3039. Joseph Milsand to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 110–116.
[Dijon]
[late April 1852] [1]
Mon cher Browning
Je profite d’un beau jour et d’un bon jour où je sens en moi un agréable flux de vie, pour causer un instant avec vous. Malheureusement c’en est fait de nos causeries du mardi: [2] mais elles m’ont laissé un souvenir de satisfaction, et une amitié de plus qui de loin comme de près me réjouit l’âme. Un jour j’espère le souvenir redeviendra une vérité. En attendant j’apprends dans ma solitude à apprécier toute la valeur de ces intimités qu’on ne trouve pas dans la solitude.
Je me rappelle avoir éprouvé une sorte de dépit contre votre Thomas Campbell en voyant dans ses mémoires comment il excellait à jouir par l’espérance et le souvenir, et comment il n’éprouvait que de l’ennui devant toutes les réalités qui lui semblaient si belles de loin. [3] Grâces à Dieu, je n’en suis pas tout à fait là, je puis apprécier la santé et les amitiés au moment même où je les possède; Pourtant j’ai certainement aussi mon grain d’esprit de contradiction et ma tendance à voir surtout le beau côté de ce qui me manque. (Qui sait si ce n’est pas là le fond de notre esprit révolutionnaire à nous Français). Aussi je m’aperçois que la vie de province est excellente pour me révéler les mérites cachés de bien des choses qui me choquent à Paris. A Paris je suis tellement impatienté par les perroquets qui raisonnent mal que par moments je rêve comme l’idéal absolu un monde peuplé de ménagères et de ménagers qui ne raisonnent pas du tout, avec trois ou quatre bonnes têtes seulement, bonnes têtes et braves cœurs,—bien entendu.– C’est du radicalisme pur vous le voyez: parce qu’en marchant on peut tomber, je coupe les jambes—mais dès que j’arrive ici tout change. Ici tout dort les cerveaux dans les crânes les promeneurs dans les rues: et moi-même, après avoir suffisamment dormi et m’être suffisam[m]ent rassasié du som[m]eil d’autrui, j’arrive à comprendre un beau matin à quoi servent même les esprits qui déraisonnent.
Ne concluez pas cependant de tout cela que je suis trop condamné à jeûner. J’ai à domicile mon petit monde qui me va au mieux, et avec lequel je puis même babiller. J’ai, outre un frère, une vieille mère de 70 [4] ans qui est encore vive[,] alerte, toujours prète à s’intéresser à tout, et avec laquelle je m’entends sous tous les rapports.
Suivant toutes probabilités je m’en tiendrai au projet que j’avais à demi arrêté avant de quitter Paris. Vers le milieu de mai je compte me mettre en campagne pour visiter une partie de l’Italie, l’est surtout et les Abruzzes, [5] et les côtes de la Dalmatie. J’ai une sorte de curiosité de savant à voir quel effet reproduiront sur moi, après dix-huit ans [6] les hommes et les choses de ce pays du soleil. Quand je cherche à me rappeler mes anciennes impressions, je revois en esprit une campagne toute zébrée de couleurs vives, partout des espèces de rubans jaunes rouges et violets, partout des teintes et des formes saillantes. C’est comme une décoration de thèâtre; et je m’imagine que tout cela m’a frappé surtout parce que tout cela était net, bien résumé facile à saisir comme de grosses généralités, comme les gros axiomes de nos montagnards. [7] Nous verrons bien ce que j’en penserai sur le fait. En tout cas, tout se prépare bien pour l’expérience car cette année le printemps est magnifique et nous avons ici un parc plein de grands arbres et d’allées vertes où je puis m’imprégner tout à mon aise de notre nature à nous pour pouvoir la comparer plus tard. Du vert et puis du vert rien que des nuances voisines l’une de l’autre c’est comme une musique assoupie qui repose, mais qu’il faut écouter avec attention pour la goûter.
Hier j’ai reçu de mon vieux camarade Darley une lettre où il est question de vous. Il avait appris probablement par Miss Hamerton [8] que vous l’avez rencontrée chez Miss Fitton et que vous lui avez fait fête comme à une de mes préférées. Je suis sûr que vous lui avez fait plaisir et elle le mérite[.] Pour ma part j’ai toujours trouvé chez elle ce que je prise fort, beaucoup de droiture et de bienveillance[.]
