3990. RB to Elizabeth Clementine Kinney

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 59–60.

[Florence]

Friday Mg [24 April 1857] [1]

My dear Mrs Kinney

You are always most kind & good & had I been aware of Mr Kinney’s calling to-day, I would have seen him gladly. My wife will be grateful for your sympathy, and happy to say so whenever she is able, just now she suffers too acutely. This has been a sudden misfortune for which she was all but absolutely unprepared and even now it hardly seems to be more than a dream. [2] She is better, on the whole, than I should have supposed likely, and I have no fears for the result.

With renewed thanks to dear Mr Kinney & yourself

Believe me,

yours affectionately ever,

Robert Browning

Publication: Bosco, pp. 107–108 (as [7 December 1856]).

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. Dating based on RB’s reference to EBB’s acute suffering over her father’s death, news of which reached the Brownings on 23 April 1857 (see letter 3996).

2. EBB’s father, Edward Moulton-Barrett (1785–1857), died on 17 April. His death certificate lists the cause of death as “Erysipelas of Thigh 14 Days.” His final decline, according to Surtees Cook, was “accelerated by going to Epsom to vote for a member for the county. The fatigue and excitement were too much for him and—it brought on an attack of erysipelas—which weakened him so much that he gradually sunk. He was in the 72d year of his age” (see SD2064).

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