2624. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 22–29.
Pisa– Hotel Peverada
Tre Donzilla [1]
[16–19 October 1846] [2]
Ever my beloved Arabel–
It is your turn, I think, to be written to, but I owe the best gratitude I have to give, to both of you .. to my dearest Henrietta as to yourself, .. for the happiness of hearing from you on the second day of our arrival at our great journey’s end. Oh, if you think that ever I cease to think of you for one hour of the whole twenty four (except when I am fairly asleep you know, without dreaming) you mistake me altogether, as others have done from whom I might have hoped a truer comprehension. But surely you know & feel that I think of you, yes, & miss you, yes, & long for you & love you & pray for you my very dearest ones, & thank you from my heart for every thought of kindness you give me now that I am away from you thus. The letters made me happy last night .. made both of us happy—though you are not to fancy, by that, that I shall “show” anything secret; so write as openly as possible. Between R. & myself there is the fullest confidence & liberty too .. the liberty being a part of the confidence. But last night’s happiness in the letters belonged to us both I thought,—particularly as he was looking into my eyes as anxiously as ever they could look, for the news from you– My own dear dearest Arabel .. I am glad you are at Little Bookham & that the country is pretty & I do hope that you make sketches & allow the time to pass pleasantly. The worst of all my thoughts is that of having given you all pain, & it is present too often notwithstanding my absolute contentment with my own choice & lot altogether. R. is more than ever I believed him to be, when the belief was at fullest before we married. I can only wonder increasingly at the fact of his selecting me out of the world of women—. Without the least affectation, it is the wonder of my life. Also, the repentence does not seem to come, nor to threaten to come. He loves me better every minute, he says, on the contrary– There is no honeymoon for us any longer, .. but the stars keep us in light. The goodness & tenderness of every moment is the “thing to dream of & not to tell”. [3] At Genoa (where we disembarked, slept, & spent a day), he positively refused (quite “unreasonably,” as Mrs Jameson agreed with me) to leave my side for the sake of the cathedral[,] the pictures, or any of the great sights, just because I was tired & could not go to see them. “He wd come with me to see them some future time .. but now .. no, .. it would not be the least pleasure to him if I were not there”– And so, notwithstanding all entreaties, there he sate .. & Mrs J & Gerardine went alone to see the glories of Genoa. One little walk however (it was that which tired me) he & I had together, & we wandered through close alleys of palaces looking all strange & noble, into a gorgeous church where mass was going on—altar pressing by altar, every one of a shining marble encrusted with gold– Great columns of twisted porphyry letting out the inner light of some picture: the frescoed angels glancing from the roof– Glory upon glory it was, as far as art went—and on the marble pavement, knelt monks with the brown serge & cord .. nuns of various orders—& Genoese ladies dropping their fans from their fingers, as they prayed covered with the national veil .. the head is covered, (not the face) & the white drapery is crossed over the breast in the most graceful manner imaginable. We met in the streets several ladies apparently of distinction, gliding along in these same white veils, & with large painted fans– And no woman takes a man’s arm unless she is his wife or engaged to him. Beautiful Genoa—what a vision it is!—& our first sight of Italy beside. I am going backward in my story of our adventures & it ought to be forwards instead– So to begin properly. After our week at Paris we began our journey as I hope you heard from my Orleans letter, & a long time indeed we have been about it since then, .. far longer than either of us had contemplated. We took the water only from Lyons to Avignon, & the rest of the way went by diligence & vet[t]urino, in order to give Mrs Jameson the opportunity she required of seeing certain cathedrals. The one at Bourges is glorious & worthy of dear Mr Kenyon seeking the sight of by mesmeric trance,—it looks as if all the sunsets of time had stained the wonderful painted windows of which the secret is lost. [4] By two nights we had some travelling, resting during the days after—& often I felt desperately tired but always had the strength back again—renewed like the eagle’s– [5] The change of air appeared to act on me like a charm, & then we had delightful weather & learnt to calculate on the sun by day as on the candle by night. Mrs Jameson declares that I look like altogether a different person from what I was—especially at our first meeting in Paris when the agitation & fatigue made me look like a ghost. Now, the ghost has its body back, with a little colour into its