4467. RB to John Forster
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 250–251.
Siena
13 August 1859
<***> I agree absolutely with you in your appreciation of the character of Landor and its necessities now and for the future in this untoward position,—so absolutely that I shall not go into minute justification of any opinion I may give you about what is to be done, but take for almost granted that you will understand it: subject to questioning from you, should that not be the case. Your plan is the only proper one for obtaining the end we aim at. Mr. Landor is wholly unfit to be anything but the recipient of the necessary money’s worth, rather than the money itself. Fortunately, he professes to have the same conviction, and prefers such an arrangement to any other. He requires a perpetual guardian in the shape of a servant; one to be ever at hand to explain away the irritations and hallucinations as they arise. They come and go, and leave no trace, treated so; otherwise the effect is disastrous.... I propose to take an apartment as near my own residence in Florence as can be found, and establish him there as comfortably and as economically as possible. I will endeavour to induce my wife’s old servant Wilson, who married Ferdinando (Romagnoli) still in our service, to devote herself to the care of our friend. I may say, after our fourteen years’ experience of her probity, truthfulness, gentleness, and assiduity, that he can be placed in no better hands; and were he bestowed on a person one whit less trustworthy, I should expect some melancholy result the next day. I can depend on Wilson’s acting for me in all respects, and not simply complying with his fancies or profiting by his mistaken generosities. I will receive the two hundred pounds in quarterly payments, as you propose; and will transmit to you, at the end of every quarter, a detailed account of Landor’s expenses [1] duly examined and certified by Kirkup. [2] <***>
Text: John Forster, Walter Savage Landor, a Biography (London, 1869), II, 563–564.
1. See Appendix IV.
2. Forster adds the following comment: “This last condition was the only one to which I refused assent; and Landor’s niece, to whom it was then proposed to transmit such account, also as strongly objected. I believe that Mr. Browning did nevertheless, against renewed protest, continue to render it to the close” (Walter Savage Landor, p. 564).
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