2648. EBB to Cornelius Mathews
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 98–101.
Pisa– Collegio Ferdinando.
[mid-January 1847] [1]
Now once for all, and I say once for all, not so much because my hope is desperate of being forgiven, as because, when forgiven, I really mean to leave off sinning—I stand before you in sackcloth, praying for absolution. Hope is not desperate altogether; for I do think that by the time you have considered the “extenuating circumstances” of my being actually married, and of the very imaginable conditions and anxieties which are apt to precede such an event in every woman’s life when she feels at all, and especially when, as in my marriage, the event involves other change—as from the long seclusion in one room, to liberty and Italy’s sunshine in these two kinds’—when, for a resigned life, I take up a happy one, and reel under it with my head and heart, why you will understand it to be pardonable, I do think, that I should too have forgotten some obvious social duties, such as writing letters, even to such true and tried friends as yourself. Shall I tell you, I find in my writing case an unfinished note to you, began before I left England, which I did immediately on my marriage—a fragment of a note, begun to inform you briefly of the position in which I stood, and of the meaning of my “extraordinary conduct” to you. Now, have not you called it “extraordinary” twenty times? But the course of events was too strong and full for me, and I was carried off my feet before I could have strength to speak my speech audibly. So forgive, forgive me. I shall behave better you will find for the future, and more gratefully, and I begin some four months after the greatest event of my life, by telling you that I am well and happy, and meaning to get as strong in the body by the help of this divine climate as I am in the spirit—the spirits! so much has God granted me compensation. Do you not see already that it was not altogether the sight of the free sky which made me fail to you before. So forgive me for all, all at once, forgive for all. My husband’s name will prove to you that I have not left my vocation to the rhyming art, in order to marry: on the contrary, we mean, both of us, to do a great deal of work, besides surprising the world by the spectacle of two poets coming together without quarrelling, wrangling, and calling names in lyrical measures. He is preparing a new edition of his collected poems, in which he pays peculiar attention to the objections made against certain obscurities. As for me, the last thing I did was to send to Mr. Lowell, who wrote to me a year ago on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society, (Mrs. Chapman doing the same thing,) the poem which they asked for. [2] My conscience has been restless about it ever since, (whenever I thought that way,) but neither head nor heart were at liberty sufficiently to do anything. What I have sent at last, my belief is, will never be printed in America, or will, if it should be, bring the writer into a scrape of disfavor. But I did only write conscientiously, you know, in writing at all; and my “Cry of the Children,” was not less written against my own country. Your “Man in the Republic” should have had the article “Slave.” And now let me thank you for the pretty minute copy of the last edition, which you had the goodness to send me. [3] I was glad to receive it on every account, and not least as an evidence of the success of your work. My husband desires me to thank you on his own part, for gifts of this sort which you have sent to him, and which he did not know how to return his acknowledgements for until the present time, when he is able to do so, with your permission, as to my friend and his friend together. Talking of friends, Miss Fuller [4] was too late for me; I have not seen the track of her footsteps, otherwise I should have gladly received a woman who had brought the sign of your friendship with her, apart from other merits. We live here in the most secluded manner, eschewing English visitors and reading Vasari, and dreaming dreams of seeing Venice in the summer. Until the middle of April, we are tied to this perch of Pisa, as the climate is recommended for the weakness of my chest, and the repose and calmness of the place are by no means unpleasant to those who, like ourselves, do not lack for distractions and amusements in order to be very happy. Afterwards we go anywhere but to England—we shall not leave Italy at present. If I get quite strong, I may cross the desert on a camel yet, and see Jerusalem. There’s a dream for you—nothing is too high or too low for my dreams just now. In the meanwhile you rage at me for my impertinency as to business, and common sense. I do believe that I sent no answer to the proposition of printing a selection from my poems, [5] and perhaps by this hour of the day, both booksellers and public have forgotten me perfectly. If they care a jot for the said proposition, let me know; for I should like to have a voice in the selection of the poems. As to the prose volume I can’t do it here, I am afraid—perhaps nobody cares for that. Tell me what you are doing, writing, thinking, because I care for all three. Mr. Poe sent me his book, and I had grace enough to send him my thanks—though you would not think it of me!!! [6] Ashes I cast upon my head for all my misdeeds [7] —now do, do forgive me for all!—I have Flush with me here, and he adapts himself to the sunshine as to the shadow, and when he hears me laugh lightly, begins not to think it too strange. As to news, you will not expect news from me now—until the last few days, we had not for months even seen a newspaper, and human faces divine, are quite “rococo” with me, as the French would say. Mrs. Jameson however travelled with us from Paris, and we all went together to do pilgrimage at Vaucluse, where the living water gushes up into the face of the everlasting rock, and there is no green thing except Petrarch’s memory. Yes, there is the water itself—that is brightly green—and there are one or two little cypresses. Now she has gone on to Rome, where Mrs. Butler and her sister are residing. [8] Dickens is in Paris—Tennyson, when I heard of him last, was in Switzerland, and “disappointed with the mountains.” I wonder how anybody can be disappointed with anything—with nature, I mean. She always seems to me (or generally) to leap up to the level of the heart. Miss Martineau is gone to Egypt it appears—all the world is abroad. And all England is freezing—such accounts we hear of the cold—and then the dreadful details from Ireland—oh, when I write against slavery, it is not as one free from the curse—“the curse of Cromwell,” [9] falls upon us also! “Poor, poor Ireland.” But nations, like individuals must be “perfected by suffering.” [10] In time we shall slough off our leprosy of the pride of money and of rank, and be clean, and just, and righteous. Can you read a word I have written? Good pens are in civilized life, and this shadowy paper we glide through the foreign post office with.
