Correspondence

3929.  EBB to Aubrey Thomas de Vere

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 140–141.

[Florence]

[late November 1856] [1]

<***> I was much interested by the hours you gave me on that last evening of yours in Florence, and grateful too, and not “tired.” The sense of the spiritual, the exercise of the soul’s instinct, the attitude of the life towards the Truth and the Love, are always interesting to me. I am never tired of sunrises. That I believe you to be mistaken in much, is obvious; but you think worse of the act of mistaking than I do—which is obvious too—and so it is true (though a paradox) that I differ less from you than you differ from me. In spite of which, you were very patient, and at the same time loyal with me, for which I thank you entirely. <***>

Text: Wilfrid Ward, Aubrey de Vere: A Memoir (London, 1904), p. 216 (as from RB).

1. Date suggested by EBB’s reference to de Vere’s visit “on that last evening … in Florence.” She mentioned this visit in the second paragraph of letter 3925.

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