3821. Robert Bulwer Lytton to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 11–12.
Hague
Dimanche [Postmark: 20 July 1856]
A hundred thanks my dearest Browning for the information you sent me in your last, & for wh I shd. have sooner thankt you but that I have been constantly occupied since the recpt of yr letter.
I have tried the Address & wait to see with what fortune.
I was afraid you would have left Paris before my letter cd reach you—and was in a great fright lest I should thus have lost the opportunity of getting, thro’ yr good offices, the 2d vol of Men & Women out of Leighton’s hands. [1]
I am most grateful to you for not having forgotten it! When you have a leisure moment just put it into a cover, address it to me thus,
RBL
& &
Care of
Thomas Stavely Esq [2]
Foreign office
To be forwarded
by Extra Messenger
Bridge [3]
(this in the corner)
and send it to the F.O. I shall be much indebted to you for that good office.
I can write at no length just now—not, indeed, having three minutes’ time at my disposal, but reserve much gossip & many questions for a future occasion. Meanwhile how glad I shd be if Mrs Browning would write me a line of news abt herself, yourself, Penini, Poetry, Spirits, any thing–
Have you seen anything of my Father? I told him you were in town, but forgot to give him your address– I’ll send it him in my next. I envy you many things in London and especially the society of some few men whom I do know, & some few more whom I dont.
God bless you, & keep you ever well, happy, & the true great man that you are.
Oh, how I hope you’ll like this poem of mine when you see it! [4]
Affectionately
Yours always.
R B L–
Lady John Russell [5] is here– Ld John not yet arrived but coming– Vive Vale et Sis memor mei! [6]
I [7] think V. Hugo’s Two Volumes [8] full of good things. What think you?
He wd be a finer poet tho’ if he were a Xian. I’m sick of all this pretentious pantheism!
Address: Affranchie / Robert Browning Esq / 39 Devonshire Place. / Regent’s Park. / London.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 124–125.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Probably, Leighton’s proof copy of volume two; see letter 3648, note 4.
2. Thomas Staveley (1792–1862), senior clerk in the Foreign Office and superintendent of the consular business (see The Foreign Office List, 1857, p. 77).
3. Joseph James Bridge (d. 1873) was extra messenger between the Hague and London from 1851 to 1858 (see The Foreign Office List, 1872, p. 65).
4. “The Abbess,” a long poem Lytton later abandoned (see letter 3799, note 7).
5. Lady Frances Anna Maria (1815–98), second daughter of the 2nd Earl of Minto and his wife, Mary (née Brydone), married on 20 July 1841 Lord John Russell (1792–1878). She was his second wife; the first, Adelaide (née Lister), died in 1838.
6. “Live long, farewell, and be mindful of me!” (cf. Horace, Epistles, I, vi, 67, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough). In this and subsequent quotations from, or references to, Greek and Latin classical authors, citations are from the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise indicated.
7. Underscored three times.
8. Les Contemplations (1856).
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