3897. John Ruskin to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 100–101.
[London]
Saturday [18 October 1856] [1]
Dear Mrs Browning
I intended to have come into town to day, to seek for a book for Penini—but I am hindered; and whether I shall get what I want—or anything at all nice for Penini to have, at our bookseller’s out here—I don’t know– If nothing comes with this note, or if something very absurd—which is more likely, you must lay it to the account of our precious gentilities here at Camberwell—which have done away with Camberwell Fair [2] —and are trying to “obviate the Necessity” of Punch—and which have Robinson Crusoe put into polite English—and all the fairy books ordered to treat only of fairies who dance the Polka—and Princes who go to the Opera– Even Andersen himself is not free from the taint of it—(Of Camberwellishness as characteristic of Europe in general I mean.) [3]
If therefore nothing comes, don’t tell Penini I meant to send him something & did’nt—but send me—if you can by bearer—and if not—at your convenience—your Florence address, & I will find something soon—& send it him there. [4]
Meantime—I always meant to say to you, and was always nervous about it—that you must I know—sometimes wonder at my not having quoted things from your husband[’]s work, or yours, which say much that I am trying to say, a thousand times better than I have said it:– But the simple fact was that I had’nt strength & time to get half the things put down that I wanted—and I had always put off to the last a reference to my marked books of poetry, to put in the bits of jewellery in notes .. and I broke down before I could do this. But I mean to write a supplement—noting the points which seem to me most to want strengthening—and strengthen them by giving the passages in which you good & wise & Creating people have felt the same—and said it better—and created out of it what I could not. Such as that for instance about the arches—“like a giant[’]s bow,[”] [5] &c in vision of poets—which I wanted for summing up all I could say about the arch—& so thousands of other such passages[.]
And now good health & peace to you all three—& my best love—and all honour–
Ever yours,
J Ruskin.
Publication: BN, 8 (Spring 1972), 47–49 (as 1855).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dated by Ruskin’s implication that the Brownings are leaving soon for Florence. The last Saturday before they left was 18 October 1856.
2. An annual fair held on Camberwell Green in August. For many years the local inhabitants had complained about the fair, and periodically they would try to have it discontinued. “But it nevertheless survived, and was allowed to bring annual annoyance to the district till August 1855, in which month the Green was encumbered for the last time with these disreputable gatherings. In that year the manorial rights in the Green were purchased by a subscription raised among the principal inhabitants of the district, and the place was transformed into a park” (Edward Walford, Old and New London, Vol. 6, 1873, p. 278).
3. Because the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen included brutality, violence, and sadness, some considered them inappropriate for Victorian children. Thus, several expurgated versions appeared in English as stories more earnest, moralistic, and didactic than the originals. The first of these versions, published in 1846 as Wonderful Stories for Children, was translated by Mary Howitt. Other such versions followed, and, like Camberwell Fair, Andersen’s tales were cleaned up and made innocuous.
4. Ruskin decided on a recent edition of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1854). A copy inscribed by him “To Penini … October, 1856” sold as lot 1060 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A2033).
5. Cf. EBB, “A Vision of Poets” (1844), lines 244-246: “The arches, like a giant’s bow, / to bend and slacken,—and below, / The niched saints to come and go.”
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