3913. RB to Sarah Jane Cust
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 116–117.
[London]
[22 October 1856] [1]
My dear Mrs Cust,
I can’t leave England (as we shall do to-morrow) without a word about the vexation I felt, and my wife too, that I should have missed you, or the little more that we might have gained, in those three or four days of your stay in Town: on that unlucky Friday when I had hoped to call, I found, in the middle of the day, that we must, absolutely must get off a great packet of printed things for America: I & Ba sate ourselves half dead over it all till 7. oclock—when they were called for. Next day, I had stupid engagements,—and never guessed that on that same next day, you were to go away—as I found the next day to that, when I called. You know it was a great loss and vexation.
We go to Paris to-morrow—get on rapidly to Marseilles, and then cross to Leghorn or give ourselves the leisure and luxury of the Cornice, as circumstances may prescribe. We shall stay at Florence for a month—perhaps longer. It would be a delight to hear from you,—as you know—I keep repeating!
I hoped to get the “Dante” [2] for you which you liked—(and which was not mine to give away of course) this little one is not what I wanted but may serve to look at meanwhile: always use me for friends of yours, or as you can. Ba’s kindest love goes with the true regard of
Yours faithfully ever
R Browning.
My best remembrances to Capt Cust.
Ld Kilmorey [3] was very kind the morning I called, and showed me amazing knickknackeries of every sort.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to leaving England the next day.
2. Possibly a reference to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s watercolour “Dante’s Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice,” commissioned by Ellen Heaton and completed in the spring of 1856. In a letter to Miss Heaton of 7 October 1856, John Ruskin wrote: “I shall rejoice to have the Dante … for a little while after Mrs Browning leaves town” (see SD1973). Virginia Surtees identifies this “Dante” as “Dante’s Dream” (Sublime & Instructive: Letters from John Ruskin, 1972, p. 189n). SD1980 also indicates that the Brownings had been lent a Rossetti drawing.
3. Francis Jack Needham (1787–1880), 2nd Earl of Kilmorey. He is listed at 7 Grosvenor Place in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3).
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