SD2127. Robert Bulwer Lytton to John Forster
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 271 (in part).
[Florence]
[mid-December 1857–] 1 January [1858]
… I gave your enclosed letter to Aurora Leigh and I think it gave her great pleasure—she has certainly achieved a great work, & nobly vindicated her true genius & true heart. Her book—“taken it all in all” sustains a more strenuous poetic purpose than any contemporary song—but yet .. and yet .. I demur to the implied theory that the psychology of an Age is best represented by a close portrature of its personal features & I like better what Aurora says about life (when we have her own reflexions) than her drawingroom representations of it,—better in short the reflections than the dramatic part of the Book.
Jany 1.
My dearest Friend, I hoped this letter would have reached you sooner than it now can do. We are all the fools of chance and who can say today what he will do tomorrow? Since I began to write to you, I have been interrupted by a movement from country into town, which the encreasing cold of winter, and the return of bad symptoms in the throat, has compelled me to make. I have found rooms in the House of an Italian Family ( .. Jews .. a Father 2 sons, & a daughter whom I have not yet seen) on whose occasional society I hope to have more practice in the language. My appartment is pretty, & while I write now, I am overlooked by two Correggios, and a picture of Giuliano Pazzi, who brandishes at me the knife that was to have slain Lorenzo— …
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lord Cobbold.
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