6057. Thomas Forbes Kelsall to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 317.

Fareham

May 16. [1868] [1]

My dear Sir,

Thanks for your communicative, honest note. I readily forgive your meritorious abstinence—& when I listen to the long roll of your new poem (for my defective sight sadly interrupts reading) I shall rejoice that it has not been shortened by a single verse even in deference to the great shade of an illustrious predecessor. I now write simply to beg that you will not think of returning the mss. by the time you have named, or until you shall have thoroughly satisfied your appetite for them. Your enjoyments in them, I can truly assure you, are to me a very great satisfaction.

I should however be very sorry to lose a little of your promised fullness of comment on the mss. and beg you to consider yourself irrevocably pledged to its bestowal.

Believe me

Very truly yours

Thos F. Kelsall

Address: Robert Browning Esq / 19 Warwick Crescent / Upper Westbourne Terrace / London W.

Publication: Donner, p. 102.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Year provided by postmark.

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