5246. Robert Bulwer Lytton to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 261–264.
Dronningaard. [1]
July. 2. 1863
I am most grateful to you my very dear friend both for the promptitude with which you have replied to my request, & also for the great kindness & frankness of your letter, [2] wh I take as that of a true friend. Unfortunately your good advice (as good advice generally does come) comes too late. It was not possible to stop the book, [3] and this I was made aware of even before your letter reached me, so one must now take ones chance. Your opinion is substantially the same as that both of Forster & my father, and also of Julian Fane to whom I sent the proofs. There was never a more curious & striking instance of my utter incapacity to judge of my own work—especially when it is freshly done– For I honestly thought very well of this book and indeed fancied it an improvement in many respects upon previous work. I should have answered yr kind letter sooner but for an overwhelming pressure of professional business, and indeed the hope also to gain by delay time enough to write to you more fully than I cd do at once. I hope however to get to Engd by the end of this month at latest, and to make up for unsatisfactory correspondence by more satisfactory intercourse. My promotion has been on the whole a gain [4] —in the matter of time & personal comfort, & altho’ I came to this place in very low spirits I am certainly well satisfied with my summer’s experience of the country here. The Country is beautiful, and the neighbourhood of the sea is much in all ways. I am living in a wood, where I have a little cottage, on the shore of a large lake; the lake is full of wild swans, & the wood full of hawks & wild creatures of all kinds. I had a little sailing boat & was very nautical a month ago; but the boat has gone to the bottom, & my chef [5] & one of my colleagues nearly drowned—so there is an end for the present to nautical expeditions. Do you see much of Forster? I am very anxious about him. The accts he gives me of his health alarm me. I wish you cd get him to give himself a holiday. He sent me his collection of your poem[s]. [6] I hope it is doing well, & the author also.
There is a book about which I should be glad to have your opinion if you have read it– Bain—on the Senses & the Intellect. [7] There are some interesting men, & some interesting things here; but I have not yet made much way in their acquaintance—having been like Martha cumbered about much serving– [8] Notably there is a wonderful museum of the flint period, and an interesting professor in charge of it [9] who seems to have lived among the flint-men himself he is so old & knows so much about them. Tis lucky he is not an English Bishop. I am ashamed to say however that I have not even yet seen the T[h]orwaldsen Gallery [10] which is the boast of Copenhagen. Madame Kalergis (you know her) is now a widow, and, I believe, going to marry again! [11] Humph! Bismar[c]k & his people are spreading it about in Prussia that the King & the Crown Prince are now on the best terms & that the Pce is sorry for his speech agst the Ministers: [12] but the facts are these: the King on reading the speech was furious & wrote to his son, that if he did not publicly recant & apologize, he shd be degraded from his rank in the army, deprived of his sword, &c &c. The Prince (or rather his wife for him, for she concocted) replied in a very spirited letter, that he cd not hold his sword in defence of the prest govt & measures, & therefore begged to resign it requesting the King to name any place out of Prussia to wh he might retire in honorable exile. The Pce further requested that this letter might be made public. This frightened the King who of course suppressed the letter & withdrew his threats.
Do you see Isa Blagdon [sic] often? Our correspondence has died out, but I think of her with great affection & hope to be still remembered by her. God bless you my dear Browning– It is in vain that I attempt to write a sensible letter. The thing is not in me[.] But, I know you will take the good will in proof of the fact that I am
Yr ever loving
R Lytton
Address: England / Robert Browning Esqr / 19 Warwick Crescent / Upper West Terrace–W. / London.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 215–217.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dronninggård was a country estate on Lake Furesø, about 12 miles N.W. of Copenhagen.
3. The Ring of Amasis was published on 13 June 1863.
4. Lytton “was promoted to be Secretary of Legation at Copenhagen, January 16, 1863” (Foreign Office List, January 1865, p. 115).
5. Augustus Berkeley Paget (1823–96), envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Denmark from 4 July 1859 to 9 December 1863.
6. Selections (1863); see letter 5040, note 10.
7. The Senses and the Intellect (1855) by Alexander Bain (1818–1903), Scottish psychologist and philosopher, considered one of the founders of modern psychology.
8. Cf. Luke 10:40.
9. Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1788–1865), Danish archaeologist, was the director of the National Museum of Denmark from 1825 until his death. He is credited with establishing the Three-Age System: Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
10. Thorvaldsen’s Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. It opened in 1848 to exhibit the works of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844); see letter 5013, note 19.
11. Marie Kalergis (née Nesselrode, 1822–74), Polish pianist, society hostess and music patron, studied under Chopin. She was the niece of Karl Robert Nesselrode (1780–1862), Russian foreign minister for over 30 years. In 1839 she married Johan Jan Kalergis (1810–63), but they separated after one year, never divorcing. After her husband’s death she married in September 1863 Siergiej Muchanow (1833–97), a Russian official working in Warsaw.
12. Lytton refers to remarks made by Frederick William, Crown Prince of Prussia (1831–88), later Emperor Frederick III, on 5 June 1863 during a visit he and his wife, Princess Victoria (1840–1901), eldest child of Queen Victoria, made to Danzig. He replied to a speech of welcome by the city’s chief magistrate, who “expressed his sorrow that circumstances would not permit the manifestations of public rejoicings at the visit of their Royal Highnesses” (The Times, 6 June 1863, p. 14). The “circumstances” involved an order issued on June 1st by the Crown Prince’s father, William I (1797–1888). The Times, in the same issue, provided a translation of the order and its ten articles: “Order concerning the Prohibition of Newspapers and Periodicals … Art. 1. The governing authorities are empowered, temporarily or permanently, to prohibit the further appearance of any journal or periodical on account of a persistent attitude (tone or tendency) dangerous to the public welfare. Such endangering of the public welfare is to be held to exist not only when individual articles have, by their contents, given occasion for criminal prosecution, but also when the general tendency of the paper betrays the endeavour, to undermine respect and fidelity to the King” (p. 7). The order was signed by William I and his ministers, including the foreign minister and head of the cabinet, Otto von Bismarck (1815–98), later Chancellor of the German Empire. The Crown Prince, who was a liberal, as was his wife, said in Danzig: “I also regret that I have come here at a time when disagreement has taken place between the Government and the people, the news of which surprised me greatly. Being absent, I was unaware of the ordinances which have brought about this position of affairs, and took no part in the deliberations when they were resolved upon” (p. 14).
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