5234. RB to Alfred Tennyson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 252–253.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W
June 9. ’63.
My dear Tennyson,
I have been told what you wrote to Chapman the other day [1] —thank you most truly! I would go nowhere with such pleasure as to you, and if I do not go now, it is only because I cannot. My boy is entered at Balliol, for ’67—and because I will not overwork him, I have to keep the wheel going by a regular touch—so, there is no leaving home in the working season: while, when play-time arrives, we go to-gether to some out-of-the way place in France with my father and sister, and get two quiet months by the sea. Whenever I am able, I will spend a day or two with you, and see Mrs Tennyson again, and your boys—whom I last saw at Boulogne from the quay. [2]
I shall be here, I hope, for many a year to come—have taken a house for six years, at least. [3]
Mr Mercure Conway [4] called here just now: he is known to many of your friends, Carlyle; and others. He has a mission from the United States, to explain their real policy and intentions, and is a remarkable man,—good, and clever. [5] He wants much to call on you and talk with you for a few minutes, one day at the end of this week .. just a “call,” as if you were in our “Strand” instead of the real one. Will you see him for a quarter-of-an hour?
Give my affectionate remembrances to Mrs Tennyson, & know me ever
for yours faithfully
Robert Browning.
Publication: BBIS-22, pp. 28–29.
Manuscript: Eton College Library, Michael Meredith Collection.
1. In his letter to Chapman & Hall of June 5th, Tennyson offered his “best thanks for these two volumes”: RB’s Poetical Works (1863), vol. I (see Reconstruction, C473) and probably Selections (1863); see SD2643.
2. In late September 1861; see letter 4969.
4. Moncure Daniel Conway (1832–1907), Unitarian minister, abolitionist, and biographer, sailed for England in April 1863, arriving on the 24th. Funds had been raised to send Conway on a tour “to lecture and persuade the English that the North is right” (Moncure Daniel Conway, Autobiography, Memories and Experiences, 2 vols., Boston and New York, 1904, I, 388). He carried letters of introduction, including one from George W. Curtis to RB. What was meant to be a stay of two months turned into one of over twenty years. In early 1864 Conway became the pastor of South Place Chapel, Finsbury, where W.J. Fox had preached from 1824 to 1852.
5. Conway called on RB on April 30th. Writing to his wife that day, he wrote: “But the glory of glories has been a full, grand, frank, hearty 2 hours talk today with Robert Browning” (see SD2636).
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