4473. EBB & RB to Kate Field
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 261–262.
| [From RB, in Kate Field’s hand] | Siena. |
Aug 21. ’59.
Dear Miss Field,
Thank you heartily for your kind note. I enclose an affecting little poem*—Mr. Landor’s last—on his domestic misadventures. It seems perfect as far as it goes—but my wife fancied rhymes would have beseemed so short a composition—& I tried my hand accordingly. Between ourselves, I think my arrangement the happier of the two—for the Devil’s name is Legion in this business. Wife, daughter & sons emulating each other in all that entitles people to the horrible epithet—and, you will see, I take Mrs. L. by the horns.
Ever yours faithfully
Robert Browning
[Continued by EBB, in Kate Field’s hand]
My dear Miss Field,
I thank you for your excellent advice—& also the vision of your bright earnest face given in the sight of your handwriting. Do observe that the “amnesty” full & entire, spoken of in “La foi des traités,” is just given in France. [1] This is the second phase of the Empire, & to be followed by a larger measure of liberal concessions.
Which confirms & verifies the book. For the writer, Napoleon, walks under as well as on the earth. Now, in Italy, he is walking under; but walking,—surely,—& we may congratulate one another in hope again.
Then for lesser hopes—we shall meet on the dear terrace, all alive, I hope. And also I hope you will accompany Miss Blagden .. my dear Isa .. (I can’t leave a Miss Blagden so.), when she comes to pay us a visit– It will give us pleasure, dear Miss Field, if you do.
Yours affectionately ever
Elizabeth B. Browning.
Publication: Lilian Whiting, Kate Field: a Record (Boston, 1899), pp. 104–105.
Source: Copy in recipient’s hand, Boston Public Library.
Enclosure:
*Out of his Paradise an Angel drove
Adam, a Devil now drives me from mine.
WSL
An Angel from his Paradise drove Adam:
From mine, a Devil drives me: thank you, Madam!
RB.
1. The Paris correspondent for The Times filed a report dated 17 August that contained the following news: “Whether the amount of popularity enjoyed by Napoleon III. be large or small, it will certainly be increased by the important decree that appears in to-day’s Moniteur, granting a ‘full and entire amnesty to all individuals who have been condemned for political crimes and offences, or who have been the objects of measures of general safety’—who have suffered, that is to say, from the operation of the Loi des Suspects” (19 August 1859, p. 8). The correspondent went on to discuss “a larger measure of liberal concessions”: “It is reported that this amnesty will quickly be followed by another, relieving newspapers from sentences of suspension, from the effects of avertissements, &c., and including all persons whatever who have been condemned for offences of the press” (p. 8).
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