5346. RB to Benjamin Manly Ball
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 26.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace.
March 14. ’64.
Dear Sir, [1]
The poem [2] is the presumable defence of duelling, in behalf of a man who has been wronged, as the matter seems “before” the event– How it seems afterwards being the subject of the succe[e]ding piece. [3] Verse 4. is a method of saying “Whatever [4] be the issue, the wrong doer will gain nothing: if he complete his offence by this additional sin, how will the rest of his life turn out, though God’s justice do not visibly interpose in the course of it? (Verse 5) For let things go smoothly as they may, his conscience will soon become aware that there is a Retribution certainly waiting him, (Verse 6) and that all the toleration and indulgence of the present serve, like the luxuries conceded to a condemned felon, to enhance the final punishment: just so a wild beast plays with its victim.”
Something like this I, at least, meant to say—and I hope I made it somewhat clearer.
Yours truly
Robert Browning.
Address: B. M. Ball Esq. / 19. Trinity College, / Dublin.
Publication: Jackson J. Campbell, “Two Unpublished Browning Letters,” Notes and Queries, March 1987, p. 42.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Benjamin Manly Ball (1839–1908) graduated with a B.A. from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1863. He was called to the bar in 1866 and later served as justice of the peace for King’s County (now County Offaly).
2. “Before” (Men and Women, 1855).
3. “After” (Men and Women, 1855).
4. Altered from “However.”
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