3272. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 304–308.
Bagni di Lucca–
October 5– [1853] [1]
(We go on monday. Write to Florence for the next month.)
My dearest Mrs Martin
I am delighted to have your letter at last, and should have come upon you like a storm in a day or two, if you had’nt written, for really I began to be low in patience. Also, after having spent the summer here we were about to turn our faces to Florence again, & it was necessary to my own satisfaction to let you know of our plans for the winter. To begin with those, then,—we go to Florence, as I said, from hence, and after a week or two or three or four, as it may be .. the briefer time if we let our house, we proceed to Rome for some months. You see we must visit Rome before we go northwards .. & northwards we must go in the spring .. so that the logic of events seems to secure Rome to us this time,—otherwise I should still doubt of our going there, so often have we been on the verge, & caught back.
But let me put my heart beside yours, dearest friend, before writing a word more, to make you feel how I felt when I read your account of that dreadful situation about the mistaken medecine. How such things take away one’s breath with the suggestion of horrible possibilities! and what a positive good the bare negative of the evil must seem to be! Oh—of course, it was worse for you a thousand times than for dear Mr Martin. I am thinking of you, when I say “horrible”. It is strange that I never heard one word of this till I heard it from yourself.
Now I am going to tell you something of George because it will set him higher with you both than he stands already—only you must not refer to it either to him or to others or you will draw me into blame. You are aware of Alfred’s complicated scrape—how he is ever to get out of it, is difficult to guess. [2] Well—the other day there was a call upon him for some insurance .. I scarcely understand .. but the call for fifty pounds was imperative. George who was on the point of setting out for a holiday on the continent, gave up everything, & made over the exact sum which he had to spend & which exactly met the contingency, into Alfred’s hands. Of course it was a great sacrifice—but he simply says to me “he has changed his mind about Spa & shall remain in England.” He is not aware that I know the reason of this change of mind—and I should not, if Arabel had not told me under the injunction to secrecy– Which I obey thus, you see,—but I could’nt help telling you. He is generous as well as upright—a noble fellow though my brother, and really I am proud of him. So you think that he is looking “less young than formerly,” & that “we should all learn to hear & make such remarks with equanimity.” Now, once for all, let me tell you … confess to you .. I never, if I lived to be a hundred, should learn that learning. Death has the luminous side when we know how to look .. but the rust of time, the touch of age, is hideous & revolting to me, & I never see it, by even a line’s breadth, in the face of any I love, without pain & recoil of nature. I have a worse than womanly weakness about that class of subjects. Death is a face-to-face intimacy—age, a thickening of the mortal mask between souls– So I hate it, put it far from me. Why talk of age .. when it’s just an appearance, an accident .. when we are all young in soul & heart? We dont say, one to another, “you are freckled in the forehead today,” or “there’s a yellow shade in your complexion.” … Leave those disagreeable trifles. I, for my part, never felt younger– Did you, I wonder? To be sure, not– Also, I have a gift in my eyes, I think,—for scarcely ever does it strike me that anybody is altered .. except my child, for instance, who certainly is larger than when he was born. When I went to England after five years’ absence, everybody (save one) appeared to me younger than I was used to conceive of them, and of course I took for granted that I appeared to them in the same light. Be sure that it is highly moral to be young as long as possible. Women who throw up the game early (or even late) and wear dresses “suitable to their years,” (that is, as hideous as possible) are a disgrace to their sex,—are’nt they, now? And women & men with statistical memories who are always quoting centuries & the years thereof, (“Do you remember in ’20 ..”? As if anybody could!) are the pests of society. And, in short, & for my part, whatever honours of authorship may ever befal me, I hope I may be safe from the epithet which distinguishes the Venerable Bede. [3]
Now, if I had written this from Paris, you would have cried out upon the frivolity I had picked up– Who would imagine that I had just finished a summer of mountain solitude, succeeding a winter’s meditation on Swedenborg’s philosophy, & that such fruit was of it all?– By the way, tell me how it was that Paris did harm to Moore. [4] Mentally, was it, & morally or in the matter of the body? I have not seen the biography yet. Italy keeps us behind in new books– But the extracts given in newspapers, displease me through the ignoble tone of “doing honour to the lord” [5] which is anything but religious. Also, the letters seem somewhat less brilliant than I expected from Moore—but it must be, after all, a most entertaining book. Tell me if you have read Mrs Gaskell’s ‘Ruth’. That’s a novel which I much admire. It is strong & healthy at once, teaching a moral frightfully wanted in English society. Such an interesting letter I had from Mrs Gaskell a few days ago—simple, worthy of ‘Ruth’. By the way, ‘Ruth’ is a great advance on Mary Barton—dont you think so? “Villette,” too, (Jane Eyre’s) is very powerful.
Since we have been here we have had for a visitor (drawing the advantage from our spare room) Mr Lytton, Sir Edward’s only son, who is attaché at the Florence Legation at this time. He lost nothing from the test of house-intimacy with either of us—gained, in fact, much. Full of all sorts of good & nobleness he really is, and gifted with high faculties & given to the highest aspirations .. not vulgar ambitions, understand .. he will never be a great diplomatist, nor fancy himself an inch taller for being master of Knebworth. Then he is somewhat dreamy & unpractical, we must confess—he wont do for drawing carts under any sort of discipline.