cheeks. No wonder that you wonder at me. I wonder at myself– Yet continual change of air with a climate growing warmer & warmer, were good for me even humanly speaking .. & though dear Papa said that I ought not to speak of Providence, God[’]s mercies always seem too close to me for my unworthiness. One disappointment we had—for our only rainy day was the day we especially wished to keep bright .. the day of the Rhone .. from Lyons to Avignon– The wild, striking scenery .. the fantastic rocks & ruined castles we could only see by painful glimpses through the loophole windows of the miserable cabin––was’nt it unfortunate? At Avignon however, there was consolation. We stayed there three or four days, & made a pilgrimage to Vaucluse as became poets, & my spirits rose & the enjoyment of the hour spent at the sacred fountain was complete. It stands deep & still & green against a majestic wall of rock, & then falls, boils, breaks[,] foams over the stones, down into the channel of the little river winding away greenly, greenly—the great, green desolate precipices guarding it out of sight– A few little cypresses, & olive trees—no other tree in sight– All desolate & grand. R. said “Ba, are you losing your senses?”—because without a word I made my way over the boiling water to a still rock in the middle of it .. but he followed me & helped me, & we both sate in the spray, till Mrs Jameson was provoked to make a sketch of us– [6] Also Flush proved his love of me by leaping (at the cost of wetting his feet & my gown) after me to the slippery stone, & was repulsed three times by R. (poor Flushie!) till he moaned on the dry ground to see me in such a position of danger as perhaps it seemed to him .. poor Flushie! .. & he not suffered to share it with me.
From Avignon we took a voiturier, or rather a voiturier took us, on to Marseilles, .. sleeping at Aix, the city of troubadours [7] .. & embarking in a French steamer, of which we were the only first class passengers– Mrs J, Gerardine, Wilson & I had the ladies’ cabin to ourselves, & every comfort & cleanliness (write down that the French are not dirty, .. & not delicate certainly—there was not a woman for any use—the ‘garçons’ did all the duty, .. & very pleasant, as you may think, that was) & at five oclock on one burning, glaring afternoon we sailed from glittering, roaring Marseilles .. coloured even down into its puddles– The heat was intense. I felt sick with it. And when we got to sea, everybody else was sick in quite another way & from another cause .. for we were cool enough then, the wind getting up boisterously. Such a rolling night it was, .. & when in the morning, I got up the cabin stairs toward the deck, I left behind me prostrate everyone of my companions– Robert, too, was very miserable—only when he heard my voice he would go with me upon deck .. & there we leaned, wrapt up in all come-atable cloaks, along the stern of the vessel, watching the magnificent coast along which a thousand mountains & their rocks leapt up against the morning-sun, & counted the little Italian towns one after another. I never saw scenery of such a character,—& it was lamentable to think that we had passed Nice & so much beside in the night, missing the glories of it. The ship was near enough to shore for us to see the green blinds to the windows of the houses,—& if it had not been for the roughness, we should have coasted still nearer. And the scenery .. the scenery!– In one place, I counted six mountains (such mountains!) one behind another, colour behind colour, from black, or the most gorgeous purple, to that spectral white which the crowding of the olives gives. And sometimes a great cloud seemed to cut off the top of a mountain from its foundations .. & sometimes fragments of cloud hung on the rocks, shining as if the sun himself had broken it. It was all glorious, & past speaking of. We were in Genoa by nightfall, .. slept under the frescoed roof of what had been a palace, .. & as the next night closed in, returned to our steamer for the Leghorn voyage & another night. Poor Wilson—how she suffered!– And Mrs Jameson too!—and she & Gerardine very much alarmed beside at the stormy weather, & because the engine stopped for two hours, & the waves dashed over the vessel. Perhaps I should have been, once—but through a strange re-action, I seem to be perfectly indifferent (as far as myself am concerned) to that sort of danger now. Not that really there was danger—I dare say not! So we landed at Leghorn, looking as miserable as possible—everybody ill except me .. observe that! & poor Wilson more dead than alive—but getting to the hotel & having breakfast & feeling ourselves close to Pisa soon produced a general revival. (Mrs Jameson had fainted, several times before we came to that.) And now this is Pisa—beautiful Pisa! A little city of great palaces, & the rolling, turbid Arno, striking its golden path betwixt them underneath the marble bridge– All tranquil & grand—it is the very place for being tranquil in,—& I am delighted with the