5140. RB to Isabella Craig

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 163.

19. Warwick Crescent,

Harrow Road.

Dec 5. ’62

Dear Miss Craig, [1]

You only do me too much honor; & I wish with all my heart I could send you any verses fit for your purpose: [2] really I have nothing & can invent nothing of the kind. I always am humble & sorry at being forced to say this when similar applications are (now & then) made to me,—but particularly humble & sorry in the present case, since you are the applicant.

Pray believe me

Yours most truly

Robert Browning

Publication: NL, pp. 148–149.

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. Isabella Craig (afterwards Knox, 1831–1903); see letter 3773, note 2.

2. Poems: An Offering to Lancashire (1863), an anthology edited by Miss Craig that included contributions from Christina Rossetti, D.G. Rossetti, and William Allingham. The title page included the following: “Printed and Published for the Art Exhibition for the Relief of Distress in the Cotton Districts.”

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