3839. Leigh Hunt to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 32–33.
Hammersmith
August 19th [1856] [1]
Dear Robert Browning,
On Friday evening I wrote you a letter, asking permission to change my promised Monday for Tuesday, in consequence of an implied engagement to be at home, which I had forgotten. The half-past two o’clock post here having come in to-day, and no answer yet arriving, I fear that my letter must have been so worded as not to seem to require an answer, or else, that it has never reached you. In the latter case, I know not what you must have thought of my non-appearance last evening: in the former, till the present letter come to hand, I am destined to run a like risque of supposed unaccountableness; for meantime, unfortunately, my determination to take my chance this evening of finding you at home has been arrested by the sudden change in the weather, which when it is of the present kind, always makes one too unwell, for a time, to be from home after dark. I ought to have told you of this liability, when making my promise; but what with the fine weather at the moment, and my great wish to enjoy your companies, I did not think of it till too late. It will also be as well, before I make myself amends by giving my hopes another chance, to get my two books off to America, [2] which do not tend to keep me at my best while thus trembling on their departure, and this, I fear, I cannot reckon upon doing till towards the end of next week.
To make all therefore as sure as I can, will you allow me,—you and Mrs Browning,—to fix, for my second venture, the Tuesday evening of the week after next,—September the second? It has a very grand look,—naming so long a time,—mighty self-important-making; but you see it arises from any thing but grand causes;—liver-complaints, to wit, and “skiey influences.” [3] To me however it is a great thing to look to; and I wish to talk to you both of some very grand things.
How many grand things have you been talking to me in the meantime! for I have read all the five volumes you brought me, [4] from beginning to end, marking them throughout, though not making notes, for I was both too unwell and too busy (or ought to have been) to do that. But three brief observations I must make at once:—First, that I have been in constant admiration of the riches of the mind and heart that produced them; Second, that I take shame to myself for not having become as intimate with them before; and Third, that I must contest your right to allow yourself to become obscure, even with excess of thinking, to readers so willing to study you as I am when it is manifest you can be as clear as crystal when you please.– Dear Robert Browning, I am your admiring and affectionate friend,
Leigh Hunt.
P.S. I hope you received my first letter, because it contained grateful thanks for the inscriptions in the books.
P.P.S. This letter, begun at three, has been delayed concluding alas! till past five, by little interruptions; and I write very slowly.
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / 39 Devonshire Place, / Portland Place.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Iowa.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt (2 vols., Boston, 1857), published by Ticknor and Fields.
3. Cf. Measure for Measure, III, 1, 9. In this and subsequent quotations from Shakespeare’s works, the line numbers correspond to those in The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston, 1974).
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