Correspondence

2815.  EBB & RB to Anna Brownell Jameson

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 7–10.

October 1. [1849] [1]

There seems to be a fatality about our letters, dearest friend, only the worst fate comes to me! I lose, & you are near losing! And I should not have liked you to lose any least proof of my thinking of you, lest a worse loss should happen to me as a consequence .. even worse than the loss of your letters, .. for then, perhaps, & by degrees, you might leave off thinking of Robert & me, .. which rich as we are in this mortal world, I do assure you we could neither of us afford. We saw in Galignani, what we took to be the announcement of dear Gerardine’s marriage. [2] Took to be! Do you know we have been quite in a puzzle about her name. When we were all together, we had it in our heads somehow that she was Miss Jameson—and surely I directed a letter once to her just so. Well, Father Prout insisted that we were wrong on that point, & we yielded with a sort of remorse for our stupidity. Then came Galignani, with Louisa Bate! .. so that our Gerardine seemed to vanish away to the last letter of her; & if it had’nt been for “Ealing,” we should have called “Robert Macpherson” a traitor and false-doer towards his liege-lady, rather than have accepted the alternative. Tell us– Is Gerardine a pet-name only? Oh, how earnestly I wish her to be happy, dear Gerardine! I wish it once for her, & twice for you, knowing how close her happiness is to yours. And I do intensely feel the truth of your observation that we walk more steadily & courageously in a path chosen by ourselves let it lie ever so in the wilderness, than in the smoothest gravel-walk prepared for us by others. And this, because we are made to be free in our affections & their choice– May your Gerardine justify her’s even in your eyes. It will be strange to us to see her in her new condition, and delightful to see her at all—and I do hope she wont pass through Florence so early in October as to miss us—it wd not be easy to comfort me for that. We are still, you observe, at the Baths of Lucca, having our apartment here till quite the end of October .. diningroom & sitting room, five bedrooms, & a kitchen & servants’ dining room, in an excellent situation, at fourteen shillings a week. We have grown wise in œconomy, or rather in a comprehension of the cheapnesses of the country, and live now, with three servants & our child, much more luxuriously & yet less expensively than we did when you knew us,—& we were only ourselves & Wilson– Gerardine will do admirably even at Rome, I dare say– How I do long to see her. And Mr Macpherson too! he has received a high compliment in the matter of his marriage, and I, for one, shall look at him a little curiously. Gerardine will be sure to draw you to Italy next year, and therefore I need’nt remind you that you have promised to come. I am half disappointed as it is, that you dont come this year– I had taken it into my imagination that you would travel southwards with her, & see her established in her Roman home with your own eyes. But no—you dont seem to think of it. How pleasant it would have been!– You might have given us a few weeks at Florence, & then have caught at Rome: & you stay knee-deep in muddy England instead. (I may call England “muddy”, in the winter, & yet keep my patriotism.) We have promised to go there in the spring, & shall certainly if we are not prevented:—only we are always prevented somehow– Something always pulls us or pushes us, when we think of England. I long to see my sisters, & such dear friends as have not Gerardines to draw them to Italy. At the same time there will be much of melancholy in our visit to England, whenever it comes. Some on my side, .. while as to poor Robert, I shall dread his having to return to his old home, .. I am afraid even to think of it– He is much better, looking better, talking better, but still not free from sudden depressions of spirits—oh, far from the top of his old constitutional gaiety– Still, the improvement is satisfactory—there is something very soothing in these grand influences of nature, and he has been more soothed by them & profited, than he could have been by greater variety & distraction. We have had much quiet enjoyment here in spite of everything, read some amusing books, (Dumas & Sue!—shake your head!) & seen our child grow fuller of roses & understanding day by day. Before he was six months old, he wd stretch out his hands & his feet too, when bidden to do so, .. and his little mouth, to kiss you– This is said to be a miracle of forwardness, among the learned. He knows Robert & me quite well, as ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’, & laughs for joy when he meets us out of doors– Robert is very fond of him, and threw me into a fit of hilarity the other day, by springing away from his newspapers in an indignation against me because he hit his head against the floor, rolling over & over .. “Oh Ba, I really cant trust you!” Down Robert was on the carpet in a moment, to protect the precious head– He takes it to be made of Venetian glass, I am certain.

