SD2082. Caroline Sturgis Tappan to Ralph Waldo Emerson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 263 (in part).
[Rome]
May 28, 1857
Do you not envy me that yesterday I read yr poems on the beautiful Campagna to the music of the lark—I have wanted no book so much as these poems,—in Paris, last winter & in Florence this winter where I again met Mr. Browning & talked about them with him—he searched his book-shelves in vain but said he had the book somewhere wandering about. He is a most eager admirer of the poems, & I wish I could remember all that so fine a critic said—one thing was that he would have given his heart’s blood (you know he is a little exaggerated in his forms of speech) if he could have seen the poems for one half hour before they were published, there are so many little things in them that only needed a word changed to be exactly right—that was why I wanted the book so much. He says no other American poet can be mentioned in the same year with you. He knew nothing about Ellery and would not believe there had once been genius there, upon my simple assurance. He says the melody in your verses is often delicious. He quoted the last verse of the Dirge & said that alone would prove the poet. He liked also the Threnody & the Snow storm particularly, but exclaimed, that without the book he could say nothing.
Publication: The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Eleanor M. Tilton (New York, 1991), 8, 534–535.
Manuscript: Smith College.
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