474. RB to William Johnson Fox
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 74.
S & O.s Conduit St [1]
Thursday Mg [28 March 1833] [2]
My dear Sir,
I have just received your letter which I am desirous of acknowledging before any further mark of your kindness reaches me;—I can only offer you my simple thanks—but then they are of the sort that one can give only once or twice in a life: —all things considered, I think you are almost repaid, if you imagine what I must feel; & it will have been worth while to have made a fool of myself, only to have obtained a “case” which leaves my fine fellow Mandeville [3] at a dead lock–
As for the book—I hope ere long to ‘better it,’ & to deserve your goodness. In the meantime I shall not forget the extent to which I am, Dear Sir
Your most obliged & obedient Servt
RB
Address, on integral page: Rev. W. J. Fox / Stamford Grove / Upper Clapton.
Publication: Orr, pp. 53–54.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Written at the premises of Messrs. Saunders & Otley, the publishers of Pauline. As letter 473 gave neither RB’s full name nor address, it is apparent that Fox’s reply was sent to the publishers, where RB found it and replied at once. This appears to us a justification for amending the sequence established by Mrs. Orr, as Fox did have RB’s address once he was in receipt of letter 475.
2. Letter is postmarked the following day, Friday 29 March 1833.
3. Bernard Mandeville (1670?–1733), who held, along with other cynical and unorthodox opinions, that men do good from the worst of motives.
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