5643. RB to William Wetmore Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 8.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terr: W.
Sunday Mg [15 October 1865] [1]
Dear Story, You will have found my letter, if you had not seen it when you wrote—not that it is needful to tell you that I should greatly enjoy one more word with you all. The letter reached me at eight oclock last evening– Had I imagined you were at Chapman’s yesterday,—why, I passed the shop!
To-day I have engagements I can’t put off. All I can say is—if you find it possible to say “We shall be at such a place, at such a time,”—any day—I will certainly be there.
Whatever happens, & whether we are to see each other sooner or later—I am always yours as ever. I begin to see a pin-point of light out at the end of this London Life,—Italy at the end of a few years more, you know!
I wrote to Edie as soon as the Bust [2] came: as I had been frank in confessing my fears, you may depend on the honesty of my wonder & delight. Would you like me to take it for a portrait, when I publish a “Selection” that is projected? [3]
Ever affectionately yours
R Browning.
Address: W. W. Story Esq / Mount Felix, / Walton on Thames.
Publication: BAF, pp. 156–157.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 16 October 1865, a Monday.
3. A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1866) was issued by Chapman and Hall on 9 December 1865. It did not contain an image of EBB’s bust, but rather an engraving of the Artaud drawing of EBB’s head (see letter 5206, notes 14 and 15).
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