3818. Thomas Carlyle to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 8–9.

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea

16 july, 1856–

Dear Browning,

I have not known, till today that I called at Chapman’s, how to address a Note to you; much less, find the House personally, tho’ I ought to have remembered it. The result is, we go out of Town (for Scotland, two months) on Wednesday next; and I have never yet seen you. It looks as if the blame was mutual; but, in fairness, it is chiefly Browning’s! I have not made three calls hardly since you saw me last; I sit here chained to my galley-seat and oar (Brandenburg rubbish to the waist) [1] these many moons; nearly dead of toil and despair; [2] and feel almost ashamed to look in the face of my fellow creature; see nobody except those that come to see me! This is far truer than it looks; and very sad withal. Come down on Sunday Evg to tea: if Mrs Browning will come with you, it will be a double bounty: But unless you come, that or some other lucky night before the Tuesday when we shall be in the throes of packing,—you perceive how it will be!

That night will be the surest. Come, then or some time!–

Yours ever truly

T. Carlyle

Address: Robert Browning Esq / 39. Devonshire Place / Portland Place.

Publication: Carlyle, 31, 124.

Manuscript: University of California at Santa Cruz.

1. Carlyle was at work on The History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great (6 vols., 1858–65). Brandenburg, once an imperial electorate in the Holy Roman Empire, merged with Prussia in 1701 when Frederick the Great’s grandfather Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, was crowned Frederick I, King in Prussia. Nominally, Brandenburg remained in the empire until the latter's dissolution in 1806.

2. Carlyle found this project especially onerous. A year before, he expressed the fear that he would “be beaten miserably with this unwise enterprise in my old days” (Carlyle, 29, 309).

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