4516. RB to Sophia Landor
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 29–30.
Florence, Casa Guidi, Via Maggio.
Nov. 2. ’59.
My dear Miss Landor,
I have indeed been stupid to take the model-draft for the will itself, and give you so much trouble in consequence: you must attribute it mainly to my being aware that many important simplifications have taken place in will-making since I resided in England, and ignorant of their precise extent: & then, I was misled by the pencil-indications in the blank spaces. However it is at last set right now (at last—thro’ the difficulty of finding another Witness, the former one having left Florence.) [1] Your Uncle’s Holograph exactly corresponds in outward fashion with the Duplicate you receive. I hope if there should have crept in any error after all, or if any fresh suggestion should present itself to you,—there will be no hesitation on your part in apprising me now or at any future period—for, I do assure you, your Uncle’s readiness to go thro’ the business again was exemplary—and you cannot imagine any trouble in such a proceeding to myself. And to show you that on any point in which I might be seriously troubled, I would promptly and frankly speak out—let me beg you to listen indulgently to a few words and then dismiss the matter from your mind, as I will from mine. I conjecture by an expression in your letter that Mr Landor has, after all, mentioned a fancy of his which I hoped finally disposed of by the arrangements in the will. Before we left Florence he had wished, in the impulsive way you know, to give me, as a very unnecessary token of his kind feeling, the two or three pictures he still has a power over: I need not tell you, that I did my best to explain to him the impossibility of my accepting them: and whenever he has since recurred to the subject I have repeated that explanation—taking care to leave him in no doubt as to my appreciation of his generosity. When we began upon the provisions of the will, he said “But the pictures are yours”—and I then set, as I believed, the matter at rest. Yet, as he has since written to you about the “final disposal of his property,” and as I know he has nobody whatever to whom, rather than yourself and sister, he would bequeath his effects (for I ascertained that, before putting in your names) I cannot help, as I say, suspecting that he has ended by desiring you to give effect to his wish in my behalf. It would be useless to speak to him further—but I rely on your goodness and regard to my own sense of propriety to consider any such bestowal of his pictures as simply impossible. My whole relation with your Uncle would be absolutely spoiled on any other understanding. I will not add a word more—referring what I have unwillingly, tho’ of necessity, written—to your sympathy and intelligence—except to beg you will not even reply to what,—as a request to your goodness,—you have given me a right to consider granted,—and for the granting which, I thank you heartily.
Mr Landor will go into his new rooms at the end of the week when our preparations shall have been completed. He is very well & in good spirits. You must explain to the Trustees that if he has again applied for money it is entirely thro’ his ignorance of the arrangements with me—at least, of their exact nature—he professes, at times, a goodnatured anxiety on my account that I should be re-imbursed for his expences in advance (Hibernicè) [2] —and it is difficult not to quiet him by informing him that I am actually so. But I am more and more convinced that it will never do to make him quite aware of his latitude in ways and means. He is bent,—for instance,—on handing over the first clear surplus money he possesses, to Garibaldi for his purchase of muskets: and meanwhile is subject to temptation from sundry old pictures of problematic value as signboards. He continues, I observe, in the most complete misconception as to his property in England, and power over it—sometimes saying that he has not a farthing and,—a few minutes’ after,—adding that he expects a clear income of so much. Fortunately, however, his thoughts never turn in this direction voluntarily, and his cheerfulness never seems affected in any degree by his adopting the one or the other hypothesis. I shall quiet his mind about my own liability, and he will probably cease to concern himself further with money-matters.
I only leave myself room to thank you for your expressions of kindness to my wife: she reciprocates them, as does, very sincerely,
Yours, faithfully ever,
Robert Browning.
The “accounts” in my next letter: they would take up too much room in this.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Edward Burne-Jones, one of the witnesses, had returned to England.
2. “In the Irish fashion”; that is to say, paradoxically or seemingly illogically.
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