Après tout ce n’est pas extraordinaire, que j’aie un faible pour votre race: car ce sont ce sont ceux de votre sang et votre maison qui m’ont jusqu’ici le mieux accueilli—certainement j’ai pu voir qu’en Angleterre on attachait une importance immodérée à la fortune, à l’habit etc. mais ce n’est là que le mauvais emploi d’une grande qualité. Cela veut toujours dire qu’on est capable de faire une profonde différence entre tel ou tel; et si les pauvres sires n’ont deux poids et deux mesures que pour distinguer les monseigneurs des monsieurs tout-court, d’autres savent se faire un autre tarif qui classe aussi les hommes et les choses dans leur estime, mais d’après de beaucoup meilleures données.– Mais hélas, nous sommes un peu au contraire le pays des philanthropies[,] des tolérances pour tout le monde, des pitiés en faveur de n’importe qui—en un mot du paradis pour tout venant, comme dit si bien Carlyle. [9]
“Je voy passer le mal, je voy passer le bien
sans me donner souci d’une telle aventure
après une saison vient une autre saison
et l’homme ce-pendant, n’est sinon qu’une fable” [10]
Que dites vous de ces vers de notre vieux Ronsard[?] Je les recommanderais volontiers a Sir Henry Stephens [11] qui a voulu expliquer le scepticisme français, et qui l’a expliqué par je ne sais quelles circonstances et quels accidents, sans y rien comprendre[,] ce dont je le félicite du reste.
La lettre de Darley m’apprend encore que vous aviez songé à me communiquer un No du Westminster Review où il est question de mon article sur les Quakers. [12] Voilà encore de votre part une bonne intention dont je vous remercie et dont je profiterais volontiers, si votre exemplaire était tout à fait disponible. Je pourrais en moins de huit jours le recevoir, le lire et vous le renvoyer—reste la question de l’envoi. Le plus simple serait je crois de l’envelopper d’un gros papier et de le déposer à un des bureaux secondaires du chemin de fer de Lyon. Seulement ces bureaux se trouvent fort éloignés de chez vous. Le plus rapproché est celui de la Place St Sulpice ou plutôt celui de la Cour des Messageries Nationales (rue du Bouloy 22), près du palais royal.– La course à faire depuis chez vous serait bien longue[,] aussi j’ai une sorte de scrupule à vous l’imposer. Faites en donc suivant les circonstances et les possibilités[.]
Si votre exemplaire était tout à fait disponible, et s’il vous était possible de le faire remettre sous enveloppe à un des bureaux secondaires du chemin de fer de Lyon je pourrais en moins de huit jours le recevoir[,] le lire et vous le renvoyer. Malheureusement les bureaux sont fort éloignés de chez vous, le plus rapproché est celui de la place St Sulpice, ou celui de la cour des messageries nationales (rue du Bouloy 22[).] enfin j’éprouve une sorte de scrupule à vous exprimer mon désir.–
Voilà une bien longue lettre, j’étais comme je vous l’ai dit en veine raisonneuse et j’y ai cédé avec plaisir quitte à être fort laconique une autre fois.
Voilà une bien longue lettre: j’étais comme je vous l’ai annoncé en veine de discourir, et j’y ai cédé. Quant à vous j’aime à croire que vous ne vous ferez aucun scrupule de ne me répondre qu’en deux mots, si le vent est au silence—j’aurai moi-même plus d’une fois à réclamer le même privilège car
Vous travaillez m’avez vous dit, je voudrais que l’enfantement fut déjà fait.– Je suis fort désireux de savoir et voir ce que vous publiez cela pour mille raisons et parce que vous avez fait aller ma pensée en plus d’un endroit où elle ne serait pas allée seule et parce que travailler est une bonne chose; et heureusement j’aime à croire que la veine n’est pas épuisée. Je vous avouerai que d’après mes notions antérieures j’avais toujours comme une sorte d’idée qu’un esprit en apprenant trop à voir par la reflexion les deux côtés des choses était exposé à perdre parfois cette faculté de conclure, cette prédilection ou plutôt cette propension d’un côté qui est surtout nécessaire à la poésie: mais j’imagine que j’ai vu chez vous une netteté dans les impressions et une
travaillez—annoncez moi que vous travaillez, annoncez moi que Mistress Browning travaille[.]
[Earlier Draft]
Mon cher Browning
Je profite d’un beau jour et d’un bon jour où je sens en moi un agréable flux de vie, pour causer un instant avec vous. Ce n’est pas que j’aie rien d’important à vous apprendre. Ni mes lectures ni mes aventures n’ont beaucoup renouvelé mes pensées, et j’ai même grand peur comme toujours d’avoir un esprit hautement porté à rabâcher les mêmes choses; mais j’éprouve un besoin de communication avec vous qu’il m’est agréable de satisfaire; et puis à parler franc j’aimerais à avoir de vos nouvelles.
