Correspondence

4650.  John Forster to EBB & RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 278–282.

Your little note, my dear Mrs Browning, [1] was all the more welcome for being so unexpected—so undeserved, too, as far as the service went you so kindly overrate. For indeed that was undertaken, simply to gratify myself– Without the remotest thought of entitling myself, ever, to thanks from you. If indeed I could do what I always eagerly wish wherever you are in question—I should be well entitled even to the rich return your thanks bring with them. But, of all that one wishes to do in this world, we can really do so little!

—As to the Poems, you know the one cardinal point as to L.N. in which we should not agree politically: but you can hardly know as to how much, across the chasm of such a difference, I do agree, and with all my heart hold out my hand. The belief you have expressed in that nobly written preface is my belief: and there is not a praise you give to the Italians, not a hope you express for them, not a grief or a triumph you associate with them, in which, to the very depths of my nature, I do not sympathize. Nothing that you say in your note of the dire reality of the struggle is in that respect new or strange to me—and my brave little Pen and his Peasant friend talked to my ears the most natural familiar language. Therefore, need I say with what true admiration I read nearly all that you have written—and shall I say that for all the wit and flashing clear-cutting satin of the “Voce Augusta” [2] (and I verily delighted in that) the “Dance” & the “Court Lady” are yet my favorites. The first, with its face regulated to so stately yet sweet a measure—joyous and yet solemn too—with the sudden beauty of its stanzas 7, 10, & many others—in its way you have surely, even you, never surpassed. Nor should I very well succeed in saying to what a degree the “Court Lady” affected me. —But I must not indulge all this—in which, what can I say that the author of such writing as that can possibly (except for kindliness & friendship’s sake) care to hear? I care nevertheless to feel all this, and to value the friend from whom such sweet & strong utterances, such “fancies chaste and noble,” [3] come—and even by difference. As to the main general point of the Volume fifty thousand times greater & stronger than it is, rather should pen & hand fall pointless than be raised as some have lately been—to strike, rather than to admire and (as they fairly might) remonstrate. —But we know how little in the balance all this weighs. And I do not dream of giving greatest importance to any such attacks. They dry rapidly & rub out, and there’s an end of all except that which doesn’t end—which will survive even L.N. and your admiration of & belief in him! Good bye, my very dear Mrs Browning. My wife heartily returns your message of kindness & love. She wishes by very much to know you, even more intimately than she now does. We often talk of you both, & it is really a disappointment (so completely without due reason, I seem to have counted on your coming to England this year) to hear that you are not soon coming to us here. Love to the dear old Penini too, and all manly expressions, thereof. And now I know you will forgive my turning (on this same sheet) to RB and trying to make a poor & quite inadequate acknowledgement of a most delightful letter he has written. [4]

Your mo. affectionate,

John Forster.