We may leave this place much sooner than the end of October, as everything depends on the coming in of the cold. It will be the end of October, wont it?, before Gerardine can reach Florence? I wish I knew. We have made an excursion into the mountains, five miles deep, with all our household, Baby & all, on horseback & donkeyback, & people open their eyes at our having performed such an exploit—I and the child– Because it is five miles straight up the Duomo .. you wonder how any horse could keep its footing, the way is so precipitous,—up the exhausted torrent-courses, & with a palm’s breadth between you & the headlong ravines– Such scenery! Such a congregation of mountains,—looking alive in the stormy light we saw them by. We dined with the goats—and Baby lay on my shawl rolling & laughing! He was’nt in the least tired, not he! I wont say so much for myself. The Mr Stewart [3] who lectured here on Shakespeare .. (I think I told you that) could’nt get through a lecture without quoting you, & wound up by a declaration that no English critic had done so much for the divine poet as a woman .. Mrs Jameson. He appears to be a cultivated & refined person, & especially versed in German criticism, [4]  .. and we mean to use his society a little when we return to Florence where he resides– Now, let me remember to tell you, that we met, in a cross-morning visit, the other morning, one of the Miss Herberts [5] who professed to be “furious” with you for not having written—but Geddie will make your peace, I dare say, if you shd care for the making. What am I to say about Robert’s idleness & mine– I scold him about it in a most anti-conjugal manner—but, you know, his spirits & nerves have been shaken of late– We must have patience. As for me, I am much better, .. & do something, really, now & then. Wait,—and you shall have us both on you too soon perhaps! May God bless you. How are your friends? Lady Byron .. Mdme de Goethe? The dreadful cholera has made me anxious about England–

Your ever affectionate Ba.

Direct to Florence—because we may return any day. Gerardine will find us at Palazzo Guidi .. near the Pitti.

Wilson was gratified by your remembrance. She is as good as ever.

[Continued by RB]

Dear Aunt Nina– Ba will have told you everything—& how we wish you & Geddie all manner of happiness. I hope we shall be in Florence when she passes thro’ it—the place is otherwise distasteful to me with its creeping curs and the floggers of the same. But the weather is breaking up here, and I suppose we ought to go back soon. Shall you indeed come to Italy next year? That will indeed be pleasant to expect. We hope to go to England in the Spring. What comes of “hoping,” however, we <know> by this time.

Ever yours affectionately,

RB

Address, on integral page, in EBB’s hand: Mrs Jameson / Ealing.

Publication: LEBB, I, 421–423 (in part).

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Year provided by postmark.

2. We have been unable to trace this announcement in Galignani’s Messenger; however, her marriage was announced in The Times of 6 September 1849: “On Tuesday, the 4th inst., at the Catholic Chapel, Isleworth, and subsequently at the parish church, Ealing, Robert T. Macpherson, Esq., of Rome, to Louisa Gerardine, eldest daughter of Henry Bate, Esq., of Broomfield-place, Ealing” (p. 7).

3. Sic, for Stuart; see letter 2807, note 8.

4. Stuart had earned a degree at the University of Göttingen, where he was taught by the brothers Grimm (Giacomo Montgomery Stuart, Florence, 1889, p. 7).

5. One of Sir Charles Lyon Herbert’s three daughters: Elizabeth (b. 1813), Mary (b. 1814), and Fanny Castleman (b. 1817). His wife Anne (née Jeffreys, 1785–1860) “had been a girlhood friend of Mrs. Murphy [Mrs. Jameson’s mother]” (Clara Thomas, Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Brownell Jameson, 1967, p. 172).

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