Comment se porte Mistress Browning? Nos belles journées lui ont-elles permis de sortir? Se sent-elle assez vivante pour travailler?– C’est un grand bonheur que d’entendre tout son être an mouvement comme une machine à vapeur qui fonctionne. Quant à vous je sais que vous avez quelque chose sur le métier, et vous m’avez dit sur vos projets un ou deux mots qui piquent vivement ma curiosité. Tout va-t-il bien? C’est tout ce que je désire savoir. Quant au reste je sais qu’il faut attendre avec patience et résignation.
Quant à moi je ne travaille pas pour la simple raison que je ne le puis pas. Je suis perdu dans un océan de troubles et d’apathies—cependant je n’ai pas à me plaindre. Le soleil et
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s drafts [13] at Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.
Translation:
My dear Browning
I take advantage of a sunny day and of a good day when I sense in myself a pleasant abundance of life, to chat for a moment with you. Unfortunately, our Tuesday chats [2] have come to an end: but they have left me with memories of contentment, and with one more friendship which, whether great or small the distance, brings joy to my soul. I hope that one day, the memory will become reality again. In the meantime, I learn in my solitude to appreciate the full value of these intimacies which one does not find in solitude.
I recall having felt a kind of vexation regarding your Thomas Campbell, when I saw in his memoirs how he excelled in experiencing pleasure through hope and memory, and how he only felt boredom when confronted with the realities which seemed to him so beautiful from afar. [3] Thank God, I have not quite come to that, I can appreciate health and friendships at the very moment I possess them. However, I certainly have, also, a streak of argumentativeness, and a tendency to see mainly the positive aspects of what I am missing. (Who knows if this is not what lies at the heart of our French revolutionary spirit). Also, I realize that provincial life is excellent for showing me the hidden merits of many things I find shocking in Paris. In Paris, I grow so impatient with parrots who reason badly, that at times I dream up as an absolute ideal a world populated with housewives and housemen who do not reason at all, with three or four good brains only, good brains and good hearts,—of course.– This is pure radicalism, as you can see: because one might fall while walking, I cut off the legs—but as soon as I arrive here everything changes. Here everything lies dormant, the brains in people’s heads, the passer-by walking down the streets; and I myself, after I have sufficiently slept and sufficiently fed on others’ sleep, manage to understand, one fine morning, what purpose even badly-reasoning brains serve.
However, please do not conclude from all this that I am doomed to fasting. At home, I have a little circle that suits me perfectly, and with which I can even chatter. Besides my brother, I have my 70-year-old mother [4] who is still lively, alert, always ready to take an interest in everything, and with whom I get along in every respect.
In all probability, I shall stick to the plan that I had partly settled upon before leaving Paris. Towards the middle of May, I intend to set off to visit part of Italy, the east especially, and the Abruzzis, [5] as well as the coast of Dalmatia. I have a kind of scientist’s curiosity to see what effect the men and the things from this sunny land will have on me, eighteen years [6] after I left. When I try to recollect my former impressions, I can see in my mind the countryside with many bright-coloured stripes; yellow, red, purple kinds of ribbons everywhere, shapes and tints that stand out everywhere. It is like theatre scenery; and I figure that all this struck me essentially because it was all clear-cut, self-contained, easy to grasp, like broad generalities, like the broad axioms of our mountaineers. [7] We will see what I make of it once I am there. At any rate, everything is looking promising for this experience, for spring is magnificent this year, and we have a park here, with many tall trees and green walks where I can comfortably become imbued with our own nature, so as to be able to compare it later. Green, more green, and only hues close to one another[;] it is like a dormant music lying there, but which must be listened to attentively in order to appreciate it.
Yesterday I received from my old friend Darley a letter where you are mentioned. He had heard, probably from Miss Hamerton, [8] that you met her at Miss Fitton’s and that you gave her a warm welcome, as you would to one of my favourites. I am sure that she was pleased and she deserves it. As for me, I have always found in her what I value highly, much honesty and goodwill.