17th April. Your letter did my heart good, my dear old friend—it was so full of the old true friendship—the fireside warmth of the heart, in which it is as little possible that a crowd should share, as that one’s own hearth should accom[m]odate them. First of Landor. You know ’ere this that I had already paid the quarter’s money through Coutts’s to Mr Philipson. [5] I will in future resume the first mode, through my own Bankers to Fenzi &c, at any rate until I receive further intimation from you. Most satisfactory is your report of Landor in all except myself. It seems wild and preposterous to assume that he really means to cut me & quarrel with me—indeed, if you knew all, you would think it horribly unnatural. The poor old man has been playing Lear in one direction all but too faithfully. And now, tired of the part, he hands it over to me. “It is as though”– Well, I need not sing that querulous song: you will take it for granted. I should however like to be quite certain that he received the letter I wrote him for his birthday. [6] It was directed to your care at the Casa Guidi Florence. You think there may be a doubt of its arrival—though on the other hand, from what before you appear to have heard him say, you accept without any doubt the suggestion that he means to have no more to say to me. Be it so, if it is to be—but if only for the wonder of it, for this extravagant, this pretentious injustice, I should like to be quite sure. They are not worth much purchase—the lives of any of us here; mine, it may be, little beyond his to speak of: but we will hope that eternity is a little longer– Of Politics I must not speak: if I rightly read what you say in your letter. But in everything we seem to be deeply of accord: and there is nothing for it now but to wait the end. Extraordinarily interfused throughout all thoughts, & feeling, & opinion in England just now is the distrust of L.N. That is certain. But the growing distrust as to that wonderful little man—Cavour—almost the only man of real genius now engaged in active statesmanship—pains & grieves me far more. Undoubtedly there has been double dealing & he has been a party to it. But I won’t say more. In connection with doubts as to letters reaching &c, however, I must not forget to say that I should much like to have direction from you as to whether I may safely risk, by book post, the books I have to send you—or if it will be safer now to reserve them for transmission to you when you shall return to Florence. I have another now to send via Chapman’s parcel tails—and I am glad to think it may possibly give you some little pleasure by reminding you of our old studies a quarter of a century ago!!! [7] And this brings me to by far the pleasantest announcement in your letter. I wish you had told me the subject of your Poem: [8] but this I shall hear in good time. I have been so indignant altogether at what I have seen in connection with “Poems before Congress” that I shall certainly try to say something myself about what you are writing when published—returning to the critical arena for these occasions only—stripping once more and entering the ring “by particular desire.” Are you quite sure that Chorley was responsible for all that? I know nothing myself—but, from all I can recollect to have ever heard him say, I should doubt the possibility of his doing any deliberate act of unkindness to Mrs Browning, and have thought him incapable of an act of injustice. But he has al[wa]ys seemed to me a man mer[e]ly to be pitied. So querulous—so unfortunate in manner, in appearance, even in voice—so unable to apply with any kind of success or acceptance even such real faculties as he possesses– So incapable even of his own unquestioned capacity—in short so manqué altogether. But thro’ & above all I do really believe him to be a well-meaning & not ill-disposed (however occasionally ill conditioned) man. —Of Macready what shall I say? He is married—his wife, [9] a lively little clever young-looking (she is 33 or 4, but looks half a dozen years younger) handy practical person: the sister of the governess [10] who has been several years in Macready’s family, and who has herself lived much abroad as a governess: one of a large family, whom the father’s death threw on their resources—the mother (a daughter of Sir Wm Beechey) [11] and some of the sisters now keeping a school near Bristol. The incident has been as great and as sudden a surprize to me as it could possibly have been even to you. Nor can I reconcile myself to it. It seems to carry poor old Elstree and Clarence Terrace [12] farther than ever away from me. But (though I know I cannot entirely get over my objections) I see infinite excuses for him: mainly in the uselessness of poor Katie [13] towards any supply of the want left by his sister’s death [14] in the mere matter of housekeeping with reasonable comfort. I must close now however, promising you further details in my next. Your good news of your sister & father greatly delighted me. My most kind regard to them. Dont wait next time to write me a long letter. Write me a short one—that I may by my reply too to supply the deficiencies in this. God bless you both.

Yours ever mo: affectionately

John Forster

Address: Italy Affranchie. / Robert Browning Esqre / Via del Tritone 28 / Rome.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Berg Collection.

1. This “note” has not surfaced. It evidently contained EBB’s thanks for Forster’s help in seeing Poems Before Congress through the press. His corrected page proofs of the poems and preface are at V&A.

2. i.e., “An August Voice”; it, “The Dance,” and “The Court Lady” are three of the eight poems in Poems Before Congress.

3. Cf. the title of a comic play, The Fancies, Chaste and Noble (1638), by John Ford (1586–ca. 1640).

4. This letter has not surfaced.

5. A “cheque for £50 on Philipson” was recorded by RB on 5 February 1860. See “Mr Landor’s Accounts” in vol. 26, p. 394. In letter 4609 Forster reported that he had paid the money to Coutts “at the opening of the year.”

6. In letter 4615, Landor writes: “Do not believe that Forster wrote to me on my birthday.”

7. See letter 4609, note 3.

8. See letter 4608, note 14.

9. Cecile Louise Frederica Spencer (1826–1908), daughter of Henry Spencer (1785–1852) and his wife, Ann Phyllis (née Beechey, 1794–1883). She married William Charles Macready on 3 April 1860 at Clifton.

10. Unidentified; one of the second Mrs. Macready’s five sisters. She left the family’s service in 1855 (see Macready’s Reminiscences, and Selections from His Diaries and Letters, ed. Frederick Pollock, New York, 1875, p. 679).

11. Sir William Beechey (1753–1839), portraitist, was made portrait painter to Queen Charlotte in 1793.

12. Macready resided in the village of Elstree, 12 miles N.W of London in Hertfordshire, from 1830 to 1840. He lived the next ten years in town at 5 Clarence Terrace, Regent’s Park, as noted in RB’s first address book (AB-2).

13. Catherine (“Kate”) Frances Birch Macready (1834–69), second daughter of William Charles Macready and his wife, Catherine Frances (née Atkins, 1806–52).

14. Letitia Margaret Macready (1794–1858).

___________________