5305. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 323–325.
[London]
19th Dec, ’63
Dearest Isa, I am bilious to day & only able to write a word or two—but you know what I feel: I believe you wish me all the good in the world & out of it—& I wish you,—that I know,—whatever happiness life can bring. Yes—the years go—we are in the third: at first, when you were here, the business was of the hardest, for nothing seemed doing, nothing growing,—only the emptiness and weariness of it all: now, there seems really use in the process, & fruit. Pen is evidently the better for my being here, so it is all easier to go on with: if I live, I suppose I shall get done in five or six years more: but enough of me. I have various pieces of gossip to give you, could I find them in my head to-day: Sir E. has taken a house in Parklane, [1] —hopes L. will live with him. He is at Bath & very well—with the Ernsts: it must have been H. B. [2] (now here) who passed thro’ Florence & was taken for L. You see Hatty’s character as given by Story in the Ath: [3] I don’t think I should have troubled my head about such a charge in such a quarter, had I been she. Hume went to Rome with a letter from Mr Mitchel [4] to Story, asking to become his pupil: Story refused, but got him a studio, conceiving himself bound to do so much by the letter: Mrs S. wrote me this: of course Hume immediately wrote to England (to Dr Gully [5] a Gull indeed) that S had taken him as a pupil—it is Story’s own business,—he chooses to take this dung-ball into his hand for a minute, and he will get more & more smeared.
I mean to write to Kirkup, whom I really love—only the incessant press on me has delayed my replying to his letter: Landor is teazing various friends about his book [6] & what has come of it—he & Walker are at daggers-drawn—he accusing Walker of various delinquencies, quite forgetting his own stupidity,—if these be truly charged,—in getting into a passion of wonder over the perfections of the man: but life, even L’s, is not long enough for this repeated imbecility—of which I suppose old age is the excuse, poor man. I have a mind to tell you something that happened the other day in illustration of what I said was the Barrett character: a stupid family lawyer told Henry Barrett that an estate in England now belonging to Charles John B. ought to have been divided between him & a cousin, in their grandfather’s time—adding that of course it was not to be mentioned: H. at once wrote to tell C. J—who by return of post wrote to the cousin—bidding him take the half, & all arrears of profit. The cousin replied that he knew better the state of the case, that the right had been settled long ago, & there was not a pretence for a claim on his part: so far good—but C. J. really meant to make an immense sacrifice & would gladly have done so.
This poor letter is only made worth receiving by the love in it, my dearest friend: next time I will be in better condition, I hope, & make amends: always I am yours—till death & after. All goes well: Willie & Pen take fencing lessons together. W. is very often with Pen—he is a very nice boy. Pen learns boxing also– Good bye, dearest Isa– I am yours affectionately,
Robert Browning.
Can you have the goodness to send the enclosed to Cottrell?
Publication: DI, pp. 182–184.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s new residence was 21 Park Lane, as recorded in Kelly’s Post Office London Suburban Directory (1865), p. 2294.
2. Presumably Henry Bulwer (1801–72); see letter 3148, note 14.
3. W.W. Story’s letter, dated “Rome, Nov. 1863,” appeared in The Athenæum of 19 December 1863 (no. 1886, p. 840). He defended Harriet Hosmer against charges that someone other than herself had fashioned the statue “Zenobia” (see letter 5296, note 16): “The ‘Zenobia’ was the product of Miss Hosmer’s own mind and her own hands, and to her alone the wide praise, which it has so deservedly received, justly belongs.”
5. James Manby Gully (1808–83), physician and hydropath, who “in later life … became a fervent believer in spiritualism, acting as the friend and protector to … Daniel Dunglas Home” (ODNB).
6. Heroic Idyls (1863).
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