Correspondence

4849.  RB to William Wetmore Story & Emelyn Story

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 17–18.

[Rome]

[14 March 1861] [1]

Dear Friends,

Here is the “Nazione” & two other papers with it. The Photographs are too precious to send. [2] Do you go to the Cholmeleys to-night? Pen & a pretty American Lady play Amor & Psyche. [3] But for having to take him I would be with you & like it far better.

Ba wants Mrs Stowe’s address, if you have it. [4]

Ever yours affly RB

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dating based on RB’s reference to Pen’s playing the role of Amor, which in letter 4851 EBB reports as having taken place “last night.”

2. Presumably, RB refers to photographs of Walter Savage Landor that were to be sent from Florence (see letter 4825, notes 1 and 2).

3. From “Cupid and Psyche” in Metamorphoses (Book V, 22–23, trans. J. Arthur Hanson) by Lucius Apuleius (b. ca. 123 A.D.). In this and subsequent quotations from, or references to, Greek and Latin classical authors, citations are from the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise noted. EBB made a paraphrase of this scene, entitled “Psyche Gazing on Cupid,” for a projected “Classical Album” (see letter 1884, note 4). The paraphrase was first published in Last Poems (1862).

4. 80 Bartlet St., Andover, Massachusetts.

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