3167. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 328–333.
Casa Guidi– Florence.
[ca. 10] February [1853] [1]
I had just heard of your accident [2] from Arabel, my much loved friend, & was on the point of writing to you when your letter came. To say that I was shocked & grieved to hear such news of you, is useless indeed—you will feel how I have felt about it– May God bless & restore you & make me very thankful, as certainly I must be in such a case. I have been waiting a few days for the embassy’s bag .. but it does not go, & I cant put off writing one half day more. It seems strange that I did not hear sooner of your accident. How grievous .. & when you were not strong .. only growing strong as we all hoped. I do beseech you to let me have an account of you, if you just sent me it in so many words, because I really am anxious. And I do beg you not to pay your letters. By the rational arrangements in England or here .. Heaven knows where it is .. you, in prepaying, pay more than we should do for the letter not prepaid .. therefore it’s unfair—and besides, if I were half as poor again, I should have particular pleasure in paying for your letters, especially when double. Remember it & write & dont pay. [3]
Then, as to K, .. what a combination of distresses! You never said a word to me about her being married. Were you aware at all of it yourself?– What will you do with the baby, I wonder. Two children on the hands of your goodness, may at last prove a heavy weight [4] —will they not? or is it not to be tired out?
The comfort to me in your letter is the apparent good spirits you wrote in, .. & the chearful active intentions you have of work for the delight of us all—I clap my hands, & welcome the new volumes. Dearest friend, I do wish I had heard about the French poetry in Paris, for there I could have got at books & answered some of your questions. [5] The truth is I dont know as much about French modern poetry as I ought to do in the way of metier. The French essential poetry seems to me to flow out into prose works, .. into their school of romances, .. & to be least poetical when dyked up into rhythm. Madme Valmore [6] I never read .. but she is esteemed highly I think for a certain naïveté, & happy surprises in the thought & feeling .. “des mots charmants.” [7] I wanted to get her books in Paris & missed them somehow—there was so much to think of in Paris. Alfred de Musset’s poems I read, collected in a single volume, .. it is the only edition I ever met with. [8] The French value him extremely for his music; & there is much in him otherwise to appreciate I think—very beautiful things indeed– He is best to my mind when he is most lyrical, & when he says things in a breath– His elaborate poems are defective– One or two Spanish ballads of his seem to me perfect really. [9] He has great power in the introduction of familiar & conventional images without disturbing the ideal—a good power for these days– The worst is that the moral atmosphere is bad, & that, though I am not as you know the very least bit of a prude (not enough, perhaps) some of his poems must be admitted to be most offensive. Get St Beuve’s poems [10] —they have much beauty in them you will grant at once. Then there is a Breton poet whose name Robert & I have both of us been ungrateful enough to forget .. we have turned our brains over & over & cant find the name anyhow [11] .. & who indeed deserves to be remembered .. who writes some fresh & charmingly simple idyllic poems .. one called, I think, “Primel et Nola”– By the clue you may hunt him out perhaps in the Revue des deux mondes– There’s no strong imagination, understand .. nothing of that sort!—but you have a sweet fresh cool sylvan feeling with him, rare among Frenchmen of his class. Edgar Quinet has more positive genius– He is a man of grand, extravagant conceptions– Do you know the ‘Ahasuerus’?– [12]
I wonder if the empress [13] pleases you as well as the emperor. For my part I approve altogether .. & none the less, that he has offended Austria by the mode of announcement. [14] Every cut of the whip in the face of Austria is an especial compliment to me—or, so I feel it. Let him head the democracy & do his duty to the world, & use to the utmost his great opportunities. Mr Cobden & the peace society are pleasing me infinitely just now, in making head against the immorality (that’s the word) of the English press. [15] The tone taken up towards France is immoral in the highest degree—and the invasion-cry would be idiotic if it were not something worse.–
The Empress, I heard the other day from good authority, is “charming & good at heart.” She was educated “at a respectable school at Bristol” & is very “English” [16] .. which does’nt prevent her from shooting with pistols, leaping gates, driving ‘four in hand,’ & upsetting the carriage when the frolic requires it—as brave as a lion & as true as a dog. Her complexion is like marble, white .. pale & pure—the hair light .. rather ‘sandy,’ they say, .. & she powders it with gold dust for effect—but there is less physical & more intellectual beauty than is generally attributed to her. She is a woman of “very decided opinions.” I like all that—dont you? and I liked her letter to the Prêfêt, as everybody must.– [17] Ah—if the English press were in earnest in the cause of liberty, there would be something to say for our poor trampled down Italy—much to say, I mean. Under my eyes is a people really oppressed—really groaning its heart out. But these things are spoken of with measure.
