3872. RB to John Ruskin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 71–72.
39. Devonshire Place
Oct. 3. ’56.
My dear Ruskin,
We returned here two days ago—late into the night—but I looked for and found, the first thing, the book you had promised me three weeks before. [1] What kindness of you! for you know the worth of what you write, if that were all to thank you for—whereas there is the gift, and the goodness of the manner. We shall take & keep all of it gratefully and lovingly: The first reading will be, in a little time, at Florence or Rome. For the quotation to which you allude—that I was aware of, thro’ Rossetti, months ago. [2] I think I can afford to say that it is pleasant indeed to see my name among your names,—with a distinguishable peak in your hill-country of poets: [3] and as every such bit of peak may possibly have some peculiar Flora of its own (since even the boiling mud-baths at Abano sprout a certain little miracle of a flowret not obtainable elsewhere). [4] You will perhaps get a weed or so off me if you break your back long enough by bending to look. So enough of that. Whatever you do look at and pronounce upon, I shall continue to inform myself about earnestly, I know.
We stay here for perhaps a fortnight longer: how it vexed us to hear yesterday from Miss Heaton that you were not only arrived but had been, in the course of the morning, at the very back of this house,—Mr Richmond’s, [5] to-wit. How should I venture to ask you to give us an evening here? Yet it would not be unlike you to do so. My wife is tired, tried sore with the last throes of the printing her poem, and forced moreover to keep a remainder of strength for all the travelling to follow. We should be glad indeed to see you once before we set out.
In any case,—truest thanks again from us both; how is your health now– What has Switzerland done for you? Will you write a word and say, at least?
Ever yours affectionately
Robert Browning–
Publication: DeLaura, p. 336.
Manuscript: Yale University.
2. By way of letter 3721. The “quotation” refers to the lengthy extract from RB’s “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church” that appeared in Modern Painters, vol. IV (1856), and that Ruskin commends for its knowledge of the Renaissance (see letter 3721, note 5).
3. In Chapter XX (“The Mountain Glory”), where RB’s poem is discussed, Ruskin writes of the influence of landscape on Shakespeare and Dante.
4. In Wild Flowers (2 vols., 1852–53), Anne Pratt discusses the common and unarmed hornworts native to England, the former producing “green flowers … very small, and situated close to the stem. … A species of Hornwort very similar to these is described as growing in the mineral thermal springs of Albano, where the temperature of the water is 95° of Fahrenheit” (II, 176).
5. Thomas Richmond (1802–74), portrait painter and son of the miniature painter Thomas Richmond (1771–1837). The younger Richmond resided at 16 Beaumont Street, the first street west of Devonshire Place. He and his brother, George Richmond (1809–96), met Ruskin in Rome in 1840.
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