1141. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 309–311.
[London]
Jan– 30. 1843.
My dearest Mrs Martin,
Thank you for your letter & for dear Mr Martin’s thoughts of writing one! Ah! I thought he wd not write—but not for the reason you say—it was something more palpable & less romantic! Well—I will not grumble any more about not having my letter since you are coming, .. & since you seem, my dear Mrs Martin, something in better spirits than your note from Southampton bore token of. Madeira is the promised land you know,—& you shd hope hopefully for your invalid from his pilgrimage there. You shd hope with those who hope my dearest Mrs Martin. I am very glad you saw dear Bummy & considered her to be cheerful & in good looks,—& when you pass her again you must let me reckon a smile more in my fancy’s picture of her, made by the pleasure of seeing you a second time. For my own particular part, it wd please me very well if she resolved on residing altogether at Cheltenham. But no—she wont. Frocester holds her by the hand of the heart.
Yes! The charade at Mrs Robert Martin’s [1] is said to be absolutely successful—& I am sure I may answer for the Playbill which was the only part of it I had any access to, & which in pica & playfulness seemed to me excellent in its way–
Our ‘event’ just now, is a new purchase of a ‘Holy family’ supposed to be by Andrea del Sarto. It has displaced the Glover over the chimneypiece in the drawing-room [2] —& dear Stormie & Alfred nearly broke their backs in carrying it up stairs for me to see before the placing—it is probably a fine picture—& I seem to see my way through the dark of my ignorance, to admire the grouping & colouring, whatever doubt as to the expression & divinity may occur otherwise. Well! you will judge. I wont tell you how I think of it. And you wont care if I ‘do’– There is also a new very pretty landscape piece—and you may imagine the local politics of the arrangement & hanging, with their talk & consultation—— while I, on the story higher, have my arranging to manage of my pretty new table & my three hyacinths, & a pot of primroses which dear Mr Kenyon had the good nature to carry himself through the streets to our door– But all the flowers forswear me—& die either suddenly or gradually as soon as they become aware of the want of fresh air & light in my room. Talking of air & light, what exquisite weather this is! What a summer in winter! It is the fourth day since I have had the fire wrung from me by the heat of temperature, & I sit here very warm indeed notwithstanding that bare grate. Nay,—yesterday I had the door thrown open for above an hour, & was warm still! You need not ask, you see, how I am.
Tell me, have you read Mr Dickens’ America; & what is your thought of it like? If I were an American, it wd make me rabid—& certain of the free citizens are furious I understand, while others “speak peace & ensue it”, [3] .. admire as much of the book as deserves any sort of admiration, & attribute the blameable parts to the prejudices of the party with whom the writer “fell in” & not the want of honesty or brotherhood in his own intentions. I admire Mr Dickens as an imaginative writer, & I love the Americans– I cannot possibly admire or love this book. Does Mr Martin? do you?
Henrietta wd send her love to you if I cd hear her voice nearer than I do actually, .. as she sings to the guitar down stairs– And her love is not the only one to be sent– Give mine to dear Mr Martin though he cdnt make up his mind to the bore of writing to me .. & remember us all, both of you as we do you!–
Dearest Mrs Martin
your affectionate Ba–
Publication: LEBB, I, 121–122 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. We have not been able to establish Mrs. Robert Martin’s relationship to Julia Martin.
2. In a list of Edward Moulton-Barrett’s pictures compiled in 1853 (see Reconstruction, L182), “The Holy Family” is ascribed to Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448–94). A landscape by John Glover (1767–1849), one of the founders of the Society of British Artists, is included in the pictures in the Back Drawing-Room.
3. Cf. I Peter, 3:11. See letter 1059, note 8 for a comment on the reception accorded Dickens’s book.
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