4949. RB to William Wetmore Story & Emelyn Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 204–207.
“Chez M. Chauvin, St Enogat près Dinard,
Ile et Vilaine. France.”
(or, 151. Rue de Grenelle, Fg St Germn)
Aug 20. ’61.
My dear Friends—for so let me write to you all, as I was used to talk in those days which already seem so good & old—the first thing I fear is that you never received a letter I sent you,—that is, sent Edie in reply to one addressed to Peni [1] —and failing which, you may have thought me more inattentive than I really was: indeed, I feel I should appear to all but such affectionate eyes as yours, wanting in gratitude for many very touching proofs of your goodness—but you will understand, after all. I wrote, copying precisely the address which Edie gave, tho’ I can’t remember what I wrote. No matter, as I can tell you all you so kindly require to know, and far more precisely than was possible then. I did leave Florence at last—on the 1st of this month—accompanied by Miss Blagden, who has devoted herself to me & Peni, disregarding health, convenience & all other considerations. We took the straight road,—too well known to me,—& reached Paris at last—for, being encumbered with Peni’s pony we could not travel by express. I had meant to cross over to London for a day or two’s talking with Arabel Barrett, but the process of going over the old ground, stopping at the old Inns &c was too much—and I found it impossible to go farther: Paris also is unbearable to me, and I only breathe freelier since we arrived at this wild, primitive & lonely place—by St Malo—with a solitary sea, bays, sands & rocks, & green, pleasant country. Miss Blagden left Paris on the 10th—, in a very indifferent state of health,—for London. I shall stay here till the autumn sets in,—perhaps a month longer,—and then, after just a day or two spent in Paris, shall finally settle in London for the winter & spring. I mean to get a very good English Tutor, capable of preparing Pen for the University without, if possible, necessitating the passage thro’ a Public School: and if I delay this, as my original notion was, I may lose the critical time when the English stamp (in all that it is good for) is taken or missed. I have written to various friends about my projects, and shall be glad to profit by their experience: such a school as dear Edie described would have been desirable had Peni been brought up in England from the first—but I distrust all hybrid & ambiguous natures & nationalities and want to make something decided of the poor little fellow. I find, by myself, that one leans out the more widely over one’s neighbour’s field for being effectually rooted in one’s own garden. Meantime we shall get thro’ the next three or four weeks with various success—for Pen is quite well, strong, red as a brick, and amusing himself all day with his grandfather, who, at the age of seventy-nine is absolutely unchanged. I see no difference whatever except in the greyer hair, and a touch or two of rheumatism which does not prevent three long walks a day. Pen rides, bathes and does well generally. My sister is better, and finds the loneliness & roughness of the place to her taste.
So much about myself, as you enjoined: now I may say how glad I feel that you appear to be enjoying yourselves, that the brave boys must be as you desire, that dear Mrs Story & Edie cannot have gone far wrong: you did not tell me explicitly & ought to have done so. Go to Rome & only mind me, as remembering how unremitting have always been your endeavours,—& how successful,—to make me & mine happy there. I shall never forget: there will be all the good of it. But I shall see you whenever I am able,—won’t you come to England next summer, or spring? It was in your plans, surely. London may suit me better than a brighter place for some time to come—but I shall have no ties, no housekeeping, nothing to prevent me from wandering about, if circumstances permit. I want my new life to resemble the last fifteen years as little as possible—it is idle, talking just yet, however.
I deeply feel with you about the disaster at Bull’s Run so far as I know anything about it from having glanced at a single newspaper: [2] I only know that the good cause has suffered, & that we all suffer with it. As to scurrilous articles in the “Times,” I have had the satisfaction of never seeing the outside of that paper—but quite sure am I that its habit of deliberate maligning will have found exercise in this and every other matter interesting humanity. [3] How can you mind such writing? I look to the end, the success, with every confidence—but, as I said, I have missed all the details of this misadventure. You must & will do better & best another time—& meanwhile, the fewer big words on all sides, in any sense, the better!
“Tanhäuser” [4] is written by Lytton & Julian Fane [5] —the latter’s are the songs, which are poor. Julian Fane wrote a volume years ago which the “Times” reviewed much in the way you now describe: [6] I conclude that his father’s being Ambassador to Austria then, [7] & his brother Earl of Westmoreland now, [8] has some little to do with the “Times’” admiration– Lytton, to whom the best part of the book belongs, has no such influence. He gave me the book, [9] told me Fane was publishing the secret everywhere, and spoke modestly enough about his own estimation of the thing. [10] I have just heard from him, by the way, [11] —he must be at Vienna by this time.
And now—it is hard to say “good bye”, which of late years has always gone along with “we shall so soon meet again & so merrily!” Go you, dear Story, on in your admirable way—nor altogether without me who shall continue as interested in your work as when I could see it in progress from the little door of the room by the garden.
True love to you all—from yours ever
affectionately & gratefully
Robert Browning.
Peni sends his love also, his best love, to Edie & you all.
Publication: BAF, pp. 75–78.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. This letter has not surfaced.
2. RB refers to the Union defeat on 21 July 1861 at Bull Run, a stream near Manassas, Virginia, about 30 miles S.W. of Washington, D.C.
3. An editorial regarding the Battle of Bull Run that appeared in The Times of 10 August 1861 illustrates RB’s point: “The people of the Northern States of America are behaving after their defeat in a manner which is somewhat unaccountable. … They do not affect to conceal that they have been totally and disgracefully defeated, that their opinions of their own merits and of their enemies’ deficiencies were unfounded, and that, instead of a short and brilliant campaign, they must either prepare for a desperate war or give up their scheme of subjugating the South. And yet this national calamity and this grievous shame do not seem to affect them as they would affect an European community” (p. 8).
4. Tannhäuser; or, The Battle of the Bards was published in late May under the pseudonyms Neville Temple and Edward Trevor (Julian Fane and Robert Bulwer Lytton, respectively). It was reviewed in The Times of 2 August 1861, p. 6.
5. Julian Henry Charles Fane (1827–70), son of John Fane (1784–1859), 11th Earl of Westmorland, and his wife, Priscilla Anne (née Wellesley–Pole, 1793–1879). He had been serving as secretary to the British embassy at Vienna since November 1860.
6. Poems (1852) was reviewed in The Times of 6 September 1852. The reviewer found little to celebrate in recent poetry but felt that Fane’s new work was “full of promise; the fountain of song is fresh within him, and we are convinced that care and culture only are required to give vigour and high purpose to the current” (p. 7).
7. Julian Fane’s father was ambassador to Austria from 1851 to 1855.
8. Francis William Henry Fane (1825–1891), 12th Earl of Westmorland.
9. This copy sold in Browning Collections as an unspecified lot (see Reconstruction, A2264).
10. Apparently, Lytton’s comment was made in person at Florence; however, Fane wrote to Richard Monckton Milnes on 30 June 1861 that he and Lytton had earlier “agreed to commit a few discreet indiscretions in revealing our poor secret” (T. Wemyss Reid, The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton, 1890, 2, 69).
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