3912. EBB & RB to William Johnson Fox
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 115-116.
| [In RB’s hand] | [London] |
[22 October 1856] [1]
Dear Mr Fox,
You stopped our mouths (literally) with great ripe peaches a long while ago—and have got the effects of it—we never even thanked you! But we did mean better things, indeed & indeed! My wife would not let me go by myself—then came the cold weather between her & her grateful intentions—and the last of all is a chaos of worry & work out of which if we get, to-morrow we shall leave for Paris—& thence to Rome as earliest we may. Will you believe the plain truth,—that it has rejoiced me more than I can say to re-knit the old bonds to you I was ever so proud to wear. And my wife is rejoiced to know you on other accounts besides mine. You must take both our loves in a very warm and hasty way,—giving Miss Fox [2] the like—and count us ever for
yours most affectionately
and gratefully
Robert Browning.
[Continued by EBB]
Dear Mr. Fox, I hate leaving England without going to see you– You have been very kind, and even if you had not, I should have had reasons of my own for wishing to hear you talk.
The weather has taken me in chains. I have been so unwell as to be a prisoner to the house, and now I am giving ransom for more liberty, by going to the south.
Good-bye– Give my warm regards to Miss Fox, and set me down as a true part of my husband in being gratefully yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Publication: Richard Garnett and Edward Garnett, The Life of W.J. Fox (London, 1910), p. 314.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to leaving London tomorrow.
2. Eliza Florance Fox (afterwards Bridell, later Bridell-Fox, 1823–1903).
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