2689. EBB to Henrietta Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 266–269.
Florence
August 2 [1847] [1]
This is the first of the two letters due to you my ever dearest Henrietta, and it will be shorter than usual, seeing that Robert is suddenly going to send home & offers to make room for me if I make haste. The condition must be kept therefore– Thanks many & warm, for my dearest Arabel’s letter yesterday & your note inside—— How I thank you both! how dear you are & kind! What shd I do without you, even with Robert here? Your letters seem to draw us all close together, & to take away the sting of thoughts which else wd be insupportable– I love & thank you from the bottom of my heart my dearest kindest sisters– May God bless you beyond my love & thanks!
Why in the world, now, was Arabel uneasy about me? Oh, do put down such fancies, you dear Things. I am as well as possible .. and really the chief reason for anxiety for me is, that, being supernaturally happy, the miracle may’nt be expected to go on in this mortal atmosphere. It could’nt, I suppose, .. if there were not a leaven to leaven it all, in dear Papa’s anger against me & in the separation from him & others, & in not seeing Arabel & you– But as you bid me I hope even for that .. and for the rest, nothing could be changed except by losing something, .. and I at the end almost of our first year of marriage!– Tell Arabel she is impertinent—we began by keeping “The Day” once a week .. but since the weeks have multiplied themselves so often by four, it’s celebrated only once a month– Oh, I [2] should’nt remember– I never can think of the day of the month you know. But Robert reminds me without once failing. “Do you recollect what tomorrow will be?” & “what today is?” I tell him that he keeps it two or three times in the month, instead of once—at any rate the echo is very long. Ah yes– Do think of us on the twelfth of September– We have not made up our minds how to celebrate it, but the celebration is to be august anywise .. and we talk of claiming that ideal “Flitch”, [3] promised to people a year married who never have quarrelled. Only, as I say to Robert, it will scarcely be a fairly devised recompense, because he will have the bacon to himself, & I the beans, .. and that wont be fair, will it? It’s bad enough that he has the figs every day, and I sit by never touching them—for I do not like figs– I never did, you know, .. & having tried again with all my might, I cant like them .. not even the look of them .. though these Florentine figs are considered peculiarly good, .. and are great, I will answer for it– We have a large dish of the finest for a penny, and always I think of Papa, when they are brought to table– In a week, the grapes begin,—and in the meanwhile we have immense melons, a penny each– Consider how the poor must rejoice in all this fruit .. heaps & heaps of fruit that might have ripened in Paradise! and they make fruit a large proportion of their diet, here, and it is very wholesome on account of the climate. Why how hot you must have been in England!– We were at 86 by the thermometer, but that was the highest, .. and Wilson & I agree that the meaning of heat in Italy is a different thing from what it is in England—the air is so much lighter & more elastic with us than with you– Then the little wind which regularly rises at six oclock & blows the curtains in & out!– And then, the construction of the houses .. the great windows!– Throughout this summer I have lived in the open air, I may say correctly. We never shut the windows .. only the green blinds .. Venetian blinds .. by day or night: and as they open from ceiling to floor, it is precisely as if one lived out of doors, you see– There’s no fog .. no falling of dew, .. none you could detect: and I have not had the slightest cold since I left home. Of course, so much of the outward air is strengthening & reviving, where it does not injure, and accounts for my progress in health & change of appearance. We more & more like our new apartment. When I am tired of the sofa I get into the window in one of the deep spring-chairs .. as soft as if it were made of a cloud: and after our coffee at half past seven, we regularly go out to walk on our terrace, where there is just room for two to walk .. walk backward & forward till the moon rises! it’s so easy when one is tired, to step in at the window & drop into a chair. And the moon rises beautifully, & drops down the grey wall of San Felice, and it’s altogether delightful to walk there without one’s bonnet and talk of going to Rome or of loving you, or .. even of keeping the twelfth of September. The weather is cooler rather than it was, at least this apartment is much cooler, and the thermometer was under eighty all yesterday– Indeed we have not once repented of our resolve to stay in Florence through the hot months—we have suffered by it in no degree. Yet it was very vexatious to hear yesterday from dear Mr Kenyon that he is not coming to us—no, he is not coming; though he means to cross the Alps perhaps as far as the northern lakes .. being involved in a plan which excludes us, with Mr Bezzi & Mr Chorley– They cant afford the time, it appears, & Mr Kenyon’s own time is short– He does not even see his brother, in Vienna– So we might as well have gone to Perugia or elsewhere– Never mind!– Nobody regrets time spent at Florence, and we have been especially happy here. What good delightful news of dearest Stormie! And I dare say Papa is pleased! and after all, Jamaica appears cooler than Italy this summer. Tell Stormie that he is not to let the humming of the bees be too loud for thoughts of me–
