5394. Thomas Woolner to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 67–68.
29 Welbeck St. W.
May 31 ’64
My dear Browning
I am with the book you so generously sent me [1] like a man with a new estate: I cannot begin at once deliberately to inspect field after field, the streams, woods, mills, farm-houses, the mansion, the gardens, and all the good things the estate holds; but I skim from point to point and like a dull critic who wants to write a hasty article, or a fool who knows not how to read, I try to get a flavour or a general impression of the book before I begin seriously upon it. A vile practice I know; but still the whole of life cannot be made up of what is strictly right and in perfect discipline: but even in this random way I have tasted enough to know the rich feast which you have prepared for mankind if they choose to partake, and which I do intend to feed upon till my spirit shall have assimilated and strengthened itself with as much of its good as it is capable of holding.
If I envy any man any thing in this life it is to be able to make a book and send it forth with the certainty of giving keen and peculiar pleasure to thousands of the most cultivated minds of his time: but I suppose even this high joy must be dashed with flaws as everything in life appears to me to be.
Again my heartiest and truest thanks for the new treasure–
Most truly your’s
Thos: Woolner
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, Gordon N. Ray Bequest.
1. This presentation copy of Dramatis Personæ is inscribed by RB on the half-title page: “Thomas Woolner from his friend, RB. May 30. ’64” (see Reconstruction, C302).
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