5905. RB to Julia Wedgwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 201–202.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.
May 17. ’67.
Dear Miss Wedgwood,
The last time you wrote to me you bade me remember I had offered to show you my Poem before it should be published: it is nearly three years since then, and you may well have changed your mind about caring to see the thing—but I don’t suppose so, after all—at any rate, it is for me to say that the poem will probably go to press in the autumn, and I will send you the proofs as I get them: from the way I work, it is not in my power to send a proper transcript, such as should give the thousands of lines a fair chance of being run through,—eighteen thousand, so far as I know!– Nobody has seen one of all these—and I mention the length to account for the delay in getting done,—besides there have been spaces of interruption, months at a time. Not that the thing is altogether done yet, nor by a good deal,—but I expect four months’ more work will suffice.
But I talk about it thus prematurely because I get thereby the opportunity of answering, if your kindness permit, a note from Mrs Wedgwood which embarrasses me somewhat: it is just an invitation to dine,—and I can’t resolve to make any banal excuse, nor yet seem fussy and foolish. The truth is best said. I underwent great pain from the sudden interruption of our intercourse three years ago: not having the least notion why that interruption must needs be, then or now,—I shrink,—altogether for my own sake,—from beginning again, without apparent reason, what may be stopped once more as abruptly and as painfully without reason one whit more apparent. You understand me, I know,—will you make Mrs Wedgwood understand that I am most grateful for her goodness, and grieved that I cannot—in simple justice to myself—have the gratification she would give me? Indeed, I am sure you will,—and want no formal answer any more than you want the assurance that I am ever yours,
Robert Browning.
Publication: RB-JW, pp. 140–141.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
___________________
