SD2167. Ada Shepard to Henry Clay Badger
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 351 (in part).
[Florence]
June 8th. [1858]
My dearest Clay! I come to thee most blissfully to-night, for mine eyes have feasted, all this evening, on Elizabeth and Robert Browning and their little angel child. I feel that you would allow me to sit up late, and do extraordinary things, after such an evening as this. …
But I must tell you about our visit to the Brownings. As we were sitting at dinner to-day, Stella came in and announced “Un Signore”, handing Mr. Hawthorne the card of Robert Browning.
You can imagine how eagerly we all arose from the table and hastened to the parlor to see Mrs. B.’s husband, to see Robert B.
He made a charming call, talking fast and eloquently all the time, and he invited us all there this evening, to meet two or three people.
We were all delighted with him. He is earnest, remarkably cordial and frank and simple in his manner; he has beautiful eyes and splendid dark, curly hair, just beginning to turn gray, although he looks not over thirty-eight or forty. He talks almost as rapidly as you and I.
Mrs. Browning received us very cordially. She knew Mr. Hawthorne in London, and, like all English people, evidently admires him very much. What shall I tell you about her? I can hardly feel as though I have really seen her and talked with her, standing in one of the very “Casa Guidi windows” which she has immortalized. I can hardly believe that the dream that I used to cherish (long before I knew you) of seeing the author of “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” has tonight been realized. Do you wish to know how she looks? She is very small and very pale and very etherial-looking. I never saw anyone who seemed more like a mere spirit. Yet she is not beautiful. … [Editors’ note: text from transcript at Yale.]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Concord Free Public Library.
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