We are reading Lamartine & Proudhon on 48. [18] We have plenty of French books here—only the poets are to seek—the moderns–
Do you catch sight of Moore in diary & letters? Robert who has had glimpses of him, says the “flunkeyism” is quite humiliating. [19]
It is strange that you have not heard more of the Rapping spirits. They are worth hearing of were it only in the point of view of the physiognomy of the times .. as a sign of hallucination & credulity, if not more. Fifteen thousand persons in all ranks of society, & all degrees of education, are said to be mediums, that is, seers or rather hearers & recipients perhaps. Oh, I cant tell you all about it—but the details are most curious. I understand that Dickens has caught a wandering spirit in London & shown him up victoriously in Household Words as neither more nor less than the “cracking of toe-joints” [20] —but it is absurd to try to adapt such an explanation to cases in general. You know I am rather a visionary & inclined to knock round at all the doors of the present world to try to get out, so that I listen with interest to every goblin-story of the kind—& indeed I hear enough of them just now.
We heard nothing however from the American Minister Mr Marsh & his wife, [21] who have just come from Constantinople in consequence of the change of Presidency, [22] & who passed an evening with us a few days ago. She is pretty & interesting—a great invalid & almost blind, .. yet she has lately been to Jerusalem, & insisted on being carried to the top of mount Horeb. [23] After which I certainly should have the courage to attempt the journey myself, if we had money enough. Going to the Holy Land has been a favorite dream of Robert’s & mine ever since we were married—& some day .. you will wonder why I dont write, .. & hear suddenly that I am lost in the Desert. You will wonder too at our wandering madness, by the way, more than at any rapping spirit extant—we have “a spirit in our feet” [24] as Shelley says in his lovely eastern song—& our child is as bad as either of us. He says, “I tuite tired of Flolence. I want to go to Brome” .. which is worse than either of us. I never am tired of Florence.–
Robert has had an application from Miss Faucit (now Mrs Martin) to bring out his ‘Colombe’s Birthday’ at the Haymarket <***>
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 375–380.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Day and year provided by EBB’s reference to the Marshes having passed an evening at Casa Guidi; this occurred on 4 February 1853 (see SD1638).
2. Miss Mitford described the accident and its results to Henrietta Tindal in a letter dated 29 January 1853: “The week before Christmas, I was thrown violently out of my little pony-chaise upon the hard road, in Lady Russell’s park; no bones were broken, but I fell upon the left hip and shoulder, and the principal nerves of those joints were so much bruised and crushed that for five weeks I was obliged to have my arm bound tight to my body, and still the loss of muscular power in the lower limbs is such that I am lifted out of bed, lifted into bed, lifted up in bed—cannot turn when lying down, or stand up, or put one foot before another” (Chorley, II, 55–56).
3. Postal regulations between England and the continent were not standardised at this time, particularly between England and Italy. Postage on letters sent to Italy could be paid by the sender or the recipient, and not only did the former pay more but risked the letter going astray since there was no longer the added incentive of collecting the postage.
