5915. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 211–213.
19. Warwick Terrace [sic], Upper Westb. Terr.
June 19. ’67.
Dearest Isa,
I have all that you mention fresh in my memory—know the place well– [1] I am glad you like it so well,—but I fancied you thought the air relaxing. Tell me more and more about the excursions you make,—as you doubtless will. Is Mrs Stisted [2] alive still?—Any people I used to know I shall like to hear of.
Sarianna did receive your picture from Mrs Bracken, as you say: then William Bracken wrote for it and she gave it him: he will tell you the rest. Mrs Bracken seems to have forgotten all about it, and S. was in Paris when I wrote last, or I would have referred to her.
I am glad you understand my sympathy about the Novel: [3] are you writing another?
I wrote to you, explaining why,—to introduce Prof. Campbell: [4] I dare say he had left before my letter reached Florence. I wrote to Cottrell & Trollope too. [5]
I am just returned from my annual visit to Oxford, where I have been entertained pleasantly for three days: I returned on Monday Night and next day got a Telegram to my surprise from Jowett who was coming up at night to tell me “something of importance”: he came, slept here, and is just gone. He came to tell me a long story of which the short is this—they (somebody unknown) proposed me at Oxford for the D.C.L. degree: no opposition was made, only, nobody having been apprised, there were not the proper two-thirds, but a simple majority of votes,—so the motion was lost. This transpiring, there was a [sic] another sort of motion from the members of congregation calling on the council to give me a M.A. degree by Diploma,—a very rare distinction said to have only happened in Dr Johnson’s case! [6] It is much better than the D.C.L. because it gives all the rights of the University, voting &c—while the other is a mere right to wear a gown and put the letters after your name. This the Council were obliged to accede to—and I am to receive my degree next Wednesday at Convocation before the assembled universe—so look out for me in the papers: [7] I have just telegraphed & written to say I accept. Of course, it is purely for Pen’s sake—though I am not insensible to the strange liking for me that young & old Oxford seems to have—why? And now, I shall tell you, while “in for it” a further secret,—mind, one of our secrets, Isa! I know I may depend on you. There is better still,—for they are going, once the degree given, to elect me Honorary Fellow of Balliol!!! [8] You see the advantage it will be to me to be in that position while Pen is there. I do call it strangely kind of them to give me what might be turned to great advantage in other ways also. Years ago I only wanted a notice in a Review, and did not much want that. Now, all I want for myself is to be forgotten in some out of the way place in Italy or Greece, with books, a model and a lump of clay & sticks,—am ready to take up poor Aesi’s [9] broken thread of a life. Did you see that extraordinary book about her in the Athenæum? [10]
Lytton’s wife was confined of a girl a few days ago: [11] I went to see them a few days before (they had called here.) His boy is a very fine robust fellow. I dined with his Father last week,—his deafness is really all but cured & I had heard of it, but hardly thought it possible at his age. He was very pleasant and talkative, as usual– Lytton’s self (he was not there) is improved I think: he told somebody “he had the love of a woman for me.” I like his wife, but am disappointed in her prettiness:
Arnold was at Oxford, Grant Duff, Munroe [12] the great Latinist from Cambridge, Leckie [13] and others: Tennyson had the hay fever, and Lowe [14] business, or both would have been at the party. I never knew a word of all my own matter—though it was decided even then. Poor Papa was buried last year about this time: I should have enjoyed the thing for his sake.
Here is the sixth year completed, next 29th. Time does go certainly. The years they come and go– The races drop in the grave– But never the love does so! [15]
Good bye, dearest Isa. All are well here: my sister came back with a bad cold, but it is over. Pen is well– Both thank you for your love & send theirs.
Ever affectionately yours
Robert Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 268–271.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Bagni di Lucca, where the Brownings spent the summers of 1849, 1853, and 1857.
2. Clotilda Elizabeth Stisted (d. 1868, aged 78); see letter 2853, note 2.
5. These letters have not surfaced.
6. In 1755 Samuel Johnson (1709–84) was granted an M.A. by Oxford in recognition of his efforts in compiling A Dictionary of the English Language, which was published that year.
7. In a convocation held on 25 June 1867, a Tuesday, Oxford University conferred the degree of Master of Arts on RB by diploma. Among the periodicals announcing RB’s M.A. were The Standard of 26 June (p. 6), The Pall Mall Gazette of 26 June (p. 8), and The Examiner of 29 June (p. 413). The Times of 26 June also mentioned the M.A., but noted that it was conferred on “Mr. Robert Barrett Browning” (p. 5).
8. RB was elected an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College on 19 October 1867. See letter 5963.
9. Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside (1831–67), known by her initials AESI (see letter 3755, note 13), died of tuberculosis in Rome on 15 April.
10. RB refers facetiously to an item under the heading “Gossip from Italy” that appeared in The Athenæum of 11 May 1867 (no. 2063, pp. 624–625), which contained enthusiastic remarks on AESI’s artistic talents.
12. Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro (1819–85), classical scholar, was appointed professor of Latin at Cambridge in 1869. At their Oxford meeting, Munro presented RB with a copy of his Ætna (1867), a first-century Latin poem, which he “revised, emended and explained.” This copy, which sold as lot 318 in Browning Collections, was inscribed by the author on the half-title: “With the Editor’s compliments,” to which RB added: “(to Robert Browning, Oxford, June 16, 1867)”; see Reconstruction, A1498.
13. William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838–1903), Irish-born historian.
14. Robert Lowe (1811–92), politician, was at this time M.P. for Calne. In 1868 Gladstone appointed him Chancellor of the Exchequer.
15. Cf. EBB’s paraphrase of Heine’s “Die Jahre kommen und gehen” (Last Poems, 1862), lines 1–3.
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