3820. RB to Thomas Carlyle
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 10–11.
39 Devonshire Place
[17 July 1856] [1]
My dear Mr Carlyle,
Both of us will come, if possible,—certainly I will—next Sunday early. I wish you could know exactly how I feel about going over to you; though you & Mrs Carlyle more than gave me leave to do so, I know very well. (You frightened me with the terrible pleasure of a letter of yours, at Paris some time ago[.]) [2] But I won’t think about anything beyond the joy I shall have, or we shall have, at seeing you again.
Ever yours, affectionately,—
may I dare say for its truth’s sake—
Robert Browning.
I get tired & stupid in the day-time, or, reserving myself, have to go out elsewhere in the evening,—for one excuse. My wife is less strong, than usual,—for another, of her’s.
Publication: Charles Richard Sanders, “Some Lost and Unpublished Carlyle-Browning Correspondence,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 62 (April 1963), 332 (in part).
Manuscript: National Library of Scotland.
1. Date provided by RB’s promise to visit Carlyle on Sunday, which responds to the latter’s invitation in letter 3818.
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