4979. RB to Ellen Heaton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 246–247.
1. Chichester Road.
Upper Westbourne Terrace.
Oct 21. ’61.
Dear Miss Heaton,
Don’t think me ungrateful in having kept silence so long: I waited to get done with a little of the business which meets me on my return. Thank you for the photographs, [1] —my own & Pen’s. I can hardly resolve to send you the one I promised you [2] —by post, that is—yet I will determine before I send off this note. I have one or two others for you,—the interior of the room in Casa Guidi from a very exact representation [3] —& the last of Pen in his curls & little trowsers [4] —but they are larger photographs, rather. I told you, I think, what I explained distinctly to Chapman’s that your portrait is the only one I give my consent to their publishing. [5] The arrangements for that, are as they & you may determine: I think the last one, you are to receive, perfect so far as it goes, but do not know whether it is adapted to artistic purposes.
Pen is very well—unlike the old Pen but very good & dear– I am wholly taken up with schemes about him, just now, and hardly see my way clearly enough to be comfortable—but I shall see it soon, I think.
He thanks you very much & will write & tell you so when he has time. I have not called on more than three persons, except on peremptory business. Thank you once again & heartily.
Ever yours faithfully
Robert Browning.
If you have a friend who would call at Chapman’s for the little packet, I could leave it there for you.
Address: Miss Heaton, / 6. Woodhouse Square, / Leeds.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection.
1. Cartes-de-visite of Field Talfourd’s 1859 portrait of EBB.
2. This photograph of EBB (variant B) is reproduced facing p. 176.
3. George Mignaty’s painting of the drawing room at Casa Guidi is reproduced as the frontispiece to this volume.
4. This photograph of Pen on his pony is reproduced facing p. 177.
5. Chapman did not publish the Talfourd portrait. It later appeared as the frontispiece to volume 5 of EBB’s Poetical Works … With a Prefatory Note by Robert Browning (6 vols., 1889–90), issued by Smith, Elder & Co.
___________________
