5073. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 84–85.
[Florence]
May 25 [1862] [1]
Dear Browning,
I was in hopes that ere this day I should have been able to send to you a copy of my Sweepings from under the study table. [2] But Mr Newby has delaid [sic] the third proofsheet for three entire months. Only forty-eight pages have reacht me. I have not invention or memory enough even for a letter, so I can only say to you what I have been saying to my friend Sandford—that I am almost blind and deaf– I am sorry for it, as there is a nightingale within a few paces of my terrace. This bird used to melt my heart, but not without a fair accomplice. I shall soon be blinder and deafer, when the earth is over me: this is a comfort, not a source of sadness. My son Walter has paid for my grave. His elder brother, my heir, and present possessor, refused, his mother saying that Walter could better spare the money. Unwilling to be in any one’s debt, I gave him pictures which cost me forty odd pounds, and shall leave him the little now left to me– So my will need never have been made.
Mrs Sawle, [3] Mrs Linton, [4] Sandford and yourself are all my surviving friends in England. Yesterday I went with the Countess Baldelli to visit my old acquaintance Marchesa Guadagni [5] at her magnificent villa Poniatowski. She, her husband, and her mother Lady Lee, recieved me with all their ancient kindness, and invited me to walk in the garden, a most spacious and shady one, whenever I felt so disposed—what a difference between friends and nearest relatives– I think my swallowtailed old black coat will find admittance. The whole of my expenditure for cloathing, in three years, has not cost twenty shillings, and not one shilling more shall it ever cost. My linen is in rags; but rags are not seen outside. Much against my will, and quite without my knowledge, Mrs Romagnoli bought me a black stock [6] costing three lire. If she buys anything more for me I will send it away. I have been sending to London a heavy package of books. If my brother [7] will have the kindness to pay for the package and conveyance, you may assure him, upon my honour, that I will ask for nothing more from him during the remainder of my life. Perhaps this letter is the best assurance, so I request you to send it exactly as it is.
I was persuaded that what I sent to be publisht would bring me some money. I would not have sent it if I did not hope it would produce enough to repay my brother. This anxiety weighs on me heavily, and the more so from the fear that the dishonesty of Arnold may with[h]old the sums due. — I am grieved to add that, in order to pay Walter or Charles for the transportation of my body to England, I ordered a case 7 feet long, to send immediately all my pictures to be sold there. Order was given from the authorities that I must state the number, size, painter, and value of them. Having just sixpence-halfpenny in the world, this I could not do. Therefor I ordered the case to be broken open and returned to the carpenter. It will cost five or six crowns. Be assured I shall apply to you for nothing more all my life, after Mrs Romagnoli has given her maid two crowns for serving me these last five months. [8] — The weather is favorable to me. It lets plenty of air thro the holes in my straw hat.
I hope always to hear that you and Robert are well and happy.
Ever affectionately yours
W. S. Landor
Address: Angleterre. / Robert Browning Esq. / [continued in Mrs. Romagnoli’s hand:] 19 Warwick Crescent / Harrow Road / London.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 49–50.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. i.e., Heroic Idyls (see letter 5014, note 2), which was not published until the autumn of the following year.
3. Rose Caroline Sawle (née Paynter, 1818–1914); see letter 4550, note 10.
4. Elizabeth (“Eliza”) Linton (née Lynn, 1822–98); see letter 3978, note 13.
5. Louisa Maria Catherine Guadagni (née Lee, 1808–86), daughter of Sir Francis Lee (1779–1841), Lt.-Col. of the Royal Marines, and his wife, Sarah (née Healing, 1778–1865). In 1828 she married Donato Guadagni (1794–1878), 8th Marchese Guadagni, of Florence. The “villa” Landor mentions is probably the Palazzo Poniatowski Guadagni, located near the Porto al Prato, which was acquired by Stanislaus Poniatowsky (1754–33) in the 1820’s.
6. Perhaps “a kind of stiff close-fitting neckcloth, formerly worn by men generally, now only in the army” (OED).
7. Henry Eyres Landor.
8. RB’s entry for 31 May 1862 in Landor’s accounts lists these outlays as “Box, Packing & unpacking &c £30 & 2 dollars to maid” (see vol. 26, p. 388).
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