Autograph letter signed : Gressoney-Saint-Jean, to Richard Grant White, 1883 September 18.

Saying that Frederick James Furnivall had sent him a copy of "Selections from the Poetry of Robert Browning" (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1883), a volume edited by White, along with White's letters to Furnivall; writing of the book and the letters that "both interested me greatly and surprised me not a little"; describing the method behind his own selections of his work: "my own 'Selections' have been simply collections of the shorter pieces, arranged in something like a progressive order"; commenting on the fact that White's volume favors Browning's earlier poems: "I should feel sorry if all the years that have gone by since I wrote the poems you most sympathize with -- years abundant enough in experiences -- were barren in results to either what I am or what I do. I hope I should not continue to attempt producing, if I did not fancy there was something new to say"; mentioning that he feels that White has overlooked "The Ring and the Book" and other later poems; adding "if one had 'the Public' in view, it would undoubtedly be wiser to let what they account 'well' alone: but I care mainly for myself, and do myself what justice I can, while I can"; telling White that he has spent the last month with his sister Sarianna in the "solitary beauty and grandeur" of the Aosta Valley and that he particularly appreciated receiving the "Selections" in this setting: "You can only reach it after six or seven hours' journey on mule-back: once here; and 5000 feet above the sea, surrounded by mountains some 5000 feet higher still, and with Monte Rosa and its glacier ending all things to the north; why, the pressure of a friendly hand is felt the more warmly."