5435. RB to Julia Wedgwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 103.
The Athenæum
Tuesday, Aug. 2, ’64.
Goodbye, dearest friend—I go to-morrow, stay, as I very likely have told you, some two months, and see you prominently on the white cliffs as a landmark for return. We won’t teaze each other with any more “last words,” but take the good of understanding each other without further labour & pains: I will not be older than you like, nor you younger than I want. I daresay nothing but good will come out of it all to you & me. Remember where I shall be till I settle—151 Rue de Grenelle, Faubg St Germ. and always inform me exactly where you are.
I have been reading your admirable article in the “Reader”, [1] —admirable, I mean every letter of the word.
So, “I stretch out my hand for bread”—had you any fancy of the possible attitude in the future of
Yours ever affectionately
RB?
Publication: RB-JW, p. 59.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. RB refers to “Books on Free-Will and Necessity,” an unsigned article by Julia Wedgwood in The Reader of 30 July 1864 (pp. 130–132) that reviewed two works: A Theodicy; or, Vindication of the Divine Glory (1864) by Albert Taylor Bledsoe, first published in New York in 1853; and Freedom of Mind in Willing (New York, 1864) by Rowland G. Hazard. Miss Wedgwood demolishes both books with erudition and wit. RB’s quote below is taken from a passage in the article: “Unless you say the acts of the mind are caused by something that is not will, you are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of acts of will extending backward into the past, as a preliminary to every trifling volition of our lives. For, see, I stretch out my hand to a piece of bread. What moves my hand? My will. What moves my will? If it is a previous act of will, you have bound yourself to account for that previous act of will; and so on forever” (p. 131).
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