Such a summer we have enjoyed here, free from burning heats & mosquitos, the two drawbacks of Italy, & in the heart of the most enchanting scenery .. mountains not too grand for exquisite verdure, & just kept from touching by the silver finger of a stream. I have been donkey-riding .. & so has Wiedeman– I even went (to prove to you how well I am) the great excursion to Prato Fiorito, six miles there & six miles back perpendicularly up & down. Oh—it almost slew me of course. I could not stir for days after. But who would’nt see Heaven & die? Such a vision of divine scenery .. such as, in England, the best dreamers do not dream of! As we came near home I said to Mr Lytton who was on horseback .. “I am dying. How are you?” To which he answered “I thought a quarter of an hour ago I could not keep up to the end, but now I feel better.” This from a young man, just one & twenty! He is delicate, to be sure—but still you may imagine that the day’s work was not commonly fatiguing– The guides had to lead the horses & donkies—it was like going up & down a wall, without the smoothness. No road except in the beds of torrents. Robert pretended to be not tired,—but of course (as sensible people say of the turning tables) nobody believes a word of it. It was altogether a supernatural pretension, & very impertinent in these enlightened days–
Mr & Mrs Story were of our party– He is the son of Judge Story, & full of all sorts of various talent—and she is one of those cultivated & graceful American women who take away the reproach of the national want of refinement. We have seen much of them throughout the summer– There has been a close communion of tea drinking between the houses, and as we are all going to Rome together this pleasure is not a past one–
Now I should like you to see my Wiedeman .. Penini as we call him– An impersonation of roses,—the child is—really a lovely child with his red cheeks and golden streaming curls on his shoulders. Such a happy child he has been here—he has had rabbits, & chickens, & children to play with .. and he looks radiant with his bold blue eyes, as if he were ready to venture for it that there was no touch of evil in the world. We try to make him .. that is, to encourage him, to be spontaneous– He does’nt know much what repression is—yet he is good & gentle & tender as few children are. Rather jealous I am just now of the passionate love he has given to Ferdinando our man-servant who is devoted to his pleasure in all ways. “But whom do you love best,” said I the other day– And this was the only answer I could get, enunciated very gravely—“I love evellybody, .. Ferdinando, Lily, Mama, Papa, God, and Flush.” What could one object?
The child speaks English & Italian, one as fluently as the other, & both in a childish imperfect way, of course– It has been delightful to us to watch his growth & improvement this summer—to see him grow fatter & stronger week after week. Is’nt it a blessing beyond expectation, that he should be so entirely healthy .. with great animal spirits too—nothing morbid about him. My objection to Ferdinando is that he has a gun– “Now,” said I to Penini, “if you are shot by that gun, what will happen then?”– “Why,” he answered after a moment’s thought, “I ’spose I go to God.” “And pray what shall I do?” “Oh, you tly velly mush–” (cry very much)– “Then I hope you will take care that I may not cry very much.” Ferdinando was the Peytons’ servant, bequeathed to us by the Peytons. Tell them with my best love, that we appreciate him as cook and man– He remembers them affectionately & gratefully, as the Italians are apt to do when the right string is touched.
We still point to Paris– Ah, you disapprove of Paris, I see—but we must try the experiment– What I am afraid of is simply the climate. I doubt whether I shall stand two winters running as far north as Paris, but if I cant, we must come south again. Then I love Italy– Oh, if it were not for the distance between Italy & England, we should definitively settle here at once. We shall be in England, by the way, next summer for pleasure & business, having, or about to have, two books to see through the press. [6] Not prose, Mr Martin!– I’m lost—devoted to the infernal gods of rhyming—“it’s my fate,” as a popular poet said when going to be married. [7]
My love to dear Letitia. So glad I am to hear of her being stronger– You have not told me of the Miss Commelines—how they are. <***> [8]
Publication: LEBB, II, 140–143 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Lytton’s stay with the Brownings at Bagni di Lucca.
2. Alfred was in debt; see letter 3121, note 2.
3. Bede (673–735), church historian and theologian, has been known as “the Venerable Bede” since the ninth century.
4. In order to avoid his creditors, Thomas Moore left England for the continent in early September 1819, returning two years later. He travelled in France and Italy but lived mainly close to Paris. Writing from there in March 1819, he recorded in his diary: “Not very well; this company-going hurts and wearies me” (Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, ed. Lord John Russell, 1853–56, 3, 212). The following month he continued to complain: “Days of idleness and waste. Have done nothing for weeks past, except about a dozen lines to a cavatina of Carafa’s” (p. 223).
5. Cf. Proverbs 3:9. However, EBB may have in mind a passage from Swedenborg: “Dignity and honour ought to be paid to priests on account of the sanctity of their office; but they who are wise give the honour to the Lord” (On the New Jerusalem, and Its Heavenly Doctrine, 1811, p. 244). Doubtless, the “Lord” to whom EBB refers is Lord John Russell, the editor of Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore. RB had earlier complained of the “flunkeyism” directed to Russell in reviews of the work (see letter 3167, note 19).
6. EBB’s Aurora Leigh (1857) and RB’s Men and Women (1855).
7. Unidentified.
8. Presumably, EBB wrote the end of this letter, including the close and signature, on the throat of the envelope, which is not extant.
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