5651. RB to Lady Cowper (1806–80)
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 15–16.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.
Oct. 23. ’65.
Dear Lady Cowper,
You should not tempt poor frail flesh so! If you knew what a letter I wrote to a friend last Saturday [1] on the strength of having put by the pleasures offered in yours of the day before—how I pointed every paragraph and was energetic about “never breaking my rule, under any temptation”,—you would pity & leave me alone. Indeed, meaning particularly virtuously & well at the beginning, I have got to raise such a frightful wall between me and .. you may say, Paradise, to help out the simile,—as I can neither jump over nor wriggle under. You must not suppose that I do more than supervise things with the boy—he has a number of masters,—and it is easier to get out of their grooves than back into the same: also, I myself do not pretend to be a bit more partial to London Street life than is obligatory on me,—and were I to begin fancying whither I could fly had I only the wings,—who knows but I might find that I had still a feather or two of a scrubby kind in my pinion,—and so flap them & fairly be off—which would not be right, you know. The wiser way is, surely, to consider that in two years or so, my business will have been got thro’, where it is thickest,—for I seem to see light at the far end,—and till then, stop one’s ears to all temptation—though yours does somehow glide in beneath the finger-tips!
Pray forgive and understand that, however stupid, I shall ever be
Yours faithfully & gratefully
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
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