1905. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 197–199.
[London]
April [sic, for May] 3. 1845. [1]
My dearest Mrs Martin, I wrote to you not many days ago, but I must tell you that our voyagers are safe in Sandgate Creek in ‘an ugly hulk,’ (as poor Stormie says despondingly) suffering three or four days of quarantine agony, and that we expect to see them on monday or tuesday in the full bloom of their ill-humour. I am happy to think, according to the present symptoms, that the mania for sea voyages is considerably abated. ‘Nothing could be more miserable,’ exclaims Storm—“the only comfort of the whole four months is the safety of the beans, .. tell Papa.”—and the safety of the beans is rather a Pythagorœan equivalent for four months’ vexation, [2] —though not a bean of them all shd have lost in freshness & value! He could scarcely write, he said, for the chilblains on his hands, & was in utter destitution of shirts & sheets. Oh! I have very good hopes that for the future, Wimpole Street may be found endurable!
Well—and you are at once angry & satisfied I suppose, about Maynooth,—just as I am! satisfied with the justice as far as it goes, & angry & disgusted at the hideous shrieks of intolerance & bigotry which run through the country. The dissenters have very nearly disgusted me,—what with the Education clamour, & the Presbyterian Chapel cry, & now this Maynooth cry [3] —and certainly it is wonderful how people can see rights as rights in their own hands, and as wrongs in the hands of their opposite neighbours. Moreover it seems to me atrocious that we who insist on seven millions of Catholics supporting a church they call heretical, should dare to talk of our scruples (conscientious scruples forsooth!) about assisting with a poor pittance of very insufficient charity, their ‘damnable idolatry’. Why every cry of complaint we utter, is an argument against the wrong we have been committing for years & years,—& must be so interpreted by every honest & disinterested thinker in the world. Of course I shd prefer the Irish establishment coming down, to any endowment at all, .. I shd prefer a trial of the voluntary system throughout Ireland: but as it is adjudged on all hands impossible to attempt this in the actual state of parties & countries, why this Maynooth grant & subsequent endowment of the Catholic church in Ireland seem the simple alternative, obviously & on the first principles of justice. Macauley was very great—was he not? [4] He appeared to me conclusive in logic & sentiment. The sensation everywhere is extraordinary, .. I am sorry really to say! Wordsworth is in London—having been commanded up to the queen’s ball. He went in Rogers’s court dress—or did I tell you so the other day?– And I hear that the fair Majesty of England was quite “fluttered” at seeing him. “She had not a word to say,”—said Mrs Jameson, who came to see me the other day & complained of the omission as “unqueenly”—but I disagreed with her & thought the being “fluttered” far the highest compliment. But she told me that a short time ago the queen confessed she never had read Wordsworth—on which a maid of honour observed—“That is a pity: he would do your Majesty a great deal of good.” Mrs Jameson declared that Miss Murray, a maid of honour, very deeply attached to the queen, assured her (Mrs J) of the answer being quite as abrupt as that,—as direct, & to the purpose,—& no offence intended or received. I like Mrs Jameson better the more I see her—and with grateful reason, she is so kind. Now do write directly, & let me hear of y<ou in d>etail. And tell Mr Martin to make a point of coming home to us, with no grievances but political ones. The Bazaar is to be something sublime in its degree [5] —& I shall have a sackcloth feeling all next week. All the rail carriages will be wound up to radiate into it, I hear—& the whole country is to be shot into the heart of London.
May God bless you–
Your ever affecte
Ba.
I hear that Guizot suffers intensely & that there are fears lest he may sink. Not that the complaint is mortal. [6]
Address: À Madame / Madame Martin / Poste Restante / Pau / Basses Pyrenées / France / May 3.
Publication: LEBB, I, 251–253 (as 3 April 1845).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. EBB has provided the correct month on the envelope.
2. See letter 1808, note 6.
3. See letter 1903, note 9.
4. Macaulay made a speech in Parliament on 14 April 1845 (published in The Times the following day) which, in summary, gave support to the bill because he said it seemed “likely to promote the real union of Great Britain and Ireland.”
5. See letter 1819, note 9.
6. The Times for 29 April 1845 contained a report from Le Constitutionnel that François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787–1874), French historian, orator, and statesman, had obtained a leave of absence for one month to enable him to regain his health.
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