1808. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 11–13.
[London]
Monday. [6 January 1845] [1]
My dearest Mrs Martin,
I have not got the Seraphim volume yet [2] —my Seraphim fly away from me. Papa promises to investigate the matter for me,—& if it is possible to procure a copy, I promise to send it to you: otherwise, you shall have one from the next edition. In the meantime I do trust that you are forgetting the ‘inferno’ of London, in a new & clear atmosphere; & that your cold & the miseries associated with it, have grown to be matters of memory– I dont ask about Mr Martin, as he has kept his word of growing young again,—& indeed he cd scarcely improve upon my last edition of the sight & hearing of him. After all however, I may pay him & you as many compliments as I please, .. but I never shall attain to persuading you into paying us any. I know that you have been abusing us most luxuriously, ever since you saw us in our fog .. or did not see us. Such weather it was, to be sure! such weather! How can I soonest assure you of the fact that we dont commonly live in such a fog,—& that ever since you went away it has been much more tolerable .. without disqualifying myself for a civil-speaker by saying so?–
Have you read Mr Serjeant Talfourd’s ‘Rambles & thoughts’? [3] With some wordiness, & faults of taste otherwise, it is a very pleasant book & has set me on the desire of climbing to the top of Mont Blanc. [4] Do you think it a suitable attempt for me? Perhaps almost as suitable for me as for the learned serjeant. Read the book .. if you can. It improves as you read.
I have horrid conceit enough, absolutely to inclose for you to read, this letter, I had from Miss Martineau on new year’s day. [5] Try to believe so much of my modesty, that I would’nt show it to my friends in general,—though I do let you see it, from the idea that you will be interested by the tone & spirit of all the latter part, & of what is said of mesmerism in particular. The kindness to me is an exaggeration expressive of her warmth of character,—& simply refers to the few notes & letters which were my gratitude for her previous benefactions,—& to my late poems, which were wonderfully happy in pleasing her. She read them when she was being mesmerized,—& I believe they caught some supernatural advantage by it, .. & that she saw me, as well as her mesmerizer, with a halo round my head. So all that part, you are to forgive me for showing to you, & go on to the rest which is interesting for its own sake.
And we have had two letters since we saw you, from Alexandria—not from our idle Ægyptians, who forgot their father’s house through two posts, but from Captain Hood, who describes the “young gentlemen” as “quite well, & impatient for the road”—the correspondence relating to beans .. without Pythagoras [6] —in its remaining parts.
Tell Mr Martin that Sydney Smith’s last (I hope not his very last, though he is said to be very ill) calls the Bishop of Exeter, Exeter-Change! [7] Not bad—is it?
But the only news I care for, is, that Tennyson is to have a pension from government of a hundred a year. [8] I am very glad of that.
George, we have heard from once since he went on circuit, & then he told us that he was going to the Peytons for a few days, & shd not be with us until tuesday, tomorrow.
Take care of the enclosure,—but I am not in a hurry for its return to me. May God bless both of you.
With my love to dear Mr Martin,
I ever remain
Your affectionate
Ba.
Oh—I forgot. Mary Minto told me a good deal of Agatha Stopperforth—(or what is the strange name?) & sent me some of her verses. [9] What I heard of her made me feel a good deal of interest in her—& I wished to ask you ...... what I cannot even write of now.
<Written in the dark—but not fog-darkness.> [10]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The only Monday after 1 January (the date she received Miss Martineau’s letter) and prior to 11 January (the date of EBB’s next letter to Mrs. Martin).
2. This is possibly the presentation copy identified in Reconstruction, C165.
3. Vacation Rambles and Thoughts (1845) by Thomas Noon Talfourd.
4. Talfourd describes his travels in this region in chapters 4, 5, and 6 of his book.
6. An allusion to Pythagoras forbidding “his disciples to eat … beans, because he supposed them to have been produced from the same putrefied matter from which, at the creation of the world, man was formed” (Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary).
7. The reference is to the standing charge made against Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, of having changed his opinions in order to gain preferment; and to the public hall in the Strand referred to as “Exeter ’Change,” although the building of that name had been demolished in 1830 and replaced by “Exeter Hall.” We have been unable to verify this anecdote attributed to Sydney Smith; he died 22 February 1845.
8. See previous letter, note 4.
9. Perhaps Agatha Stolterforth whose poem, “To A[lfred]. T[ennyson]. On Hearing Him Express His Perfect Content With This World and His Unwillingness Ever to Leave It” appeared in The Metropolitan Magazine, April 1843 (vol. xxxvi, no. cxlvi, p. 406).
10. Written, and circled, at the top of page one.
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