5110. Walter Savage Landor to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 121–122.

[Florence]

[early September 1862] [1]

Dear Browning,

I had fancied that Mrs Romagnoli had given you the account, both of package and carriage, [2] well knowing that you would kindly set it down to my brother’s. To be as economical as possible it is now four years since I have expended on myself in cloathing forty shillings, or half the money. It is my glory to be in rags, in order to half a little the necessitous and deserving.

Believe me ever

affectionately yours

W S. Landor.

Publication: BBIS-5, p. 52.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dating based on Landor’s mention of the “package and carriage” of the pictures (see the three preceding letters) and on a passage in letter 5112, where RB tells Isa that he received “four letters from him [Landor] last week.”

2. RB recorded the charges in his copy of Landor’s accounts. The entry for 31 August 1862 reads, in part: “(My own acct) (Box for Pictures … 28 [francs])”; see vol. 26, p. 389.

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