4127. EBB to Theodosia Trollope
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 30.
Casa Guidi,
Wednesday. [ca. February 1858] [1]
My dear Mrs. Trollope, [2]
I return The Three Clerks with our true thanks and appreciation. [3] We both quite agree with you in considering it the best of the three clever novels before the public. [4] My husband, who can seldom get a novel to hold him, has been held by all three, and by this the strongest. Also it has qualities which the others gave no sign of. For instance, I was wrung to tears by the third volume. What a thoroughly man’s book it is! I much admire it, only wishing away, with a vehemence which proves the veracity of my general admiration, the contributions to the Daily Delight [5] —may I dare to say it?
I do hope you are better. For myself, I have not suffered more than was absolutely necessary in the late unusual weather.
I heard with concern that Mrs. Trollope [6] has been less well than usual. But who can wonder, with such cold?
Most truly yours,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Text: Thomas Adolphus Trollope, What I Remember (London, 1887), II, 188–189.
1. Approximate dating suggested by EBB’s reference to The Three Clerks (see note 3 below).
2. Theodosia Trollope (née Garrow, 1816–65).
3. The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope (1815–82) was published in November 1857.
4. One of the other two may have been William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Virginians, issued in monthly numbers from November 1857 to October 1859, which the Brownings were reading; see letter 4134.
5. A half-penny paper in The Three Clerks.
6. Frances Trollope (née Milton, 1779–1863).
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