4086. John Ruskin to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 200–201.
[London]
25th October [1857] [1]
Dear Mrs Browning
I write in near desperation—having been all the summer wondering when I should be in such a good and happy state of mind as to be worthy to write to you or to Robert. —I have been very bad and sulky all the summer and have never written and I regret it the more because I fear you may have never got a letter of mine [2] written partly in thanks for yours and Robert[’]s—received before Mrs Stowe came over, [3] partly to express some little odd ways and occurrences of admiration of your poems (Aurora chiefly) such as I did not expect myself & which might therefore have interested you.
But all I can say now is—don’t go to Egypt without telling me where to write to you there—& how you, both, have been, and are. (Conjunctional of persons, not of tenses.)
I am very well—but not quite right—for want of the Alps this summer—& am in the ruts of the road for a little bit—not on the downs or racecourse.
—But always gratefully and affectionately Yours
J Ruskin
Sincere regards to Miss Heaton if with or near you. [4] I have all her letters and hope to have much delight from the drawings she has left for me to take charge of[.] [5]
Address, on cover sheet: Affranchie / Mrs Browning / Casa Guidi / Florence / Italy.
Publication: DeLaura, 337–338.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Not extant. EBB mentions it in letter 3980 and includes an extract from it in letter 3983. The letter from the Brownings is also not extant.
3. After Harriet Beecher Stowe’s visit to Italy in the winter and spring of 1857, she returned to America via London and called on John Ruskin at Denmark Hill (see Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, ed. Annie Fields, Boston, 1897, p. 235).
4. Although we have been unable to confirm it, Ellen Heaton was evidently in Florence around this time, as indicated by this letter and by EBB’s remark in the third paragraph of letter 4093: “Miss Heaton has been dragged on to Rome.” She had travelled to Italy in the autumn of 1857, accompanied by an aunt and uncle, and returned to England the following summer (see Sublime & Instructive: Letters from John Ruskin, ed. Virginia Surtees, 1972, pp. 216n and 218n).
5. Probably those of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was the focal point of Ellen Heaton’s Pre-Raphaelite patronage.
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