4947. RB to John Forster
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 202–203.
[St. Enogat]
16 August [1861] [1]
<***> I arrived [in Paris] too depressed by the journey to be able to keep my promise of seeing Arabel Barrett for a few days before returning to France:—it was just as much as I could bear, to go over the old ground, be lodged in the same rooms as three years ago, [2] —& the entry into Paris was unhappy indeed. After a few day’s quiet, as my thoughts began to settle, I began to reason out what I had felt instinctively at first and my plans are now tolerably precise. It will be certainly better to go to London now—that is, for the Winter, & lose no time in giving Pen the thoroughly English education which is wanted: later the matter would be difficult. I propose to stay here & recover what I can, say for a month or six weeks—then to go to London for good. <***>
Publication: None traced.
Source: Extract by John Forster in his letter to Robert Bulwer Lytton, dated York, 1 September 1861 (ms with Lord Cobbold).
1. Year provided by the date of Forster’s letter to Lytton.
2. As RB makes clear in letter 4954, he refers to the inns where he and EBB stayed on their rail journey from Marseille to Paris in July 1858.
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