BIB_ID
402800
Accession number
MA 2148.67
Creator
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889.
Display Date
[1861 September 30].
Credit line
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 21 x 13.4 cm + envelope
Notes
City and date of writing determined from postmarks and internal evidence. See the published edition of the correspondence and the checklist, cited below, for additional information.
RB gives the place of writing as "7 Delamere Terrace", where Arabella Barrett was living at the time.
Envelope with stamp and postmarks addressed to: "George Moulton Barrett Esq/ Warnicombe House,/ near Tiverton,/ Devon." In RB's hand, to the left of the address: "R Browning."
On mourning stationery.
Sheets two, three, and four are reversed (bottom of the sheet treated as the top), because, as RB explains at the end of the letter, he was writing in near-darkness and got them confused.
The last part of the letter is written on the inside flap of the envelope.
RB gives the place of writing as "7 Delamere Terrace", where Arabella Barrett was living at the time.
Envelope with stamp and postmarks addressed to: "George Moulton Barrett Esq/ Warnicombe House,/ near Tiverton,/ Devon." In RB's hand, to the left of the address: "R Browning."
On mourning stationery.
Sheets two, three, and four are reversed (bottom of the sheet treated as the top), because, as RB explains at the end of the letter, he was writing in near-darkness and got them confused.
The last part of the letter is written on the inside flap of the envelope.
Provenance
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Summary
Writing that he will come visit George soon, but not right away: "I have a restless anxiety, besides, to begin with Peni--there is much to be done & no time to lose"; telling him that they arrived yesterday and "were pleasantly smothered with Arabel's hospitality"; describing Pen: "He has the spirit of emulation singularly strong--accompanied, as it is, by no drawback such as envy or vanity: his abilities are considerable & various, and he has a happy, social temper that makes him friends everywhere"; discussing his plans for Pen's education, beginning with a tutor and working up to attendance at a public school ("I should like him only to go to Eton or Harrow when qualified for the Upper forms"); referring to a letter George wrote to the Guardian in response to misrepresentations of EBB and her background; giving an account of his and Pen's journey through France, in the course of which they missed a train that had a "dreadful accident & loss of life on the line at Amiens"; mentioning that, while en route, he had been thinking of his and EBB's meeting with Tennyson ten years earlier, on their first return to England, and when he looked out the window, he saw Tennyson, his wife, and two children entering the train; describing how he pointed Tennyson out to Pen, but did not approach him: "I would not be recognized, but stood looking for a quarter of an hour till they left."
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