5026. RB to Robert Bulwer Lytton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 39–41.
1. Chichester Road, Upper Westbourne Terrace
Feb 18. ’62–
—And many a month ago,—dear, kind friend,—since you began to heap kindnesses in the way of letters on my desk: here they all are! You see, I believed all you said in them about the purely benevolent impulse to so much generosity, and let the hours go by, again & again, when, spite of the drag & weariness I feel when I try to write even a poor note like this, I would have done so had I been less assured of your goodness & sympathy. Then, Pen had—what turned out to be simply the chicken-pox but threatening the greater evil,—whence anxieties, & little disposition to turn the opportunities to the best account. But now, as I happen to be going to Paris for just a week—the sense of my own absurdity in trying your forbearance to the uttermost pricks me startlingly—& here shall be a few words scribbled off to say that no cause but such as you would pardon, I know, has kept me silent all this while. I had to wait long before I could get Peni a proper Tutor, and then there was a long process of getting into the regular grooves of study after many month’s idleness: it is all going well now, you will be glad to learn: I have a sound Classical & Mathematical Master, [1] —for the main business—& every other subsidiary help—besides the greatest of all in the little fellow’s own sweet, docile, happy disposition: I have a clear year before I need decide upon the public school,—two or three, if I choose Harrow or Rugby. I could not give up what had been got together with so many pains in old days—& therefore relinquished the notion of sending him to Eton at once– I am greedy for every advantage, & see much I cannot reach by any other means than a school—still, on the whole,—(& I speak on plenty of evidence, having wanted no counsellor, really qualified to advise, on all sides of the question)—if I must let go anything, it shall not be that education itself we begin by seeking—I can’t do without that, for its own sake—not because it is a grace or a qualification merely,—can’t do without music, drawing, modern languages & other sources of delight for after days. The social enjoyment at school must be great—but, after all, you have the spring of it, source of it, in youth itself, which, I fancy, transforms all but the most uncongenial surroundings. The University follows, of course, in any case. Meantime, all goes so well, so much is done with so little pains & with so little confinement to a desk, that I take heart & am tolerably at peace. You would hardly recognize the little boy of the terrace last year, [2] under that wonderful sky with its star—so grown is he, so tall & English is he, everybody says.
I sent the books to Sir Edward because Chapman told me (I think) that you wished him to do so: [3] I chose rather to submit them on my account, & am gratified indeed by what you tell me. If I knew where he was to be found, I would at least leave my card,—meaning to let go no such honour as I have always esteemed his acquaintance. I go out now, almost whenever I am asked—called on nearly every acquaintance in the course of the last week—was admitted a member of the “Athenæum,” by a goodnatured committee, the other day, and in short, as I wrote to somebody lately, feel like a cockney sportsman accoutred unexceptionably, with primest gun & dogs to match,—only a sinking at heart whenever he has to pull the trigger: however he gets to bag a bird or two, and I shall do the thing better in time. Here I aim at you, for instance!
Isa Blagden (I must not forget to say) is away since some weeks, at Broadstairs [4] —she has either answered or will presently answer a letter to her, she bade me tell you.
Can I send you, by the Foreign Office, the Book I have been printing? [5] It will not appear for a month or more.
“Stories from Herodotus” may be pleasant indeed: what stories? [6] Are they printing in “Household Words”? [7] I never see Magazines now that I am full in the way of them.
But goodbye now: I am more grateful for all the trouble you have taken to put a colour into the general greyness of my sky than these ineffective chatterings can hope to show.
Ever yours affectionately
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lord Cobbold.
1. George Knox Gillespie; see letter 5013, note 7.
2. i.e., the terrace at Villa Brichieri, Isa’s residence at Bellosguardo. The “star” refers to the comet that RB saw after EBB’s funeral and burial on 1 July 1861: “I went straight from the Cemetery to the Villa—and presently in the evening came the astonishing sight of the comet” (see letter 4925).
4. Stone House, near Broadstairs, Kent, the country residence of Mary Alexander (née Bracken, 1790–1867), sister of Isa’s father, Thomas Bracken (1791–1850).
5. EBB’s Last Poems.
7. i.e., All the Year Round, which replaced Household Words in 1859 (see letter 4514, note 14).
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