2661. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 148–151.
Pisa. Collegio Ferdinando.
March 10. [1847] [1]
If really, my dear Mr Westwood, it was “ill temper” in you, causing the brief note, it was a most flattering ill temper, and I thank you just as I have had reason to do for the goodnature which has caused you to bear with me so often & so long. You have been misled on some points– I did not go to Italy last year (or rather the year before last!) [2] .. I was disappointed & forced to stay in Wimpole Street after all: but the winter being so mild, so miraculously mild for England, you may remember, I was spared my winter-relapse & left liberty for new plans, such as I never used to think were in my destiny. Such a change it is to me .. such a strange happiness & freedom! You must not, in your kindness, wish me back again, but rather be contented like a friend as you are, to hear that I am very happy & very well & still doubtful whether all the brightness can be meant for me! It is just as if the sun rose again at seven oclock p.m. The strangeness seems as great– And, that long time, though I was very much absorbed in various ways, yet I should have written to you, be sure, if I had known your address– Sending to the old place, seemed quite vain, .. & I went on hoping that I should have a word from you some day to set me on your track again. As happened at last. But I did not think of its happening so.
Thank you, thank you, for all you tell me & what relates to yourself. I thank you most for telling me, of course. Accept my sympathy for the sadness & the gladness, & believe that whatever circumstances I may be in, it will not fail you. May prosperity creep toward you more closely every year .. only not too closely to exclude happiness .. which by no means is the same thing. You always seem to me so good & rightminded that if either prosperity or happiness “went by deserts” which neither does, your friends need never fear for you—at any rate you may sit in one particular “centre & enjoy bright day”, [3] let it be otherwise dark or light. Your health is good now, I trust, in spite of the severe English winter which we hear described– Mine has profitted wonderfully from the change of air & scene & climate .. though I was considerably better in the first instance, & suffering more from nervous debility than other causes. We met Mrs Jameson in Paris, who travelled south with us & did not leave us till she saw us safe at Pisa, when she continued her own route to Florence & Rome. We stay at Pisa during the winter on account of its being recommended to me for the warmth’s sake. I am very well, when spared blows from without in the shape of frosts & piercing winds, .. & therefore while under shelter in this way, there is every reason both from experience & medical opinions, to believe that my health will gradually fortify itself. In England the misery was that the winters threw me back from my summer’s climbing—it has been less disease with me than a morbid delicacy which diminishes when not exposed to disastrous irritation—& I am now very well, & so happy as not to think much of it, except for the sake of another–
And do you fancy how I feel, carried into the visions of nature from my gloomy room? Even now I walk as in a dream. We made a pilgrimage from Avignon to Vaucluse, in right poetical duty—& I & my husband sate upon two stones in the midst of the fountain which in its dark prison of rocks, flashes & roars & testifies to the memory of Petrarch. It was louder & fuller than usual when we were there, on account of the rains. And Flush, though by no means born to be a hero, considered my position so outrageous, that he dashed through the water to me, splashing me all over: so he is baptized in Petrarch’s name. The scenery is full of grandeur—the rocks sheath themselves into the sky .. & nothing grows there except a little cypress here & there, & a straggling olive tree: & the fountain works out its soul in its stony prison, & runs away in a green rapid stream– Such a striking sight it is! I sate upon deck too in our passage from Marseilles to Genoa, & had a vision of mountains six or seven deep, one behind another. As to Pisa, call it a beautiful town, .. you cannot do less with its Arno & its Palaces .. & above all the wonderful Duomo & Campo Santo, & Leaning Tower & Baptistry, all of which are a stone’s throw from our windows– We have rooms in a great college-house built by Vasari, [4] & fallen into desuetude from collegiate purposes & here we live the quietest & most tête à tête of lives, knowing nobody, hearing nothing, & for nearly three months together never catching a glimpse at a paper—oh, how wrong you were about the Times!– Now however we subscribe to a French & Italian library & have a French newspaper every evening,—the Siecle, .. &, so, look through “a loophole at the world”. [5] Yet not too proud are we even now, for all the news you will please to send us in charity—“da obolum Belisario”! [6] What do you mean about poor Tennyson? I heard of him last on his return from a visit to the Swiss mountains, which “disappointed him” he was said to say. Very wrong, either of mountains or poet! [7] Tell me if you make acquaintance with Mrs Howitt’s new ballads——and if Mrs Butler’s book is a good new thing. [8] I heard from you with the greatest interest of Hood’s daughter– [9] Yes, sorrow makes wise and old. The English government will remember her father’s claims if it would not dishonor itself. Mrs Jameson is engaged on a work on art which will be very interesting I think, illustrative of the subjects of ancient Christian painters, sculptors, &c .. a fragment of it appeared in the Athenæum, you will remember, & the whole work is promised to the bookseller by the next autumn. She has been very busy at Rome, & desires to meet us .. perhaps at Florence, .. in order to travel together in Italy. Our plans are all afloat still, or rather adream. In the middle of April, however, we leave this Pisa for Florence, with a lingering-round through Volterra & Siena—stay at Florence a month, perhaps, & then slowly proceed by Bologna to Verona, .. pass the heats of the summer there, .. or escape them into the Tyrol .. and winter at Venice——a well-sounding plan .. is it not? For fear of its uncertainties, I will ask you, as you are so kind as to write to me, to address the letter (written on thin paper) under cover to my sister .. Miss Arabel Barrett, 50 Wimpole Street .. you do not forget the old direction. Flush’s love to your Flossy. Flush has grown very overbearing in this Italy, I think because my husband spoils him, (if not for the glory of Vaucluse!) Flush barks when he wants a door opened, or another lump of sugar. Robert declares that the said Flush considers him, my husband, to be created for the especial purpose of doing him service—& really it looks rather like it!—— But you write sometimes?—you do not let the numbers overpower the numbers? I hope not. Never do I see the Athenæum now, but, before I left England, some pure gushes between the rocks, reminded me of you. Thank you for telling me of the lectures in Scotland, of which I had not heard– Tell me all you can—it will all be like rain upon dry ground. My husband bids me offer his regards to you .. if you will accept them: & that you may do it with your heart, I will assure you (aside) that his poetry is as the prose of his nature .. he himself is so much better & higher than his own works–
May God bless you, dear Mr Westwood! Bear in kindness
your friend
E Barrett Browning
Address, on integral page: T. Westwood Esqre / 7. Denmark Street / Camberwell.
Publication: LEBB, I, 323–325 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Parenthetical passage is interpolated above the line.
3. Milton, Comus (1637), line 382.
5. Cf. Cowper, The Task (1785), IV, 88.
6. “Give Belisarius an obolus!” Belisarius (d. 565), the greatest of Justinian’s generals, was accused of conspiracy and reduced to begging; according to legend, he put a sign over his dwelling which read: “Give an obolus to poor old Belisarius.”
7. Tennyson had visited Switzerland with his publisher, Edward Moxon, in August 1846. Their holiday had not been a great success; Tennyson’s disappointment was due partly to his memories of an earlier visit to the Pyrenees with Hallam in 1830, which had inspired them both. Tennyson’s poor health in early 1847, caused by worry over The Princess and general nervousness, led him to take a water cure in May 1847.
8. Concluding a two-part review, with copious extracts, of A Year of Consolation (1847), The Athenæum reviewer stated: “We know no other tourist who has so lovingly and so picturesquely done justice to the natural beauty round about Rome:—and therefore have expatiated perhaps disproportionately on what may be called the peculiar and principal grace and beauty of the book” (8 May 1847, no. 1019, p. 493).
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