5678. RB to Frances Elinor Colvile
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 33–34.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terr: W.
Dec. 22. ’65.
Dear Lady Colvile,
Herr Schnegelsberg’s [1] address is 6. Upper Gloucester Place, Dorset Square, N.W. I am sure you will find him all I told you.
I hope that the disaster [2] of last night weighs less on your mind than it does on mine; one is vexed to learn your immense goodness, even, at such a price. What the Colonel [3] must be undergoing I shudder to imagine: after all, he is a soldier and may be used to dreadful experiences.
Yours ever most sincerely,
Robert Browning.
Address: Lady Colvile, / 8 Rutland Gate, / Hyde Park, / S.W.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library (envelope); and Fawcett Library.
1. Wilhelm Schnegelsberg (1834–1908), of Hanover, professor of music, as advertised in The Athenæum of 27 September 1856 (no. 1509, p. 1178), where he “begs to announce that he gives Instructions on the Pianoforte, and on the Theory of Music.” Schnegelsberg may be the “German Music Master” mentioned in letter 5013.
2. A note in the hand of Jane Strachey (preserved with this letter), Lady Colvile’s sister, reads: “This alludes to an incident one evening that we were dining with Elinor at Rutland Gate. She was showing us a valuable little vase; Richard [Strachey] took it, it fell out of his hands & was broken, the [sic, for to] the horror of Browning.”
3. Richard Strachey (1817–1908), administrator in India, was promoted to full colonel in 1862. He and his second wife, Jane Maria Strachey (née Grant, 1840–1928), married in 1859. Among their ten children was the biographer Lytton Strachey (1880–1932).
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