4969. RB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 238–240.
7. Delamere Terrace
Saturday Mg [28 September 1861] [1]
My dear George.
I feel your goodness deeply—do believe it: to have you & Arabel together caring for me so—is precious indeed to me. But see—if I came to you, I won’t say I should weary you just now—your sympathy prevents that—but certainly I should only half enjoy your society, half benefit by my visit: Now, one day—at no very distant day—I shall hope to go & see you and get the full advantage of your kindness. Will you let it be so? I have a restless anxiety, besides, to begin with Peni—there is much to be done & no time to lose: it will be best then to settle at once, to get to work at once—and whenever I can breathe freely and feel the first difficulties over, what dearer holiday can I give myself than such as you propose? Meantime, thank you from my heart.
We arrived yesterday and were pleasantly smothered with Arabel’s hospitality: she finds Pen much grown, and healthy-looking. Yes, I am resolved, after much turning over the matter in my mind, that the only proper course to be taken with Pen is that in which you concur. I fully believe that he will do well,—best of all, indeed—with an English education. He has the spirit of emulation singularly strong—accompanied, as it is, by no drawback such as envy or vanity: his abilities are considerable & various, and he has a happy, social temper that makes him friends everywhere. My plan is to begin with a good tutor for the purpose of initiating him into the English ways of study: I am not sure whether in another year there might not be added with advantage an attendance at one of the Junior Schools of King’s College or the London University where there is a gradual introduction to be got, to the difficulties of a public school, mitigated by the residence at home and superintendence there. I should like him only to go to Eton or Harrow when qualified for the upper forms, thus saving him many of the early troubles; he would then be prepared to work in right earnest; with a full sense of the advantages of so doing—and proceed to the university with a reasonable prospect of success. This is rather an ambitious programme of mine —but I believe I am in possession of all the means, and my own wants will be moderate enough. He is anxious, himself, to do whatever I want, & satisfies me greatly thus far.
My dear George, I hardly know what you mean by explaining so proper and necessary a step as that which you took, to my great pleasure: (I was sure you had taken it.) It was hardly in my competence to speak with authority on matters so far back—moreover I was away, as you observe, and the foolish, blundering article required prompt correction. [2] The writer is, I think, the unhappiest nature I ever had to do with—such an union of self-conceit, irritability, and rashness, accompanied by a real kindness which must suffer on reflection from these sallies of ill-temper, or whatever causes them. [3] He complains that his friends fall off! And takes no measure to rid himself of the miserable susceptibility that sees offence in everything & nothing. So he will live & die, poor fellow! I am puzzled to know how to act about him.
Do you know what an escape we had on Thursday? I was informed by a time-table & the railway official that a train would leave Paris for Boulogne at 6. in the morning to arrive at 1½; (any other train would arrive too late for the customhouse, without a permission from which Pen’s pony could not be embarked—I should therefore be delayed 36 hours at Boulogne:) on the faith of this information I brought the horse to the station at 5. a.m.—& found no train was to go: the next available for horses would start in the afternoon & I must wait till then—horses on no account could go by the “express” which alone would arrive in time. I reasoned with the officers for above two hours, declaring quietly I would prosecute the company—they admitting the blunders and calling them inexplicable. At the last minute (there was no time even to pay for him) they gave in—the horse was attached to the express (“for the first time”) to the wonder of everybody along the line. So I gained my point and got off by the boat at 2 past midnight. Had they persisted, I should have been forced to go by the 8. p.m. train, arriving at 12: and, as you see by the papers, at 11 there was the dreadful accident & loss of life on the line at Amiens. [4] Strange to add, while on the train, I was thinking of the meeting we had with Tennyson ten years ago on our first return to England [5] —catching a glimpse of him at Paris; and looking out of the window, there was Tennyson again entering the carriage! I could not believe my eyes: at Boulogne, I went with Pen to the quay—the Folkestone boat was about to leave– I said, “I will show you Tennyson”: We went close—he was there with his wife & two children. I would not be recognized, but stood looking for a quarter of an hour till they left. He, too, therefore escaped the same danger: I leave myself room only & hardly to thank you once more for your true kindness. It is as useless to try & say a word about dearest Arabel & her kindness. God bless her & you.
Ever yours affectionately
R Browning–
Writing in almost darkness, I made the confusion you will have seen in the sides of my letter– [6]
Address: George Moulton Barrett Esq / Warnicombe House, / near Tiverton, Devon.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 273–277.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 30 September 1861, a Monday.
2. RB refers to the obituary of EBB, attributed to Henry F. Chorley in the marked file copy of The Athenæum now at City University, London, that appeared in The Athenæum of 6 July 1861. The “blundering” includes a description of EBB’s father as “a middle-class merchant, … whose sympathy for imaginative culture was limited” and mention of “the blind Greek Scholar, Burgess [sic, for Boyd].” For the full text of this obituary, see pp. 372–373. An item in the next issue corrected these and other errors “on the authority of one who cannot be mistaken as to the facts” (13 July 1861, no. 1759, p. 52). The “authority” was George, as indicated by his letter to the magazine’s editor, William Hepworth Dixon, dated 10 July 1861 (see SD2470). George also wrote a letter to the editor of The Guardian (see SD2479) in response to an obituary of EBB in the issue of 10 July 1861 that contained some of the same errors found in The Athenæum (see pp. 377–378).
3. RB describes the character of Henry F. Chorley.
4. The train accident occurred at 11 p.m. on the night of 26 September. The Times of 28 September 1861 (p. 9) quoted a report of the accident in La Patrie: “The express train from Amiens to Paris ran into another train coming from Dammartin, at the junction of the two lines. Five carriages of the Dammartin train were overturned. The driver was blown into the air by the explosion of the engine boiler, and fell on the rail without sustaining any serious injury. The Amiens train was not much damaged by the collision. … At present the number of the dead does not exceed five, but the reports of the surgeons give reason to fear that this number will be augmented.”
5. On 20 July 1851, Tennyson called on the Brownings at their Paris hotel (see the fifth paragraph in letter 2929).
6. RB wrote his last three (of four) pages upside down in relation to page one.
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