3796. RB to William Allingham
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 231–232.
Paris, Rue du Colisée 3.
June 10. ’56.
My dear Allingham,
Born, bred & bigotted hater of letter writing as I confess myself,—I feel compunction, I know, whenever, by such a note as this of yours, I am reminded what I lose occasionally by that infirmity. You wrote, for instance, a letter to us at Florence, [1] —don’t let me think how long ago,—which was far too good to be answered in any poor way—yet any poor way would have led to the procuring me, perhaps, another & another by this time. Don’t let me be punished unduly, however, by losing more than the letter,—that little place in your good will which having got undeservedly it is but characteristic that I should retain for a like reason. Well,—why are you going to London “for a month” & beginning your month in mid-May when we can’t see you or London before three-fourths-over June? Shall we really arrive & find you gone a week? I hope not sincerely.
We count on leaving in about a fortnight—& shall be at 39 Devonshire Place. [2]
Your kindness will be glad to hear that my wife is pretty well—after two horrible months at the outset of winter: all this fine weather does not quite rub out the mark of their teeth,—but a few weeks more, & we shall see. She is working so hard at the very end of her poem, that I won’t let her add a word to mine, tho’ we have delayed answering your note that she might do so. Her truest thanks & regard go with mine.
For my own things, you are a wonder of a man to say you will wait and grow acquainted with them: that they should give you the wish to do so is some praise, as I count it. I have heard a rare cackle whenever I looked Londonwards this winter, and shall probably miss something if, next time I lean over the rail of the literary pond, Goosey Fraser & Gander Blackwood [3] don’t give me their opinion of my outward-man. [4] Goodbye, dear Allingham,
Yours ever faithfully, RB.
Publication: Letters to William Allingham, ed. H. Allingham and E. Baumer Williams (London, 1911), pp. 97–98.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. Letter 3269, of 24 September 1853.
2. John Kenyon’s house.
3. Cf. the nursery rhyme, “Goosey Goosey Gander.” RB alludes to reviews of Men and Women (1855) in Fraser’s Magazine for January 1856 and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for February 1856. For the full text of these reviews, see pp. 337–334 and pp. 372–373.
4. Cf. II Corinthians 4:16.
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