whole aspect of it. Because we brought letters of introduction from Baron Rothschild, Mrs J’s economy took fright, & she would not go to the same hotel—but the end is not precisely answered, I imagine. We have done more cheaply in fact, notwithstanding the horrific protection, than she has. For three days we were at the Tre Donzelle, taking merely bedrooms & dining at the table d’hôte .. where I sate next to Mr Surtees, [8] secure in the incognito of my new name. Wilson was warned not to betray me to the ladies’ maid—such a fear I was in! And such a man he seems to be—talking of cauliflours & wine, & being an Englishman “abroad” in all possible senses. Also it was a detestable table d’hôte altogether, not like those we had been used to & which I did not object to in the least, but a regular dining-out party at it, everybody talking to everybody, on the strength of all being English. Then we met there the same people whom we had met in the French diligence, & in the Rhone steamer, & Robert with his perfect goodness & benevolence, cannot help talking kindly to people .. who are enchanted accordingly & unwilling to lose his acquaintance—. But we do mean to keep clear of the whole world, let it be hard or not. There was one lady travelling with her consumptive husband, who offered on his part & hers to take appartments in common with us!—horrible to imagine! By the way he could scarcely walk when he left England—would only creep along between his stick & his wife’s arm .. & was given up by two physicians, .. having completely lost a lung .. and now after this long, fatiguing journey, & entirely in consequence of the change of air, he is wonderfully better & able to walk & talk & looking like another man.
Well—we stayed at this hotel of the Tre Donzelle till we could suit ourselves with an appartment, .. & since I began this letter we have had great difficulties. The prices of houses are higher than we imagined, & poor Robert has had ever so much uncongenial trouble going from house to house, & divided between his wish of putting me in a good situation, & our common fear of falling into undue expenses– He went & came, .. coming to insist on carrying me up stairs to see something that might be possible– At last the success came & the “very thing”—& now I write to you from our home, lying on the sofa thereof, & perfectly contented with the solution of the problem. Now I will tell you. We are in the very “most eligible situation in Pisa,” as accidentally we heard proclaimed at the table d’hôte by the most intelligent physician in the place, Dr Nankivell [9] —close to the cathedral & leaning tower, as we see every moment from the windows & in an apartment consisting of one sitting room & three excellent bedrooms, with entrance rooms or hall .. & with attendance & cooking, & the use of silver, china, glass, linen (& the washing thereof)— .. all inclusive, for .. what do you think? .. £1 .. s6 .. d9 English money, a week. Hot water á discrezione. Is it not tolerably cheap? Moreover the house is a palazzo of the largest, & we inhabit the only let-apartments in it, & it has a grand name Collegio di Ferdinando, [10] & a grand marble entrance, marble steps & pillars & a bust over all of Ferdinand primo. Built too by Vasari. You would certainly smile to see how we set about housekeeping. R. brought home white sugar in his pocket—so good he is, & so little inclined to leave all the trouble “to the women” as nearly all men else would do! On the contrary his way is to do everything for me even to the pouring out of coffee, .. & our general councils with Wilson .. “What is a pound? what is an ounce?” .. would amuse you if you could hear them. Yesterday when dinnertime came (that was our first day ‘at home’ you must observe) we discovered that there was nothing to eat, .. an ominous beginning– So we set out to the “trattoria,” the traiteur, & dined excellently for sixteen pence, we two (8d each), … & sent a dinner apart home to Wilson—& were well pleased enough with our own proceedings, to make an arrangement that the said traiteur should send our repasts to us everyday at two oclock—& we are to try that plan, .. going ourselves there when we are inclined .. —& if it answers, we shall be freed from other domestic cares than of the coffee & milk & bread. Wilson is as an oracle—very useful too & very kind. She was delighted with your remembrance– Poor thing, the mosquitoes have singled her out for a special vengeance. They torment me in a measure, but she is tormented by them out of measure. And then, it is unfortunate, just when she had succeeded so well in French as to be able to ask for various things, to have to merge all the new knowledge in the Italian “which seems to her harder still”– But patience & a mosquito-net! [11] Flush is much thinner, because he barks so violently at every beard that we do not dare to let him appear at tables d’hote,—but otherwise he is well, & fonder of me than ever, because he has not you. Oh, Arabel! I am almost glad after all that you did not get my