4962. RB to Theodore Tilton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 229–230.
St. Enogat près Dinard, France.
Sept. 11. 1861.
My dear Sir—(or rather, reciprocating an affectionate expression of yours, shall I not say?—my dear Friend—) I have felt the very kindness of your letter stop more than one attempt to say something in reply to it: this, that I am resolved to write now, may at least tell you that I was neither insensible nor ungrateful when your two newspapers, together with that letter, reached me. I will not try & explain why it is that, by what might pass for a fantastic perversion of feeling, all the last things seem almost unduly precious,—last incidents, last appreciations, last kindnesses—and it is certainly not because our acquaintance with you was late in the day, that it will be the less valued. Let me hope that, without my motive, you will, for your part, continue to hold what you have so generously taken up, and remember that the dim days before me could ill spare the light of a single kind face I count upon.
One day, if we ever see each other face to face, I may correct some of the mis-statements which have got into currency, and a few of which re-appear in your notice. Dear Hillard’s story is altogether a myth, for instance. [1] But absolutely nothing of the private life ever transpired, and fancies like this do no great harm. I have seen no other notices,—indeed no other American newspapers, in this wild corner of Brittany, where I am endeavoring to regain strength of various kinds. In a fortnight I shall be in London, where I must occupy myself with the education of my child. On my arrival, I will send you the photograph you had the goodness to desire—and another, taken a few days before our departure from Rome,—one so nearly all I could desire, as to put the previous attempts out of my thoughts: there is a photograph also from a picture made of the room in Casa Guidi we have been used to for fourteen years, which may go with the rest. I will send these,—say for me,—to dear Page, to Hillard and to other friends of whose sympathy I am sure. Thank them deeply.
Chapman wrote to me nearly two months ago to say that a new edition of the Poems was wanted at once. I shall attend to this on my return to England, but I may say something to you at once. There remain unpublished a few poems, reserved for another volume. Some of these are among the writer’s best,—she thought, and I think. Do you wish to print these, as you printed the others?—only, I suppose I should add, in closer succession so as to enable Chapman to include them in the edition which I should retard till the latest possible. The intense excitement of your own politics may have changed the direction of the interest of your readers; I can well understand if it be so: but your own munificence renders such a question necessary. My wife would never, of late years write for any other periodical than yours and Thackeray’s—for whom she had a personal friendship: the last poem she ever wrote, an exquisite one, [2] was sent to his Magazine—but I countermanded it—nor is there any publication to which I shall entrust that and the rest unless to yours. You will tell me by a word to the care of “Chapman & Hall, 193 Piccadilly.”
I have never heard from Mr Francis, [3] by the way, since he printed the “Napoleon III &c”—does he wish me to continue to send him early proof-sheets of whatever else may be published in England?
I, too, have lost the “Explanation of American affairs”—and what can I do, in the absence of authentic information, but assure you, however unnecessarily, of my belief in the justice, and confidence in the triumph of the Great Cause? I shall soon know a little of the truth on recent events, only to be guessed at now—but on the righteousness of the principle I want no information. God prosper it and its defenders!
Ever yours affectionately & gratefully
Robert Browning.
Address: Etats-Unis. / Theodore Tilton Esq. / Office of the “Independent” / 5. Beekman Street, / New York.
Publication: Theresa West Elmendorf, Descriptive Catalogue of the Gluck Collection (Buffalo, 1899), pp. 14–16.
Manuscript: Buffalo and Erie County Public Library; and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library (envelope).
1. Tilton’s obituary of EBB appeared in The Independent of 25 July 1861 (p. 1), along with her poem “A View Across the Roman Campagna,” which she had sent in February (see letter 4831). The “myth” concerns the first time the poets met, as told by George Stillman Hillard (see letter 2713, note 10), quoted by Tilton. The story goes that RB, after seeing a direct reference to himself in “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” called on EBB “to express in person his acknowledgements, and that he was admitted into the invalid’s presence by a happy mistake of a new servant.” Among the many “mis-statements” made by Tilton, he calls Bells and Pomegranates “a little book of fugitive pieces.” For the full text of Tilton’s obituary of EBB, see pp. 384–388.
2. ”The North and the South” (see letter 4898).
3. Charles Stephen Francis (1806–87), EBB’s American publisher.
___________________
