5556. RB to William Cornwallis Cartwright
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 225.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.
Feb. 24. ’65
Offered for sale by Henry Young & Sons, book dealers, Liverpool, England, Catalogue, date unknown, item 20. 4 pp., 8vo. RB writes: “How I hate myself for all this foolish procrastination of saying a word to you! If I liked you half a quarter as much as I do, you know that such a business would be knocked off at once: as it is, when I throw down my pen after hours and hours of writing, sick of the sight of paper and ink, I say to myself, ‘Cartwright understands all this—won’t mistake it—so I shall go and walk my head right again!’ … Poor Leighton has lost his mother—however he is a sweet-tempered easy fellow to whom misfortunes come gently. I met him at dinner two days ago—he is painting some delicious things—specially a ‘Helen proceeding to the Scæan Gate where Paris and Menelaus are about to engage in combat,’ a lovely dreamlike picture it will be.” [1]
1. Frederic Leighton’s “Helen of Troy” (1865), shown at the Royal Academy exhibition in May. Michael Meredith suggests that the painting gave RB the “idea” for his poem “Helen’s Tower,” which first appeared in Helen’s Tower, Clandeboye (privately printed, 1870) and was later published in The Pall Mall Gazette, 28 December 1883, p. 2. See RB-KB, p. 34n.
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