3900. RB to James Thomas Fields
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 105–106.
London, Devonshire Place, 39.
Oct 20. ’56.
My dear Mr Fields,
This is indeed vexatious,—this loss of the photograph, since you care to have such a thing. I sate, as I told you, to Mayer & Pearson, [1] notable operatives in this way; and, myself, deposited the same with the people at M. Bossange’s [2] —explaining the use you intended it for: they engaged that you should receive it by their next parcel, for which (they said) I was just in time. I directed it myself, marked très-fragile [3] on the outside wrappage, in short did all that should have been done—and the result is that you hear no more of the matter! I left the packet about the 16 or 17 June—I think on the former day. What can I do? We leave England to-morrow, or next day at latest—stay a single day at Paris,—stop, perhaps, at Florence. Can I do anything, sit again &c. &c[.]
A young artist of great promise has just executed a particularly good profile of the face you are kind enough to want,—a medallion– [4] Mr Hurlbert [5] has a copy: the work has however been sensibly improved since his departure by a little scraping at the end of the nose—which was of the longest, it was thought: I daresay it would engrave capitally—a similar portrait of Tennyson, by the same sculptor, will precede the illustrated edition Moxon is shortly to bring out. [6] I shall be away, but Mr Woolner’s address is Tudor Lodge, Albert Street, Studio 3. Mornington Crescent.
I have got on with “Sordello” [7] and hope to make a prosperous end of it this next winter. How are you? I fear not recovered from your accident, [8] or you would dispense with an amanuensis. With best respects to Mrs Fields, in which, as in kind regards to you, my wife cordially joins with me,
Believe me, Dear Mr Fields,
Yours faithfully ever
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Syracuse.
1. Sic, for Pierson; see letter 3803, note 1.
3. “Very fragile.”
5. Presumably, William Henry Hurlbert (né Hurlbut, 1827–95), an American journalist. See letter 3317, note 6.
6. Often referred to as the “Moxon Tennyson,” Poems (1857) is illustrated with woodcuts by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt, as well as other artists. The frontispiece was an engraving by H. Robinson of Thomas Woolner’s medallion of Tennyson (1856).
7. RB’s revision thereof; see letter 3618.
8. We have been unable to determine the nature of this “accident.”
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