letter from Havre .. the note, I mean, written to dearest Trippy .. for I was sad at heart when I wrote it & perhaps it would have made you sadder. How wrong Henrietta was, in fancying me too happy to write! Too happy! I loved R. enough to leave you for him, but not for that did I love any of you less than ever, & the anguish of quitting you so was not less felt. May God bless you my own dearest dearest Arabel. I love you. My thoughts cling to you. Believe it, with the fullest knowledge however, otherwise, that I am absolutely happy in the one to whom I have given myself, & that he rises on my admiration, and is better & dearer to my affections every day & hour. Ought I not to be happy, with such love from such a man? And we have been together a whole month now, & he professes to love me “infinitely more”, instead of the dreadful “less” which was to have been expected. He keeps saying that never he was so happy in his life—which is more magical than music in my ears, while I listen to him. Then such a delightful companion he is, .. with what Mrs Jameson calls “his inexhaustible wit, & learning & good humour.” She said the other day “My dear Browning, I have admired your genius for many years, but now I feel it to be still better to love yourself.” So I can repeat such things, you see, without the “blushing.” And as for you, Arabel, you must love him, if you love me .. for all the tenderness which one human being can give to another, he gives to me every moment of my life. Love him for my sake & do not call him Mr Browning. How you would love him for his own sake if you knew him .. knew him thoroughly, that is .. in the soul & in the life!
Since I was writing two lines backward I have been reading Papa’s letter at Orleans which then frightened me so with a glimpse, that I scarcely dared to read it, but put it by to read at leisurely courage.
<…> [12]
May God bless him, my dear Papa– As R. says, “Our Father who is [in] Heaven will judge us more gently”—yet I did not show it to R.—he only read it in my face. May God bless you all– If somebody sends to ask you if you have a parcel for Italy, send me my black cord, .. my mittens .. (out of the bag) your portrait (which I set aside for more care & forgot it) a locket surrounded by a serpent .. (also set aside) a little Virgil, sent to be bound .. can I think of anything else? I left on my table some letters & an Italian poem bound in pink paper, addressed to Robert .. (not by me) & his manuscript of a play—take care of these things, do.
Tell Surtees Cook that I cordially thank him for his kind wishes—tell him too that the little green book is of use & beauty every day. How long do you stay at Little Bookham? Do let me hear everything. Has Papa forbidden you to write?—answer that question. If he has not, I am gratefully bound to him still. I have written directions to George about the money, & those debts I mentioned to you– Minny’s, dear Minny’s, especially. Is Minny with you? & how are her legs? and who waits on you & H.? I want to know. To Mrs Martin, with a grateful sense of her goodness, I mean to write. I wrote from Marseilles to Bummy– I write to Papa by this post, as humbly as I can with truth. Let me hear every little thing. Poor Leonard, indeed!– [13]
Does Mr Stratten [14] blame me much? Oh—in any position except my own peculiar one, I would have asked .. of course .. But in my state of nervous weakness, I had not fortitude for the dreadful scenes & the resolute courage– I could not have held out, I am certain– It was bad enough as it was– I hope George gave my name to Blackwood as Elizabeth Barrett Browning––because I do not like to drop my old name which is my own name still. Also, do write to request that the immature translation of Prometheus be not brought before the public <by any specific mention>. [15] If I had been in London, I would not have sent it to Edinburgh at all. It was enough to say that it was an early, immature translation, now out of print. [16]
We are going to be busy—we are full of literary plans.
But have I not written enough? May God bless you, my own, own Arabel! I trust Henrietta had my letter from Orleans. I love you all deeply & tenderly– Tell Stormie that I do love him & that he must think gently of me if he can.
Your very ever most affecte
Ba–
Dearest Trippy—does she love me still? Ask her not to forget me—& say if she is staying with you as she ought to be.
A leaf from an olive tree at Vaucluse[.]
You had better tell Mr Greville [17] to leave out the stanzas in question. Of the double letters, open & read, & send abstracts of the important parts.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. According to Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers in Northern Italy (1847), this hotel had previously been called Le tre Donzelle, but was now called the Hôtel Peverada (p. 440). Murray’s Hand-Book notes that Sig. Peverada “speaks English well, is agent to Messrs. Coutts and Co., and carries on his banking business, both here and at the Baths of Lucca” (p. 441).
