Correspondence

3042.  EBB to Julia Martin

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 128–129.

[Paris]

[21 May 1852] [1]

Dearest Mrs Martin, when you hear the history of all our disasters you will acquit us of any neglect of you. Otherwise what can you think?

We were going to you on wednesday at the hour you mentioned, .. it was our full intention .. when I was taken so really ill, with cold shiverings and hot headache, (from having made an imprudent exertion in the morning) that between me, and a domestic crisis which forced Robert to go to the police, [2] it became impossible even for him to pay you his visit alone. Yesterday at three [was] the engagement to Ary Scheffer’s, [3] which I mentioned to you. We were to have got away at five .. and it was past six before there was a possibility of being free. Then we looked in one another’s faces, blankly enough– Wilson told me however that you were intending to stay till saturday certainly, and I remembering that you had friends, or a friend, with you, would not intrude on you last night as half I felt impelled to do. Robert & I had determined to take our chance & set out to see you this morning directly after breakfast– So we shall follow this note– Dont think we have hearts of stone—that’s all–

So vexed I was to have missed you yesterday– Yes, yes—do come tonight–

Your affectionate Ba ever

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Dated by EBB’s mention of the “engagement to Ary Scheffer’s” being the day before; i.e., Thursday, 20 May 1852, as explained in letter 3044.

2. We have been unable to determine the nature of the “domestic crisis.”

3. Ary Scheffer (1795–1858), Dutch painter of devotional and classical subjects, was a friend of Félicie de Fauveau (1801–1886), with whom the Brownings were acquainted in Florence. According to Thomas Armstrong, an Englishman studying art in Paris, “socially Scheffer held a very important position, and had a detached house in a garden in the Rue Chaptal. … [The] atelier was beautifully furnished … with interesting works of art on the walls, and something very like a little chapel, … [where] musical parties were given, in which the most famous singers and instrumentalists of the day used to take part” (Thomas Armstrong, C.B., A Memoir, ed. L.M. Lamont, 1912, pp. 4–5).

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