Good news too of dear George!– When he begins to get on, he will run fast very soon. Is Alfred succeeding to his mind? And what of Henry? Does Henry hear of a chance of occupation? Talking of occupations, my dearest Henrietta, a merely passive position of listening & waiting will do nothing, or often will do nothing—but an energetic seeking & turning over all the little stones, .. that’s the right thing & will always (giving time) secure a result! Did I not say so to Alfred? And where is Alfred? Sir Robert Price [4] shd not, I think, be applied to again– Terrible, the account of the Barretts is– I grieve for poor Maria– Now, ought Sam Barrett to wait to breathe even, before he gives himself an occupation? To choose an occupation takes time, .. but work of some kind, he might get surely .. & work in the ditches, wd, to my idea, be more honorable, than rest under such circumstances– [5] It is dreadful indeed– There’s the consequence of a “little imprudence” in the beginning, as he might have called it!—not the consequence of a narrow income, mind, but of an imperfect system of morals. I laugh insolently sometimes at Robert & his accounts, and his way of calculating for the days & the weeks—but always he is right & I wrong .. he is greatly right, & high up above laughter. His horror is of having to apply ever to any human being for pecuniary help .. of approaching the verge even of the least difficulty as to money—and these feelings of fear are crossed by others lest I shd ever need anything which he cd not provide. These are his fears .. just these. And if you were to see how in obedience to them, our expenses are clearly arranged & set down .. if you were to see his little book, with our whole income accounted for to the uttermost farthing, week by week, and an overplus (yes, an overplus!) provided for casualties, & [‘]‘lest Ba shd be ill”, you would smile as I do, or be touched, as I often am besides– I am sure I could not manage after any such fashion .. and then when I think that he does it for me, & that all this care for money is contrary to his nature, he who is so generous & given to despise money .. I cannot help being touched .. how could I? For the rest we live most comfortably .. I never in my life lived more comfortably .. as the world accounts comfort. We have, however, given up our carriage for the present .. it was too great an expense to continue of course: but whenever we want a carriage, why we can have it, and now I am able to walk .. and here is our terrace which really I like as well, if not better. Robert was afraid that I shd miss the carriage .. but I do not indeed—and we paid more for it than for our house itself, cheap as for a carriage, it was– Did I tell you (while we are on such subjects) that what dear Mr Kenyon called my “profligate debts” were paid out of our year’s income, & without the “selling out” after all? Robert particularly wished it to be so from the beginning– He did not like the idea that any of my family who thought it worth while to enquire, should hear of any “selling out” from any motive whatever—and so it was managed, and the money in the Bank is intact– Well! you expect me to admire Mr Reynolds, who went back, after his own marriage, to see somebody’s else!! That completes the idea of them to my mind!—— A man certainly to cultivate a fire with, during the dog days, lest one shd freeze!—— Good Heavens, what men there are in the world—— I choose Mr Bevan, oh without the least comparison .. Mr Bevan is another stuff of men. Yet .. now tell me if you consider it right in him to send away his wife’s maid for having a conscience of her own? On no principle could it be right or pardonable. Does Arabel hear from Emma Margary? & is she happy, so far? Does Mrs Orme really come to Italy .. & where? & when? I have just had the kindest letter from Miss Dowglass to invite us in the most affectionate & considerate way possible, to spend a fortnight with her at the Baths of Lucca .. myself & “the husband of my choice”, promising us liberty, retirement, everything we could not ask for– So very, very kind!– But it will be impossible to go, though I never shall forget the kindness– The other day we had a visit from Mr & Mrs Greenhough [6] .. he another American sculptor, but inferior every way[.] They are friends of Mr Kenyon[’]s. We continue to live in the quietest fashion possibly– Love to everyone who remembers me—to Susan & Surtees Cook always—to dear little Lizzie Barrett– How I love you. Soon you shall have a second letter better worth receiving, I do trust– I am with you every hour of the day in thought & love–
Your own Ba
in the utmost haste
Address, on integral page: (To the care of Miss Trepsack) / Miss Barrett / 5. Upper Montagu Street / Montagu Square / London.
Publication: Huxley, pp. 40–42 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Underscored twice.
3. According to the OED, a side of bacon “presented yearly at Dunmow, in Essex, to any couple who could prove that they had lived in conjugal harmony for a year and a day.”
4. Sir Robert Price (1786–1857), Member of Parliament, was the son of Sir Uvedale Price, EBB’s correspondent from Hope End days.
6. Horatio Greenough had married Louisa Ingersoll Gore (1813–91) in Florence in 1837, where they lived until 1851, when they returned to the States.
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