Now shall I hear from you? My address is, A Madame Browning, Poste Restante, Pisa, Italy. Only remember that we shall not be here after the middle of April—not at Pisa. A letter might be forwarded, to be sure. We understand from our dear friend Mr. Kenyon, that Dickens’ Christmas story has had a great success—nineteen thousand copies in two days. [11] It is criticised however by critical people. Since we came here we have been to the Lanfranchi Palace, Lord Byron’s. The marks of his feet are painted, plastered and gilded out, and another Italian family has given it a name, no longer Lanfranchi. [12] We could only pass where the poet had been in the garden, where the Guiccioli used to shake the golden ringlets. I brought away some orange leaves. [13] My husband offers you his regards,—and believe of me, that I am not less your friend, as
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Text: Powell, pp. 150–152.
1. Dating is approximate, based on EBB’s reference to this being “some four months after the greatest event of my life,” i.e., her marriage on 12 September 1846.
2. “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” which was published in 1848 in The Liberty Bell. She mentioned writing this poem in letter 2122 (see note 4). Maria Weston Chapman (1806–85) was the editor of The Liberty Bell from 1839–46. She had been active in the abolitionist movement since 1834, and was the leading figure in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. James Russell Lowell had taken up the Anti-Slavery cause under the influence of his wife, and in 1848 he became the “corresponding editor” of The National Anti-Slavery Standard. The American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1833.
3. A copy of Man in the Republic (New York, 1846), published in 32mo, and inscribed by Mathews: “Elizabeth B Barrett with the Respects of the Author, N.Y. Dec. 1845.” is now at Wellesley (see Reconstruction, A1570). Mathews had presented EBB a copy of the earlier edition, published in 1843; see letter 1389.
4. Although Margaret Fuller had arrived in England in mid August 1846, she did not reach London until late September, after the Brownings had left for Italy. Mathews had provided a letter of introduction for Margaret Fuller; see letter 2538, note 3, as well as SD1292 and SD1321.
5. This is probably related to the “proposition about prose miscellanies” discussed in letter 2128. Presumably there had been a mention of a selection of poetry as well.
6. For EBB’s acknowledgement to Poe, see letter 2284.
7. Cf. II Samuel 13:19.
8. The last line of Fanny Kemble Butler’s account of her travels with her sister and brother-in-law in Italy—A Year of Consolation, 1847—states that “on Thursday, the 8th of December [1846], I left Rome” (p. 325). This two-volume diary was published in April 1847.
9. An allusion to Cromwell’s campaign against Ireland from 1649 to 1650, in which he employed harsh and cruel policies to subdue the Irish people.
10. Cf. Hebrews 2:10.
11. The Battle of Life was published on 18 December 1846, with an initial print run of 24,000 copies; by 26 December another 1,500 had been printed, and of the total all but 668 sold by the middle of 1847. In a letter to his wife, dated 19 December 1846, Dickens reported “23,000 copies already gone” (Dickens, IV, 681, and V, 11).
12. Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers in Northern Italy (1847) explains that the palazzo was now called “Toscanelli” (p. 459); see letter 2555, note 6.
13. This leaf has been preserved (see Reconstruction, H587). Mrs. Jameson saw Teresa Guiccioli (née Gamba, 1800–73) shortly after leaving the Brownings in Pisa. She wrote to Lady Byron from Florence on 12 November 1846: “When we first arrived here, I went for a day to the Hotel d’York, where the table d’hote is celebrated for the company & the viands—opposite to me was a lady who immediately fixed my attention—first by the extraordinary beauty & abundance of her hair & then by the strange contrast between this beautiful hair & her face which was oldish & with no pleasing expression—it was the Countess Guiccioli” (SD1296).
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