SD2650. Julia Wedgwood to Katherine Euphemia Wedgwood
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 360 (in part).
Cum. Place
Sunday night [12 July 1863] [1]
Dearest E. I must scribble you off a line before bed. You may be rather thankful you weren’t here tonight at dinner first Louisa Erskine came in, & then on coming back from Ch. I found the 2 Turnbulls!—it was rather a waste of virtue on Aunt R’s part, I thought, when she has so few evenings with Claude. However—I sat down the virtuous Emily to the piano, & we had no end of sonatas, she went on very goodnaturedly playing thro half a volume.
It was hard upon Louisa too, who has not much time with her brother but it is quite in Aunt R’s line to sacrifice many people to one—surely being one of the virtues quite obliterates the consciousness that other are too. I had such a pleasant evg yesterday. Aunt R took us 3 giddy young things to Mrs Schwabes, where wicked Jenny had promised to sing but didn’t. She was there looking ill & rather cross, & said something about her throat,—so my lure failed, but on the other hand I had Browning to myself for the chief part of the evening. He was perhaps a little too loud & rollicking. I got into a very comfortable corner between him, Mr Milnes & Mad Mohl, who was as Louisa wd say “in Shouts” all the time,—it was all very loud & jovial, & I did wish once or twice that some music would strike up. The great subject was this Mr Swinburne’s poems. Milnes was attacking Browning for attacking them, & B. defended himself very indignantly from the charge of having dissuaded the publisher from accepting them, in which story he s[ai]d there was not a word of truth. It was very wrong to fabricate such a legend, but I thought it wd have been better taste of Mr B. not to have said so much against these unhappy poems—he said they were a third-rate imitation of Byron, the sort of effusions which if a man believed he wd jump over Waterloo Bridge, & then went on with very fierce contempt against them,—which he said the author wd attribute to the jealousy of a “brother bard.” Claude had just been asking me about the “Lost Leader”—(Just for a handful of silver he left us) whether it was meant for any individual. I thought not. C said “I thought perhaps it was suggested by Wordsworth & his defalcation from the democrats,—but it could have been mere suggestion from him.” — It gave me such a sense of Claude’s wonderful penetration, for I could not the least see the applicability, but when I asked Browning he answered, almost in those very words. He said he shd be very sorry for any one to take that as his opinion of Wordsworth, but it had been suggested by him, as a dramatic expression of the feeling excited by his desertion of the democratic party. — I shd much have liked to have propounded a few more of his poems for explanation, but I think if there is a loathful experience (to use yr. favorite word) it wd be having to expound one’s own works, so I spared him. He was so particularly civil, wanting to know what time he shd find Mama at home, then when I s[ai]d she was out of town hoping we shd see something of each other in October, when he comes back to town. — I never saw such an un-lionish lion. He told me of a note he had had from Ruskin whereby the poor man must be utterly insane—consulting him what he shd sacrifice to Diana!—what curious madness.
I was in your green silk, & hardly ventured to move, having also Hope’s great hoop, so I trembled for the tables in that little room—& wd not even cross it to get a cup of T tho dying with thirst! It is rather painful to sit upon! but I thought it looked so bad to see the lady standing & gent sitting. Goldschmidt played the Mendels[s]ohn “Hunt” lieder—the one you played with Mme Kinkel. I liked his playing of that, not so much a Chopin. Ristori looked very grand & handsome. Mr B. said she had been much excited at dinner about Italian politics, & concluded “of course you are enthusiastic on the subject.” I am afraid I sank in his opinion after my confession of stolidity thereupon. Hilary told Aunt R. quite a charming little love story about Ristori, how her present husband was forbidden the house by her parents, till the old Pope hearing of the severed lovers interfered & persuaded the father to allow the match.—one did not expect the Pope to figure in a love story! Hilary was so handsome—in a new semi-high silk, very good taste—just the lady of a certain age.
Monday—no more time[-][illegible word] quite overwhelming! 1000 thanks for letter.
Address: Miss Wedgwood / Leith Hill Place / Dorking / Surrey.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: V&A Wedgwood Collection.
1. Date provided by postmark, 13 July 1863.
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