5367. RB to William Wetmore Story, Emelyn Story & Edith Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 42–45.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terr:
May 3. ’64.
My dear Friends,
True thanks for the good, long, but never long enough letter, which crossed my scrap [1] through Miss Blagden’s enclosure. I was wishing even more than usual to hear something about you: don’t keep me so long waiting another time, pray. I want to get the present sent to-day, so shall only be able to say a very little. Of the Bust—I have told you: I could not but fear & be repugnant for reasons as utterly removed from any suspicion of Story’s power to do anything short of miraculous, as one thing well can be from another: Miss Blagden & you both think a miracle has been done, and I believe in miracles though I don’t count upon them. I may easily be morbid, & the Bust is not meant for me: that a beautiful work would come from the genius I always recognized, is a very natural matter. One day I shall see,—waiting hopefully meantime.
I am happy to hear—as I do on all sides—of the applauses, and proved appreciations by purchase, of the statues: what come to London, I shall go and enjoy.
Next, about the floating reports—oh, my beloved ones, continue to do me the justice of not accounting me a fool, you who have called me great things in my day! The two names you give come with a difference of funniness: I don’t object so much to Miss G: [2] because I know well enough how that bubble was blown, Lady Westmorland having told me the other day: [3] it was simply a catch of our dear Lady W’s at the egregious joke of an “angelic attraction”—helped by a piece of impertinence of Milnes’s who was at a dinner where she would not sit near him, as she told me, but at the other end of the table by me—of course, seeing that I was bidden take her down stairs—so he went grinning monkey-fashion about my “attentions”—in the company of some twenty other guests! The other lady [4] —now, let’s remember! I met her last year at a party at Ly Belper’s, [5] spoke to her a minute, got an invitation next day to go to some aunt of hers who was to have some music, didn’t dream of going, and a week or two after, on meeting the lady at another large party was, not so much “cut” as fiercely abused by the lady as “wanting in the attributes of a poet—gentleman, she would not say”– I patched up the quarrel as well as I could, and saw her once again, for a minute and a word, at Mrs Bates’, [6] whither, like me, she had gone to bid Miss Weston [7] good bye—eight months ago, about: since then,—. These are promising signs, I hope. Briefly & practically, when I feel my wits going by those symptoms, I’ll tell you, first people of all, so, till then, you know what to say.
I think I told you that Robert was sent to get fresh air & a holiday in the country: he returns to-night, quite well—for I doubt if there was anything to “recover” from: he hunted with the stag-hounds, & was in the saddle eight hours one day, riding 25 miles & more: he is a great, strong boy, and as good as gold—having written to me, of his own accord, every day since he left. He can fence, row, box, ride & swim with any Eton Boy, I suspect—and as for everything else, Latin & Greek, the advocates of Public Schools always begin by crying out “Oh, of course you’ll beat us there.” “The dodge”, seems to be—after school is done with, at seventeen, say,—[“]why, take a tutor and begin to learn really!” I am in no fear therefore that your fine boys will be the worse for their living in Rome / May 4. I was beaten in my effort to get this off yesterday. Pen is returned, great, brown and radiant with what he has seen and done– They have been very kind to him everywhere. Well, I ought to regale you with accounts of my own goings-on, the dinners and the at-homes,—and I know that such a part of my letter would not be the least amusing one—only, it is so flat an affair to me,—at all events, the retailing or even remembering it, that I should not answer your benevolent purpose, which is to do me good, not you—are not you happy enough out there? So let the glories of the Academy Dinner, [8] & Ly de Greys, on Saturday,—Forster’s, and the Dss of Cleveland’s [9] on Sunday, (Monday—relâche, [10] because of the expected Pen) last eg Lady Colvile’s, to-morrow, Ly Harry Vane’s, [11] & so on, & so on—let me bury these under the hopes of occupying any ultimo piano [12] in Rome one day: what do you mean by talking about the ending of the lease in the P: Barberini—that you would ever, in any conceivable circumstances, leave Rome? I am not sure, however, that I might not incline to try the South, Naples or Sicily, when the railways overload Rome, as they seem likely to do. But don’t let us think of that now. I do not call the week or whatever it may be which I suppose I shall have to spend in Florence a return to Italy, any more than Father Matthew [13] called taking the sacrament wine-drinking. I don’t think more about it than that, if it must be, it will be in the first week of September, or thereabouts. I cannot spend the rest of the time there, because I owe it to my Father & Sister—whom I have not visited this Easter as I ought to have done. I shall send you my Poems when they appear—on the 21st [14] They have been delayed thus long to suit the requirements of Mr Fields, who made such an offer as induced me to conquer my repugnance and let him print some of the things in his Magazine before publication here: when he had got them safe, he informed me that the money (stipulated to be in English pounds) should be forthcoming—in better times! Suppose I had reversed the process, required the money first, and then announced that when my invention was better, I would remit the owing verses with five per cent interest,—meanwhile praising extremely the quality of his cheque! But enough of him. Good bye, all dear five of you, big & little! Pen’s kindest love, he sends, with mine. I should like to hear Edie sing—but what should I not like to do? Give all remembrances to everybody– I am sure I forget nobody. Lady W. is suffering from neuralgia. I hope to see her to-night. Good bye, and be happy as long as you can.
Affectionately yours
Robert Browning.
Publication: BAF, pp. 141–145.
Manuscript: Keats-Shelley Memorial Association.
1. Letter 5357. The “good, long … letter” was from Emelyn Story (see the second paragraph in letter 5360).
2. Mary Ann Virginia Gabriel (afterwards March, 1825–77), composer, was a daughter of Robert Burd Gabriel (1778–1853), British Army general, and his wife Mary Anne (née Deare, 1789–1861).
3. See SD2696. See also SD2683.
4. Unidentified.
5. Amelia Harriet Strutt (née Otter, 1817–90), youngest daughter of William Otter (1768–1840), Bishop of Chichester, and his wife, Nancy (née Sadleir, d. 1860). In 1837 she married Edward Strutt (1801–80), 1st Baron Belper, politician. He is listed in RB’s address book of this period (AB-5) at 88 Eaton Square.
6. Lucretia Augusta Bates (née Sturgis, 1778–1863), wife of Joshua Bates (1788–1864), senior partner in the banking firm of Baring Brothers & Co. Mrs. Bates died on 22 June 1863, nearly ten months prior to the date of this letter.
7. Presumably Caroline Weston (1808–82).
8. The Times of 2 May 1864 (p. 8) listed RB and dozens of other leading lights of government, religion, science, literature, and the fine arts as attendees of the Royal Academy’s anniversary banquet, held on 30 April, prior to the opening of that year’s exhibition. Among the many toasts proposed after the dinner, was one to “The Interests of Literature,” delivered by John Forster, who singled out RB: “I see poetry in some pleasant forms known to you all, and especially in that of Mr. Browning, one of the most original thinkers as well as one of the first poets of his time. (Cheers.)”
9. Lady Grace Caroline Vane (née Lowther, 1792–1883), Duchess of Cleveland, was the fifth daughter of William Lowther (1757–1844), 1st Earl of Lonsdale, and his wife, Lady Augusta (née Fane, 1761–1838). She married on 3 July 1815 William John Frederick Vane (1792–1864), 3rd Duke of Cleveland (1864).
10. “Respite.”
11. Lady Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina Vane (née Stanhope, formerly Primrose, 1819–1901), daughter of Philip Henry Stanhope (1781–1855), 4th Earl Stanhope, and his wife, Catherine Lucy (née Smith, 1785–1843). She married on 2 August 1854, as his second wife, Harry George Vane (afterwards Powlett, 1803–91), 4th Duke of Cleveland (1864). She is listed in AB-5 at Grosvenor Place House.
12. “Top floor.”
13. Theobald Matthew (1790–1856), an Irish Catholic priest (see letter 1397, note 1).
14. Dramatis Personæ was published on 28 May 1864. See the Chapman and Hall advertisement in The Athenæum of that date (no. 1909, p. 730).
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