496. RB to Sarah Flower Adams [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 123.
Camberwell
Feb. 4. [1835] [2]
My dear Mrs Adams,
I trust you have guessed the cause of my not having availed myself ere this of your kind invitation– I have been very ill, for the first time of my life, [3] & am recovering so slowly (as far as strength is concerned) that tho’ I hope some evening to get as far as Brecknock crescent, ’tis as good men hope to go to heaven .. only I really wish to go–
—Possibly you may have seen Miss Sturtevant, [4] & have heard of my mishap from her——
Be profuse of my best regards to Miss Flower—& make my compliments to Mr Fox, & believe how much I remain
Dear Mrs Adams
Yours, very sincerely
Robt Browning
Note /. I don’t go to Persia, [5] & the Right Hon. Henry Ellis [6] &c &c may go to a hotter climate for a perfect fool—(Heat at Bagdad in October, 124. Fahren. in the shade)–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. For details of RB’s friendship with Mrs. Adams and her family, see pp. 311-312.
2. Dated by the reference to Persia and to RB’s first serious illness.
3. In letter 498, dated 2 March 1835, RB mentions having been “very ill for a month and more” with “a horrible ulcerated sore throat.”
4. Miss Sturtevant, later Mrs. Wood, was the recipient of presentation copies of some of RB’s works; one was inscribed “RB to his very oldest friend, Mrs Wood” (see Reconstruction, C247 and C578).
5. Mrs. Sutherland Orr recorded that “Soon after his return from Russia” (ca. June 1834) RB “applied for appointment on a mission to be despatched to Persia … He was much disappointed when he learned, through an interview with the ‘chief,’ that the place was otherwise filled” (Orr, p. 61).
6. Sir Henry Ellis (1777–1855), presumably the person to whom RB had addressed his application, went to Persia as ambassador in July 1835.
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