2669. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 173–176.
Florence–
April 24– [1847] [1]
I received your letter my dearest friend by this days post, & wrote a little note directly to the office, as a trap for the feet of your travellers. If they escape us after all, therefore, they may praise their stars for it, rather than my intentions … our intentions, I should say, for Robert will gladly do everything he can, in the way of expounding a text or two of the glories of Florence, & we both shall be much pleased & cordially pleased to learn more of Fanny & her brother than the glance, at Pisa, could teach us– As for me, she will let me have a little talking for my share—— I cant walk about or see anything .. I lie here flat on the sofa in order to be wise, .. I rest & take port wine by wineglasses; and a few more days of it will prepare me I hope & trust, for an interview with the Venus de’ Medici. [2] Think of my having been in Florence since tuesday, this being saturday, and not a step taken into the galleries!—— It seems a disgrace .. a sort of involuntary disgraceful act, or rather no-act, .. which to complain of, relieves one to some degree! And how kind of you to wish to hear from me of myself! There is nothing really much the matter with me—I am just weak—sleeping & eating dreadfully well considering that Florence is’nt seen yet, .. & “looking well” too, says Mrs Jameson, who, with her niece, is our guest just now—. It would have been wise if I had rested longer at Pisa—but you see, there was a long engagement to meet Mrs Jameson here, & she expressed a very kind unwillingness to leave Italy without keeping it—also she had resolved to come out of her way on purpose for this, and as I had the consent of my physician, we determined to perform our part of the compact,—and in order to prepare for the longer journey, I went out in the carriage a little too soon perhaps & a little too long. At least, if I had kept quite still I should have been strong by this time!—not that I have done myself harm in the serious sense, observe—and now the affair is accomplished, I shall be wonderfully discreet & selfdenying, & resist Venuses & Apollos like someone wiser than the gods themselves. My chest is very well .. there has been no symptom of evil in that quarter—& Dr Cook thought that I should be the better for what has happened, in the result of all: it is only the broken sort of feeling, which means nothing—you are not to fancy me unwell otherwise than must of necessity be– We took the whole coupé of the diligence, (but regretted our first plan of the vettura nevertheless)—and now are settled in very comfortable rooms in the “Via delle Belle Donne” just out of the Piazza Santa Maria Novella .. very superior rooms to our apartment in Pisa, in which we were cheated to the uttermost with all the subtlety of Italy & to the full extent of our ignorance—think what that must have been!—— Our present apartment, with the hire of a grand piano & music, does not cost us so much, within ever so many francesconi!– [3] Oh, and you dont frighten me though we are on the north side of the Arno! We have taken our rooms for two months & may be here longer; & the fear of the heat was stronger with me than the fear of the cold—or we might have been in the Pitti & “arrostiti” [4] by this time. We expected dear Mrs Jameson on saturday,—but she came on friday evening, having suddenly remembered that it was Shakespeare’s birthday, & bringing with her from Arezzo a bottle of wine to “drink to his memory with two other poets”—so there was a great deal of merriment as you may fancy, & <Robert played Shakespeare’s favorite air, the “Light of Love”, and> [5] everybody was delighted to meet everybody, & Roman news & Pisan dulness were properly discussed on every side. She saw a good deal of Cobden in Rome, & went with him to the Sistine chapel. He has no feeling for art, & being very true & earnest, could only do his best to try to admire Michael Angelo: but here & there where he understood, the pleasure was expressed with a blunt characteristic simplicity– Standing before the statue of Demosthenes, he said .. “That man is persuaded himself of what he speaks & will therefore persuade others”. [6] She liked him exceedingly. For my part I should join in more admiration if it were not for his having accepted money—but paid patriots are no heroes of mine—“Verily they have their reward”. [7] O’Connell had arrived in Rome, & it was considered that he came only to die. Among the artists, Gibson & Wyatt are doing great things [8] —she wishes us to know Gibson particularly. As to the Pope he lives in an atmosphere of love & admiration—and “he is doing what he can,” Mrs Jameson believes. Robert says .. “A dreadful situation after all, for a man of understanding & honesty! I pity him from my soul, .. for he can, at best, only temporize with truth”. But Human Nature is doomed to pay a high price for its opportunities. Delighted I am to have your good account of dear Mr Martin, though you are naughty people to persist in going to England so soon. Do write to me & tell me all about both of you. I will do what I can, like the Pope—but what can I do? Yes indeed,—I mean to enjoy Art & Nature, too .. one shall not exclude the other– This Florence seems divine as we passed the bridges .. and my husband who knows everything, is to teach & show me all the great wonders, so that I am reasonably impatient to try my advantages. His kind regards to you both & my best love, dearest friends!– Dearest Mrs Martin, the Hedleys may be in Paris perhaps—but I told you my news, which fluctuates with the uncertainty of their plans– The great news now is that Arlette Butler is to be married directly to a Capt Reynolds. [9] Approved of by the authorities. Write to me, do, soon, & let it be to Poste Restante, Florence.
Your very affecte
Ba.
Address, on integral page: À Madame / Mdme Martin, / Poste Restante, / Dieppe, / France.
Publication: LEBB, I, 325–328 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark and by the Brownings’ removal from Pisa to Florence in April 1847.
2. This famous statue, discovered at Hadrian’s Villa about 1580, and attributed to Cleomenes, was taken to Florence during the reign of Cosimo III. It has been in the Uffizi since 1680.
3. According to Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy (1843), “the Tuscan francescone [a silver coin], which is also a piece of 10 pauls, is equal to 10¼ Roman pauls, or 4s. 5½d. English” (p. 3).
4. “Roasted.”
5. The bracketed portion has been squeezed in as an afterthought. The 16th-century melody, “Light o’ Love,” is said to have been Shakespeare’s favourite tune. EBB’s source for this tradition was Charles Knight’s The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare (1839–42), vol. 8, p. 142.
6. In the entry for 22 February in the diary of his visit to the continent from 5 August 1846 until 11 October 1847, Cobden records that he “went with Mrs. Jameson to the Vatican … the Braccio Nuovo contains a statue of Demosthenes in an attitude most earnest; there is no appearance of effort or art in the figure, and yet it is endowed with earnest and sincere expression which an actor would seek to imitate. The countenance expresses a total forgetfulness of self and everything but the subject on which the mind of the orator is intent. … the artist knew where the secret of oratory lies, and I can fancy that Demosthenes himself might have been the instructor of the sculptor on this point” (John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden, 1881, I, 432–433). In a description of Mrs. Jameson’s salon in Rome, her niece notes that “Mr. and Mrs. Cobden—English of the English in strong contrast to the brilliant and sentimental Germans—were very constant during their stay in Rome” (Gerardine Macpherson, Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson, 1878, p. 240).
7. Cf. Matthew 6:2. EBB’s comments refer to Cobden’s acceptance of a subscription of £80,000 which had been raised two years earlier when, according to the DNB, “his public labours had been disastrous to his private fortunes.” The subscription “was collected in commemoration of his services to a great cause.”
8. John Gibson (1790–1866) and Richard James Wyatt (1795–1850) were English sculptors. Gibson had studied with Flaxman and others, and they were fellow students of Canova in Rome.
9. EBB’s cousin Charlotte Mary (“Arlette”) Butler (1825–88) married army Captain Charles William Reynolds (1813–85) on 24 June 1847 at St. George’s, Hanover Square.
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