4. The “two children” were James Henry Taylor (see letter 2718, note 19) and Mary Mitford Sweetman, born on 2 January 1853 in Swallowfield to Sam Sweetman and his wife Kerenhappuch (née Taylor), known as “K.” The Sweetmans had married in August 1852.
5. In a 6 January 1853 letter to Charles Boner, Miss Mitford wrote: “Within this month I have had several applications from Mr. Bentley for a second series of my ‘Recollections.’ … Should I attempt another series I shall devote some chapters to French literature” (Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle, 1871, I, 244).
6. Marceline Félicité Josephe Valmore (née Desbordes, 1786–1859), French poet, novelist, short story writer, and actress. Her published poetry included Elégies, Marie, et Romances (1819), Les Pleurs (1833), and Contes et vers pour les enfants (1840).
7. “Charming words.”
8. Poésies complètes (1839); see letter 3032, note 23.
9. The ballads are from Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie (1830), which formed the first part of Poésies complètes.
10. Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–69), best known as a critic, published several volumes of poetry, including Les Consolations, Poésies (1830).
11. Julien Auguste Pélage Brizeux (1803–58), French poet, born in Brittany of Irish origin who wrote of his native region in such works as Marie (1836) and Les Bretons (1845). Primel et Nola (1852), also set in Brittany, tells the story of a wealthy young widow who offers her hand to a day labourer. He accepts but insists on earning his own wedding clothes. After several adventures, the two are married and ride off together on horseback. Brizeux had been contributing poetry to Revue des Deux Mondes since 1831. His poem “Le vieux Rob” appeared in the 1 January 1852 issue, pp. 160–163.
12. Ahasuérus (1833), an epic prose-poem by Edgar Quinet, in which the Wandering Jew represents man through the ages.
13. Marie Eugénie Ignace Augustine de Montijo de Guzman, Comtesse de Téba (1826–1920) was the daughter of Cipriano Guzman y Porto Carrero, Comte de Teba and Comte de Montijo (1784–1839) and Maria Manuela Kirkpatrick (1794–1879). She and Napoleon III were married in a civil ceremony on 29 January 1853, and in a religious service the following day in Notre Dame; soon thereafter she was declared “Impératrice.”
14. On 22 January 1853, one week before his marriage to Eugénie, Napoleon III announced the coming event from the throne room of the Palace of the Tuileries. During the course of a brief address, he made reference to the marriage in 1810 of Marie Louise, daughter of the Emperor of Austria, to Napoleon I: “It was a pledge for the future, a real satisfaction to the national pride, as the ancient and illustrious branch of the house of Austria, who had been so long at war with us, was seen to solicit the alliance of the elected chief of a new empire” (The Times, 24 January 1853, p. 5). In an editorial of 27 January, The Times felt that Austria would take issue with “solicit the alliance”: “Although the House of Austria was reduced by terrible defeats to the painful necessity of surrendering an Archduchess to be the consort of a man who had another wife still alive, the Emperor Francis certainly never coveted or aspired to that connexion as an honour, nor did the advances come from the side of his daughter” (p. 4). We have traced no diplomatic incident between France and Austria over the marriage announcement. Emperor Franz Josef sent hearty congratulations to Napoleon III, and the Austrian ambassador was present at the post-wedding ceremonies.
15. Richard Cobden had recently published a pamphlet entitled 1793 and 1853 that consisted of three letters containing his views on the belligerence of English opinion concerning France and on the unlikelihood of a French invasion. The letters were reprinted separately in The Times of 28, 29, and 31 January 1853. In the last of the three, the author wrote: “If we are so alarmed at the idea of a French invasion, which has not occurred for nearly 800 years, may we not excuse the people of France if they are not quite free from a similar apprehension, seeing that not a century has passed since the Norman conquest in which we have not paid hostile visits to her shores?” (31 January 1853, p. 2). Cobden further argued that the Peace party would “never rouse the conscience of the people, so long as they allow them to indulge the comforting delusion that they have been a peace-loving nation. We have been the most combative and aggressive community that has existed since the days of the Roman dominion. Since the revolution of 1688 we have expended more than 1,500,000,000 of money upon wars, not one of which has been upon our own shores or in defense of our hearths and homes” (p. 3).
