know at least how I should regard any Brown or Jones with a “passed muster, J. Ruskin”—stuck on the front of his cap: the praise, in itself, is quite above the mark, of course—but in this world judgments are made by overpayments here & underpayments there, from the same paymaster often, and the result is the only fair thing: while Ruskin pays me a great gold piece for a poor little matter, some Grimley, or whatever is the name, [6] is sure to be picking my pocket and putting a bad fourpenny “bit” into my hand. That is very sincere and gratifying work, that of the writer in the “Oxford & Cambridge” [7] —gold, in its ringing, too—oh, I’ve no cause to complain—for you seem to approve my gains this way! I could be ingenious, & wish you painted no such pictures as those I saw, that so I might &c disinterestedly &c &c—but the ingenuous way is to say from my heart “How glad I am that Rossetti who cares about me, painted what I saw!” We are all well & mindful of you always– God bless you,
RB.
Publication: DeLaura, p. 334 (in part).
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. The water-colour portrait of RB; see letter 3641, note 1.
2. In letter 3765 Rossetti may have written that the portrait had not been “refused.” He tells William Allingham in a 25 April letter that RB’s “portrait by Page is accepted at R.A.” (see SD1924); but in a letter of 12 May Rossetti writes Ellen Heaton that the Royal Academy did not hang “Mr. Browning’s portrait, though they reported it as accepted” (see SD1927).
3. The frame moulding measures about 7¼ in. wide and nearly doubles the width of the portrait, whose dimensions are 20 in. by 16 in. The painting is still in its original frame at ABL.
5. From Modern Painters, Vol. IV (1856); see letter 3721, note 5.
6. George Brimley, author of the review of Men and Women in Fraser’s Magazine; see letter 3716, note 5.
7. William Morris (1834–96), as identified in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals. His review of Men and Women appeared in the March 1856 issue of The Oxford & Cambridge Magazine (pp. 162–172), a literary monthly founded and financed by him; it lasted one year, from January to December 1856. In his concluding remarks on RB, Morris writes: “It is a bitter thing to me to see the way in which he has been received by almost everybody. … As to that which they call obscurity, it results from depth of thought, and greatness of subject, on the poet’s part, and on his readers’ part, from their shallower brains and more bounded knowledge; nay, often I fear from mere wanton ignorance and idleness.” For the full text of this review, see pp. 380–386.
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