SD2901. John Stuart Blackie to Elizabeth Helen Blackie
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 364 (in part).
21 Phillimore Gardens
May 15, 1867
On Sunday I dined with Theodore Martin. … Then I shot across to Robert Browning, to whom “Helen Faucit” had given me a letter. He received me with the greatest frankness, having known me of old from the Æschylean correspondence I had with Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He showed me her Greek books, all scratched over with commentary. He is an active, soldier-like, direct, rather stout little man—a fine contrast to the meditative ponderosity of Tennyson. The person and attitude in each case is a perfect index to the movement of the poetry. He has a tame owl with black staring eyes, which jumps about the room and amused me very much. He told me all about his new poem, on which he has been working for three years. …
Text: The Letters of John Stuart Blackie to his Wife, ed. Archibald Stodart Walker (Edinburgh and London, 1909), pp. 160–161.
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