Nearly concurrent with the appearance of Cobden’s letters, a two-day peace conference was being held at Manchester. The Times of 28, 29, and 31 January carried some of the speeches, including those of John Bright and Cobden. The latter singled out the English press for aiding in the manufacture of fear: “Look at their leading articles, look at their correspondence, look at the paragraphs that are put in, brought in from nobody knows where, for the purpose of gradually instilling into the minds of the people a dread of the French” (31 January 1853, p. 7).
16. Miss Mitford has added “Miss Rogers’s Royal Crescent .. Clifton” above the line. This information is confirmed by Joyce Cartlidge in Empress Eugénie: Her Secret Revealed (2008). On 21 May 1837, Eugénie and her sister Paca were enrolled “at a school for young ladies situated on the Royal York Crescent in Clifton, Bristol. It was run by four sisters, the Misses Rogers” (p. 22). But neither Eugénie nor Paca was happy at Clifton, and their mother withdrew them from the school in August that same year (see p. 23).
17. On 31 January 1853, the Paris correspondent of The Times reported: “You are already aware that a sum of 600,000f. has been voted by the Municipal Council of Paris for the purchase of a parure of diamonds as a present from the city to the Empress; she has, however, written a letter to the Council, thanking them very warmly for this mark of regard, but respectfully declining the rich gift, alleging that the city was already over-burdened, and that she could not think of adding to those burdens. She suggests that the sum in question would be more usefully employed in works of beneficence or applied to the foundation of some establishment for the poor and desititute” (p. 5).
18. Proudhon’s Confessions d’un révolutionnaire (1849) and Lamartine’s Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 (1849).
19. RB may have read the first of The Athenæum’s two-part review of Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore (vols. I and II, 1852), where the “flunkeyism” is mainly directed to the work’s editor, Lord John Russell: “We confess, while examining the book before us, to a sense of satisfaction in finding the friendship of the ex-Prime Minister for the poet thus usefully continued beyond the grave. Here, for nearly the first time in modern England, the aristocratic and unsightly barrier between the nobleman and the author by profession—the Minister of State and the poet—is gracefully put aside by the aristocratic hand” (18 December 1852, no. 1312, p. 1385). Peter Cunningham is given as the reviewer in the marked file copy of The Athenæum now at City University (London).
20. In “The Ghost of the Cock Lane Ghost” in the 20 November 1852 issue of Household Words (see letter 3159, note 5), the author, Henry Morley, quoted from a statement made by a Mrs. Norman Culver who had been a party to the spiritual manifestations concocted by the Fox family of Rochester, New York: “‘The raps,’ deposed Mrs. Culver, ‘are produced with the toes. All the toes are used. After nearly a week’s practice … I could produce them perfectly myself. … Catherine [Fox] told me to warm my feet, or put them in warm water, and it would then be easier work to rap; she said that she had sometimes to warm her feet three or four times in the course of an evening’” (p. 219).
21. George Perkins Marsh (1801–82), American scholar, statesman, and conservationist, was minister to Turkey 1850–53. He later served as minister to Italy from 1861 to 1882. Marsh and his wife Caroline (née Crane, 1816–1901) had spent the last several months travelling through Europe.
22. Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, had won the presidential election of 1852, defeating General Winfield Scott, who represented the incumbent party, the Whigs. The outgoing president, Millard Fillmore, had failed to win his own party’s nomination.
23. Another name for Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments; see Exodus 19 and 20. The Marshes spent four days at Mount Sinai in May 1851; see Life and Letters of George Perkins Marsh, comp. by Caroline Crane Marsh, New York, 1888, pp. 228–231.
24. Cf. Shelley, “The Indian Serenade,” line 6.
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