SD2737. Mary Cunliffe to Mary Oakford
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 313–314 (in part).
[London]
[16 December 1864]
I was taken in to dinner at Mr Frederick Lehmanns by Mr John Forster[.] He has lately brought out a very interesting and instructive book which you should read, it is called “The life of Sir John Eliot”
He talked very pleasantly but I am sorry to say that I am unable at this moment to remember any special thing that he said. John Millais the great Preraphaelite artist was also there, and Robert Browning the Poet, Mr Chorley a musical critic, who is also a composer in a small way, and finally Mrs Proctor the mother of Adelaide whose poems you know. There were a few other ordinary mortals there to keep your “Own correspondent” in countenance.
The conversation was mostly general. At an early period in the dinner Millais informed us that Gibson the sculptor had written to the President of the Royal Academy saying that he intended leaving all his savings, which amount to about £40,000 to the Royal Academy. The guests began to teaze Millais about it, asking him if Sir Charles Eastlake was anxiously waiting for Gibson’s death, and if he thought the sculptor would change his mind before he died, and even if they ever did get the money, whether they would muddle it away and have nothing to show for it as they generally do with the funds at their disposal.
Millais took it all in good part. He is a tall bright eyed, rosy-cheeked man of about thirty five.
In the course of the evening a propos of portrait painting Mr Forster said: “I am sure that none but a gentleman can paint a gentleman, for insensibly the artist puts his own individuality and something of his own expression into every picture he paints.”
Robert Browning said “All nonsense my dear Forster I don’t agree with you. Now if I set about painting Mrs Proctor for instance, should I make her like me?” On this Mrs Proctor went up to him, and putting her hands on his arm said “Dear Mr Browning, if only you could make me like yourself how happy I should be.”
A propos of authors mentioning their friends peculiarities in their books, Mrs Proctor said: “I am mentioned in one of the “Roundabout Papers” and Thackeray speaks of me as “The greatest novel reader of the age,” and he tells how he wrote to me to ask what he should do with one of his characters and he puts in my answer” Mr Lehmann said “I should hardly have suspected Thackeray of that sort of thing. a man must be hard up to know what to do with his heroes before he writes and asks advice of other people,”
Mrs Lehmann asked me how I employed my time, and I said I still had masters and did lessons. Mrs Proctor looked at me for a moment as if I were a natural curiosity and then she said “An old lady was once introduced to me and one of the first things she said was: “I have one regret in my long life, and that is that I have not learned more.” I said to her “And I also have one regret, and that is that I have not enjoyed myself more,” and do you know that old lady looked at me with astonishment and disgust”
I thought it all very well for a clever woman like Mrs Proctor, who seems to know things intuitively, but as to poor me, I am like a wineglass with a tiny hole in it. Unless I keep pouring in knowledge I should wake up some fine morning and find the glass quite empty, and what would you think of me then, my dear!
After that Mrs Proctor talked a little about her daughter Adelaide and I liked her better then, but on the whole I admired rather than liked her, She is a wonderfully clever woman and says sharp and amusing things about people.
It is said that Mr Forster was once engaged to L.E.L. If he had married her, she might have been alive now, for he would have been kind and good to her.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s typescript (“A Record of Pleasant Memories”) at Armstrong Browning Library.
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