Correspondence

4708.  RB to Kate Field

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 73–74.

Siena, Villa Alberti,

July 16. [1860] [1]

Dear Miss Field,

I have only a minute to say that Mr Landor wrote these really pretty lines in your honour the other day, [2] —you remember on what circumstance they turn: I know somebody who is ready to versify to double the extent at the same cost to you, and do his best too.* and you also know

yours affectionately ever

R Browning.

<*That he will! EBB.> [3]

Kindest regards from Ba as well as myself to Mrs. Field [4] —the servant waits for this & stops all expansion of soul!

Publication: Lilian Whiting, Kate Field: a Record (Boston, 1899), p. 110.

Manuscript: Boston Public Library.

1. Year based on the return address; 1860 was the only year the Brownings resided at the Villa Alberti on 16 July.

2. “To K. F.,” first published in Part I of Kate Field’s reminiscence, “Last Days of Walter Savage Landor,” The Atlantic Monthly, April 1866, p. 387.

3. The asterisk in the text and this phrase have been added by EBB.

4. Eliza Lapsley Field (née Riddle, 1812?–1871), daughter of William Riddle and his wife, Mary (née Lapsley). Born in Philadelphia, she began acting at the age of sixteen. In 1837 she married Joseph Matthew Field (1810–56), Irish-born playwright, theatrical manager, and actor.

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