"ROBERT BROWNING."
I transcribe the dedication to explain Mr. Browning's letter.
"TO ROBERT BROWNING.
"I wish to dedicate this book to you as the representative of a class which ought to be more numerous,—the class of large-minded persons who take a lively interest in arts which are not specially their own. No one who had not carefully observed the narrowing of men's minds by specialities could believe to what a degree it goes. Instead of being open, as yours has always been, to the influences of literature, in the largest sense, as well as to the influences of the graphic arts and music, the specialized mind shuts itself up in its own pursuit so exclusively that it does not even know what is nearest to its own closed doors. We meet with scholars who take no more account of the graphic arts than if they did not exist, and with painters who never read; but what is still more surprising, is the complete indifference with which an art can be regarded by men who know and practise another not widely removed from it. One may be a painter and yet know nothing whatever about any kind of engraving; one may be a skilled engraver, and yet work in lifelong misunderstanding of the rapid arts. If the specialists who devote themselves to a single study had more of your interest in the work of others, they might find, as you have done, that the quality which may be called open-mindedness is far from being an impediment to success, even in the highest and most arduous of artistic and intellectual pursuits."
Mr. Hamerton was so adverse to puffing of any kind and to noise being made about his name, that he neglected the most honest means of having it brought forward to public notice; for instance, he had been asked in November, 1881, for notes on his life for a book to be entitled "The Victorian Era of English Literature," and had forgotten all about it. He had to be reminded in 1882 that he had promised to send the notes.
I suppose that the following letter from R. L. Stevenson must have been received about this time. It is almost impossible to ascertain, as—like the others—it bears no date.
"VILLA AM STEIN, DAVOS PLATZ, GRISONS, SWITZERLAND.
"MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON,—My conscience has long been smiting me, till it became nearly chronic. My excuses, however, are many and not pleasant. Almost immediately after I last wrote to you, I had a hemorreage (I can't spell it), was badly treated by a doctor in the country, and have been a long while picking up—still, in fact, have much to desire on that side. Next, as soon as I got here, my wife took ill; she is, I fear, seriously so; and this combination of two invalids very much depresses both.
"I have a volume of republished essays coming out with Chatto and Windus; I wish they would come, that my wife might have the reviews to divert her. Otherwise my news is nil. I am up here in a little chalet, on the borders of a pine-wood, overlooking a great part of the Davos Thai: a beautiful scene at night, with the moon upon the snowy mountains and the lights warmly shining in the village. J. A. Symonds is next door to me, just at the foot of my Hill Difficulty (this you will please regard as the House Beautiful), and his society is my great stand-by.
"Did you see I had joined the band of the rejected? 'Hardly one of us,' said my confrères at the bar.