2. The Brownings arrived at Pisa on 14 October 1846. At the beginning of this letter EBB mentions hearing from her sisters “on the second day of our arrival,” which would have been the 15th, and she then refers to that date as “last night.” Thus, she would have started her letter on the 16th. The Brownings took their rooms in the Collegio Ferdinando on the 18th—a day which, near the end of her letter, EBB mentions as “yesterday.” The Collegio Ferdinando is located in the Via Santa Maria, very near the Cathedral of Pisa.
3. Cf. Coleridge, Christabel (1816), I, 253.
4. In the description of the cathedral at Bourges, Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers in France (1847) notes that “one of the chief boasts of this cathedral is the quantity, excellence, and good preservation of the painted glass of the windows of the choir and chapels. They include specimens of the art from the 13th down to the 17th century” (p. 357).
5. Psalm 103:5.
6. Mrs. Jameson’s sketch has not survived; however, her niece, Gerardine, recalled this occasion thirty years later: “We rested for a couple of days at Avignon, the route to Italy being then much less direct and expeditious, though I think much more delightful, than now; and while there we made a little expedition, a poetical pilgrimage, to Vaucluse. There, at the very source of the ‘chaire, fresche e dolci acque,’ Mr. Browning took his wife up in his arms, and, carrying her across through the shallow curling waters, seated her on a rock that rose throne-like in the middle of the stream. Thus love and poetry took a new possession of the spot immortalised by Petrarch’s loving fancy” (Gerardine Macpherson, Memoirs of The Life of Anna Jameson, 1878, pp. 231–232).
7. Murray’s describes Aix as “the resort of the troubadours, the home of poetry, gallantry, and politeness” (p. 496).
8. Robert Surtees of Redworth, a distant relation of EBB’s cousin, William Surtees Cook (see letter 2499, note 3). Robert Surtees and his wife, Elizabeth, together with their daughter, Margaret Caroline Surtees (1816–69), were travelling in Italy.
9. Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers in Northern Italy (1847) confirms that “Dr. Cook and Dr. Nankivell, English physicians, practise at Pisa” (p. 441). The archives of the Inter-Continental Church Society (London) indicate that Dr. Charles Benjamin Nankivell was sometimes secretary of “The Pisa Book Society.”
10. The Collegio Ferdinando was first opened as a college in 1595, taking its name from its benefactor Ferdinando I (1549–1609). Although a contemporary Italian guidebook ascribes the design of the building to Vasari (Nuova Guida di Pisa, 1843, p. 202), a later work explains that Vasari was responsible for renovating the building that was formerly the home of the Familiati family (Giovanni Grazzini, Le Condizioni di Pisa alla fine de xvi e sul principio del xvii secolo sotto il granducato di Ferdinando I de’Medici, 1898, pp. 17–18). The Brownings resided here from 18 October 1846 until 20 April 1847.
11. Cf. Cervantes, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, pt. II, ch. 23.
12. Nearly four lines, containing comments about EBB’s father’s reaction to her marriage, were obliterated here by someone other than EBB.
13. EBB’s cousin Leonard Edmund Graham-Clarke had married another cousin, Isabella Horatia Butler, in November 1843; she died on 26 September 1846, a few weeks before this letter was written (see letter 2485, note 4).
14. For details of Stratten’s association with the Barretts, see the biographical sketch, pp. 357–360.
15. Bracketed passage is interpolated above the line.
16. In March 1845, after EBB had completed her revised translation of Prometheus Bound, she sent the manuscript to John Kenyon for his appraisal—“And then, you shall advise me whether it would be worth while for me to write & ask Blackwood to take it in bodily” (letter 1872). Her request, directed to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine that autumn, was not answered until late August 1846 (see letter 2554). Most likely EBB sent the new version to Blackwood’s a few days before leaving for Italy, together with the seven poems which appeared in the October issue. If so, we conjecture that when submitting proof of the poems, Blackwood’s requested a copy of the earlier work. In her absence, EBB’s brother George responded, indicating his intention of sending the work in November (see SD1281). Due to Arabella’s timely report of George’s intention and EBB’s comment in this letter, the earlier work was not sent (see letter 2655). The new translation first appeared in Poems (1850).
17. Robert Northmore Greville, editor of The Poetic Prism (see letter 2563, note 3), which contained several of EBB’s poems; however, we are unable to clarify which stanzas were “in question.”
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