After all, it is not extraordinary that I should have a weakness for your race: for those of your blood and your house are those who have given me the best welcome so far– I have certainly noticed that in England, one attaches immoderate importance to wealth, clothes, etc. But it is only the wrong use of a great quality. It means that one is able to establish a strong difference between such and such; and if the poor sirs only have two weights and two measures to distinguish the milords from the simple misters, others know how to construct different ratings which also class men and things in their esteem, but based on much better evidence.– But alas, we on the contrary are rather the country of philanthropies, of tolerance for everyone, of pity for anyone—in a word paradise for all comers, as Carlyle says so well. [9]
“I see evil go by, I see good go by
without troubling me with such adventure
after a season comes another season
and man however is but a fable” [10]
What do you say about these lines from our old Ronsard[?] I would gladly recommend them to Sir Henry Stephens, [11] who wanted to explain French scepticism and explained it by I don’t know what circumstances and accidents, without understanding anything of it[,] for which by the way I congratulate him.
Darley’s letter tells me again that you had thought of sending me an issue of the Westminster Review which mentions my article on Quakers. [12] Here is yet another good intention on your part for which I thank you and on which I would gladly take you up, if your copy were quite available. I could receive it within a week, read it and send it back to you—there remains the matter of sending it. I think the easiest would be to wrap it in thick paper and to drop it at one of the secondary offices of the Lyons railway company. These offices are quite far from you however. The closest one is that of Place St Sulpice, or rather that of the Cour des Messageries Nationales (rue du Bouloy 22), near the palais royal. It would be quite a long errand from where you live[,] so I feel a bit awkward imposing it on you. Please do according to circumstances and possibilities[.]
If your copy were quite available, and if you were able to have it dropped in an envelope at one of the secondary offices of the Lyons railway company I could receive it within a week[,] read it and send it back to you. Unfortunately these offices are quite far from you, and the closest one is that of Place St Sulpice, or that of the Cour des Messageries Nationales (rue du Bouloy 22[).] But I feel a bit awkward telling you about my wishes.–
Here is quite a long letter—as I told you, I was in a reasoning mood, and I yielded to it with pleasure, though I may be laconic another time.
Here is quite a long letter—as I foretold, I was in a mood to discourse, and I yielded to it. As for you, I like to think that you will not have any scruples about answering me in a few words, should the wind of silence blow—I shall ask you myself more than once for the same privilege because
You told me you were working, I wish you had already given birth.– I am most eager to know and to see what you publish, for a thousand reasons and because you made my thoughts go to more than one place where they would not have gone by themselves and because working is a good thing; and luckily I like to think that the vein is not exhausted. I confess that in the notions I previously entertained there was always the idea that a mind which learned too much to see through reflection both sides of a question was sometimes prone to lose the ability to be conclusive, the predilection or rather the leaning towards one side which is above all necessary to poetry: but I imagine I saw in you a distinctness of impressions and a
working—tell me you are working, tell me that Mistress Browning is working[.]
[Earlier Draft]
My dear Browning
I take advantage of a sunny day, and a good day, when I sense in myself a pleasant abundance of life, to chat for a moment with you. Not that I have anything important to impart to you. Neither my readings nor my adventures have much renewed my thoughts and I am even very much afraid as always that my mind is highly prone to rehash the same things; but I feel a need to communicate with you, which I enjoy fulfilling; and to speak frankly I would like to have some news from you.
How is Mistress Browning? Did our sunny days enable her to go out? Does she feel lively enough to work?– It is a great joy to hear one’s whole being in motion like a functioning steam engine. As for you, I know that you have something in progress, and regarding your projects, you have told me a thing or two which strongly piqued my curiosity. Is everything going well? That is all I desire to know. As for the rest, I know it is a matter of waiting with patience and resignation.
As for me I am not working for the simple reason that I cannot. I am lost in an ocean of turmoil and apathy—I have however nothing to complain about. The sun and
1. Approximate dating based on Milsand’s reference to the middle of May, as being in the future, and “our Tuesday chats,” which were still being held as of late March 1852 (see the end of letter 2996).
2. In letter 3019, EBB told Arabella: “M. Milsand always spends tuesday evening with us.”
3. Milsand refers to Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, ed. William Beattie (3 vols., 1849), which he reviewed in an article entitled “Thomas Campbell” in the 1 September 1850 issue of Revue des Deux Mondes (pp. 761–795). His thoughts here are echoed and amplified in a passage that alludes to chapters 12 and 13, from volume one of Life and Letters, which are mainly concerned with Campbell’s stay in Germany, 1800–01. Milsand writes that the poet’s letters were filled with “his disappointments, and his hopes; they show him as we had already seen him: dreaming a lot, little concerned about the need to get to the reality of things, strongly inclined, on the contrary, to as much idealizing as possible” (p. 776). Campbell is bored at being trapped in Ratisbon because of the war and afterwards spends the winter in Altona, where, Milsand remarks, “he continues a life of hallucinations, desires and regrets. Curiously, in writing to his friends, he never says a word about the Germans who are right before his eyes … his thoughts are all for Hungary which he flatters himself to visit, for the great memories attached to places that he must see, for the associations of ideas that they cannot fail to arouse in him” (p. 776).
