711. RB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 197.
[London]
[16 September 1839] [1]
Dear Miss Haworth,
The translation—with thanks. I am in haste, but mean to do something towards an answer to your letter (kind letter!) in a few days; meantime, I can’t for my life remember what I meant, much less said or wrote, that time, whenever it was;—forgive it, with much beside.
Do not make a set at poor Harness—Miss Martineau intends to ask him all about the review– I see him every now and then.
Yours ever truly,
RB
Are you not sorry for L.E.L.? whom I never saw [2] —“Is she dead? Why—so shall I be!” quoth Barry Cornwall somewhere. [3] Wish “Paracelsus” luck, by the way, at the Great St Leger—for he, a horse, starts, I see by this morning’s “Times”, with a batch of the rarest—as does “Avicenna”—both gloried in by Mr C. Atwood! [4]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Dunedin Public Library.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to The Times.
2. Letitia Elizabeth Landon (Mrs. Maclean) had died in Africa on 15 October 1838 (see letter 680, note 5).
3. “Ludovic Sforza” (Dramatic Scenes and Other Poems, 1819) contains the words “And is she dead?” but nothing approximating to the second phrase quoted by RB. “Juan,” also in Dramatic Scenes, includes the words “I shall be dead.” It seems probable that, at some distance of time, RB’s memory produced a fusion of the two poems.
4. The Times, 16 September 1839, gave details of the week’s programme of races at Doncaster, including Mr. Attwood’s two horses, mentioned by RB. However, neither was listed for the St. Leger, to be run on 17 September. “Avicenna” was a possible starter for the Champagne Stakes, to be run on the 16th, and “Paracelsus” was down for the Two-Year-Old Stakes for the 19th. According to the results given later in the week, neither horse actually started.
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