5648. RB to Emelyn Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 12–14.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.
Oct. 21. ’65.
Dear Mrs Story,
I am more vexed than you can be at all this missing & playing at cross-purposes, but how can it be otherwise? I first heard from William on Saturday night, hours after you left Town:—on getting Edie’s note on Monday, I posted off to Cataldis’; [1] then came your note appointing Wednesday at 5 till dinner-time (I did not understand that you wished me to meet you at the Museum) [2] —and on Wednesday came the Telegram: the fact is, you are here, very properly, to be busy; & I can only hope to catch you by chance. Fancy—if I wrote to-day to say I would go to Walton on Monday,—I should probably go, find you called to Town,—and returning, get the letter to tell me so! No—it won’t do, my dear friend, and we must wait better years. Moreover, the reason I do not leave Town, when once fairly settled in it, is, as I have always truly declared, because I cannot: I take the longest possible holiday, and, that over, shut my eyes to any diversion from my business in this place: where should I go, if my purpose were to enjoy myself merely, rather than to those entirely kind friends who treated me as they did when I last visited them? I should think that is unnecessary to say! I go nowhere, and am obliged to make no exception, if I would not offend other people. I just went to Oxford in the summer—but that was a business-matter. [3]
The end is,—tell me any evening, or morning, when you will be at Cataldis’, and there you will find me. I should indeed like to see Wild again.
I wrote about a portrait to William—but have thought of another for the present book: [4] I can use his hereafter with advantage, if he allow it.
Love to you all,—kind regards to Mr & Mrs Sturgis.
Yours affectionately ever
R Browning–
Publication: BAF, pp. 158–159.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Cataldi’s Hotel at 42 Dover Street, Piccadilly.
2. Presumably the British Museum.
3. To visit Benjamin Jowett at Oxford (10–12 June).
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