4. Claire Hélène Milsand (née Gillotte, 1781–1864). Milsand’s only sibling was Charles Philibert Milsand (1818–92).
5. The Abruzzis, running between the Tronto and Sangro rivers in central Italy, are the highest ranges in the Apennines.
6. Milsand should have written “treize ans” (“thirteen years”). He made his first trip to Italy at the end of 1838 and returned to France in 1839 (see vol. 17, p. 252).
7. It is possible that Milsand is being literal here, but he may have in mind the members of the radical political party known as La Montagne (The Mountain), which had come to prominence in the latter days of the French Revolution. At the time of the revolution of 1848, a new radical party adopted the name and several of its members were elected deputies in the Assembly. In the days following the December 2nd coup d’état, the Montagnards led uprisings in the rural areas of France, but they were quickly supressed.
8. Maria Hamerton (d. 1865), living in Paris, was a daughter of Edward Hamerton, clerk of ships’ entries at Dublin for 50 years, and his wife Elizabeth (née Atkins). Maria and her older sister Elizabeth (“Bess”) were close friends of Milsand and William Henry Darley and were part of a circle that revolved around William Makepeace Thackeray’s mother, Mrs. Carmichael-Smyth.
9. In Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850) Carlyle warned of the consequences of a growing tolerance for sluggards and scoundrels: “Dim oblivion of Right and Wrong, among the masses of your population, will come; doubts as to Right and Wrong, indistinct notion that Right and Wrong are not eternal, but accidental … will come. Prurient influenza of Platform Benevolence, and ‘Paradise to All-and-sundry,’ will come. … A strange new religion, named of Universal Love, with Sacraments mainly of Divorce, with Balzac, Sue and Company for Evangelists, and Madame Sand for Virgin, will come” (p. 96). This passage, translated into French, was included in Milsand’s review of Latter-Day Pamphlets that appeared in the 15 June 1850 issue of Revue des Deux Mondes (pp. 1083–1111).
10. Lines 3–4 and 13–14 from a sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85) entitled “A Loys de Bourbon: Prince de Condé” (1578), as collected in Œuvres Complètes de Ronsard Texte de 1578, ed. Hugues Vaganay, 1923, 2, 351.
11. Milsand must have in mind Sir James Stephen (1789–1859), former under-secretary of the Colonial Office (1836–1847), currently Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, and father of Leslie Stephen, first editor of the DNB. In 1851 he published his Lectures on the History of France, which contained a passage on French scepticism: “That scepticism has long been among the natural characteristics of Frenchmen, I infer, not merely from the general tone of so much of their literature, but also from that peculiarity of it which French critics make their boast. It bears, as they very truly say, constant witness to the national passion for abstract ideas. That passion, indeed, animates not their books only, but their discourses in the senate, in the pulpit, and at the bar. It takes possession of their clubs, and even of their private society” (II, 273). Stephen’s book was reviewed in The Athenæum of 22 November 1851, and the foregoing passage was included in a lengthy extract as an example of “the very readable and ‘interesting’ character” of the lectures (no. 1256, p. 1222). It seems likely that both Browning and Milsand read the review and discussed it at some point after their first meeting about two weeks later.
12. Milsand’s two-part essay, “Les Quakers,” had appeared in the 1 and 15 April 1850 issues of Revue des Deux Mondes (pp. 87–113 and 241–272). An article in The Westminster Review for April 1852, entitled “The Early Quakers, and Quakerism” (pp. 593–624), contained notices of various works on the Quakers, including Milsand’s essay. Although ultimately disappointed with its conclusions, the reviewer, William Edward Forster (1818–86), as attributed in The Wellesley Index, thought “Les Quakers” was “composed with care and expressed with vigour” (p. 596). He also felt it “marvellous” that a Frenchman could “show a knowledge of the real life as well as of the apparent peculiarities and mere outward history of this sect—so little understood, or rather so generally misunderstood” (p. 596).
13. In transcribing this letter, the editors have supplied missing accents, hyphens, and apostrophes.
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