Life and Letters of Robert Browning [37]
Dear sir,
Yours faithfully and obliged,
Robert Browning.
==
Mr. John Robertson had influence with the `Westminster Review',
either as editor, or member of its staff. He had been introduced
to Mr. Browning by Miss Martineau; and, being a great admirer of `Paracelsus',
had promised careful attention for `Sordello'; but, when the time approached,
he made conditions of early reading, &c., which Mr. Browning thought
so unfair towards other magazines that he refused to fulfil them.
He lost his review, and the goodwill of its intending writer;
and even Miss Martineau was ever afterwards cooler towards him,
though his attitude in the matter had been in some degree
prompted by a chivalrous partisanship for her.
Chapter 7
1838-1841
First Italian Journey -- Letters to Miss Haworth -- Mr. John Kenyon --
`Sordello' -- Letter to Miss Flower -- `Pippa Passes' --
`Bells and Pomegranates'.
Mr. Browning sailed from London with Captain Davidson of the `Norham Castle',
a merchant vessel bound for Trieste, on which he found himself
the only passenger. A striking experience of the voyage,
and some characteristic personal details, are given in the following letter
to Miss Haworth. It is dated 1838, and was probably written
before that year's summer had closed.
==
Tuesday Evening.
Dear Miss Haworth, -- Do look at a fuchsia in full bloom
and notice the clear little honey-drop depending from every flower.
I have just found it out to my no small satisfaction, -- a bee's breakfast.
I only answer for the long-blossomed sort, though, -- indeed,
for this plant in my room. Taste and be Titania; you can, that is.
All this while I forget that you will perhaps never guess
the good of the discovery: I have, you are to know, such a love
for flowers and leaves -- some leaves -- that I every now and then,
in an impatience at being able to possess myself of them thoroughly,
to see them quite, satiate myself with their scent, -- bite them to bits --
so there will be some sense in that. How I remember the flowers --
even grasses -- of places I have seen! Some one flower or weed, I should say,
that gets some strangehow connected with them.
Snowdrops and Tilsit in Prussia go together; cowslips and Windsor Park,
for instance; flowering palm and some place or other in Holland.
Now to answer what can be answered in the letter I was happy to receive
last week. I am quite well. I did not expect you would write, --
for none of your written reasons, however. You will see `Sordello'
in a trice, if the fagging fit holds. I did not write six lines while absent
(except a scene in a play, jotted down as we sailed thro'
the Straits of Gibraltar) -- but I did hammer out some four,
two of which are addressed to you, two to the Queen* --
the whole to go in Book III -- perhaps. I called you `Eyebright' --
meaning a simple and sad sort of translation of "Euphrasia"
into my own language: folks would know who Euphrasia, or Fanny, was --
and I should not know Ianthe or Clemanthe. Not that there is anything in them
to care for, good or bad. Shall I say `Eyebright'?
--
* I know no lines directly addressed to the Queen.
--
I was disappointed in one thing, Canova.
What companions should I have?
The story of the ship must have reached you `with a difference'
as Ophelia says; my sister told it to a Mr. Dow, who delivered it to Forster,
I suppose, who furnished Macready with it, who made it over &c., &c., &c. --
As short as I can tell, this way it happened: the captain woke me
one bright Sunday morning to say there was a ship floating keel uppermost
half a mile off; they lowered a boat, made ropes fast to some floating canvas,
and towed her towards our vessel. Both met halfway,
and the little air that had risen an hour or two before, sank at once.
Our men made the wreck fast in high glee at having `new trousers
out of the sails,' and quite sure she was a French boat,
broken from
Yours faithfully and obliged,
Robert Browning.
==
Mr. John Robertson had influence with the `Westminster Review',
either as editor, or member of its staff. He had been introduced
to Mr. Browning by Miss Martineau; and, being a great admirer of `Paracelsus',
had promised careful attention for `Sordello'; but, when the time approached,
he made conditions of early reading, &c., which Mr. Browning thought
so unfair towards other magazines that he refused to fulfil them.
He lost his review, and the goodwill of its intending writer;
and even Miss Martineau was ever afterwards cooler towards him,
though his attitude in the matter had been in some degree
prompted by a chivalrous partisanship for her.
Chapter 7
1838-1841
First Italian Journey -- Letters to Miss Haworth -- Mr. John Kenyon --
`Sordello' -- Letter to Miss Flower -- `Pippa Passes' --
`Bells and Pomegranates'.
Mr. Browning sailed from London with Captain Davidson of the `Norham Castle',
a merchant vessel bound for Trieste, on which he found himself
the only passenger. A striking experience of the voyage,
and some characteristic personal details, are given in the following letter
to Miss Haworth. It is dated 1838, and was probably written
before that year's summer had closed.
==
Tuesday Evening.
Dear Miss Haworth, -- Do look at a fuchsia in full bloom
and notice the clear little honey-drop depending from every flower.
I have just found it out to my no small satisfaction, -- a bee's breakfast.
I only answer for the long-blossomed sort, though, -- indeed,
for this plant in my room. Taste and be Titania; you can, that is.
All this while I forget that you will perhaps never guess
the good of the discovery: I have, you are to know, such a love
for flowers and leaves -- some leaves -- that I every now and then,
in an impatience at being able to possess myself of them thoroughly,
to see them quite, satiate myself with their scent, -- bite them to bits --
so there will be some sense in that. How I remember the flowers --
even grasses -- of places I have seen! Some one flower or weed, I should say,
that gets some strangehow connected with them.
Snowdrops and Tilsit in Prussia go together; cowslips and Windsor Park,
for instance; flowering palm and some place or other in Holland.
Now to answer what can be answered in the letter I was happy to receive
last week. I am quite well. I did not expect you would write, --
for none of your written reasons, however. You will see `Sordello'
in a trice, if the fagging fit holds. I did not write six lines while absent
(except a scene in a play, jotted down as we sailed thro'
the Straits of Gibraltar) -- but I did hammer out some four,
two of which are addressed to you, two to the Queen* --
the whole to go in Book III -- perhaps. I called you `Eyebright' --
meaning a simple and sad sort of translation of "Euphrasia"
into my own language: folks would know who Euphrasia, or Fanny, was --
and I should not know Ianthe or Clemanthe. Not that there is anything in them
to care for, good or bad. Shall I say `Eyebright'?
--
* I know no lines directly addressed to the Queen.
--
I was disappointed in one thing, Canova.
What companions should I have?
The story of the ship must have reached you `with a difference'
as Ophelia says; my sister told it to a Mr. Dow, who delivered it to Forster,
I suppose, who furnished Macready with it, who made it over &c., &c., &c. --
As short as I can tell, this way it happened: the captain woke me
one bright Sunday morning to say there was a ship floating keel uppermost
half a mile off; they lowered a boat, made ropes fast to some floating canvas,
and towed her towards our vessel. Both met halfway,
and the little air that had risen an hour or two before, sank at once.
Our men made the wreck fast in high glee at having `new trousers
out of the sails,' and quite sure she was a French boat,
broken from