5071. RB to William Cornwallis Cartwright
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 83.
19. Warwick Crescent, Harrow Road,
May 23. ’62
My dear Cartwright,
I have to throw myself on your indulgence: I managed to sprain my ancle yesterday and can hardly set my foot on the ground. Notwithstanding, I would hop & limp to you somehow this evening and not lose such a pleasure for the sake of consequences, were I not forced to go to-morrow to attend the funeral of poor Mrs Twisleton at Broughton: [1] I am sitting by the fire after a rubbing-in of embrocation, which is to go on thro’ the day; and tomorrow, as I say, I must get there & back somehow & never mind what comes of it. [2] Come back soon, & we cannot but arrange matters better than has been possible of late.
I have just heard from Aidé, [3] & enclose his letter: I will send the m.s at once, and otherwise see to the business, correct the sheets &c[.] [4]
Goodbye, dear Cartwright, if it must be so
Yours ever affectionately
RB.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Northamptonshire Record Office.
1. Ellen Twisleton died on 18 May 1862, aged 33, at her home, 3 Rutland Gate, Hyde Park (see The Daily News, 20 May 1862, p. 7). Broughton Castle, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, was the seat of the 16th Baron Saye and Sele (1799–1887), older brother of the deceased’s husband.
2. RB attended the funeral in company with Thomas Carlyle (see Carlyle, 38, 96n–97n).
3. Charles Hamilton Aidé (1826–1906); see letter 3369, note 2.
4. By reference to letter 5076, it seems fairly certain that the manuscript is Cartwright’s. The earliest publication of his that we have traced for this period is an article entitled “Dupleix” in The National Review, October 1862, pp. 203–254.
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