2700. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 297–299.
Florence
Sept. 11– [1847] [1]
Yes, indeed, my dear Mr Westwood, I have seen “friars”. We have been on a pilgrimage to Vallombrosa, & while my husband rode up & down the precipitous mountain-paths, I and my maid & Flush were dragged, in a hamper by two white bullocks, .. and such scenery!—such hilly peaks, .. such black ravines & gurgling waters & rocks and forests above & below!—and at last such a monastery & such friars who would’nt let us stay with them beyond five days for fear of corrupting the fraternity. Two women, .. why how could they be suffered upon holy ground? The monks had a new abbot, a St Sejanus [2] of a holy man, and a petticoat stank in his nostrils, said he, .. and all the beseeching which we could offer him with joined hands was classed with the temptations of St Anthony. [3] So we had to come away as we went, & get the better as we could of our disappointment; and really it was a disappointment not to be able to stay our two months out in the wilderness as we had planned it, to say nothing of the heat of Florence to which at the moment it was not pleasant to return. But we got new lodgings in the shade & comforted ourselves as well as we could– Comforted! there’s a word for Florence!—— That ingratitude was a slip of the pen, believe me. Only we had set our hearts upon a two months seclusion in the deep of the pine-forests (which have such a strange dialect in the silence they speak with) and the mountains were divine, and it was provoking to be crossed in our ambitions by that little holy abbot with the red face & to be driven out of Eden even to Florence. It is said, observe, that Milton took his description of Paradise from Vallombrosa, .. so driven out of Eden we were literally. To Florence though!—and what Florence is the tongue of man or poet may easily fail to describe. The most beautiful of cities, with the golden Arno shot through the breast of her, like an arrow .. and “non dolet,” [4] all the same– For what helps to charm here, is the innocent gaiety of the people, who, for ever at feast-day & holiday celebration, come & go along the streets, the women in elegant dresses & with glittering fans, shining away every thought of northern cares & taxes, such as make people grave in England. No little orphan on a house-step, but seems to inherit naturally his slice of water-melon & bunch of purple grapes: and the rich fraternize with the poor as we are unaccustomed to see them, listening to the same music & walking in the same gardens & looking at the same Raffaels even! Also, we are glad to be here just now, when there is new animation & energy given to Italy, by this new wonderful Pope who is a great man & doing greatly. I hope you give him your sympathies. Think how seldom the liberation of a people begins from the throne, à fortiori from a papal throne which is so high & straight! And the spark spreads—here is even our Grand Duke, conceding the civic guard, & forgetting his Austrian prejudices– The world learns, it is pleasant to observe. I am glad that in your Belgic tour you have seen another side of it. I too, should like to see Belgium. After Italy though!—after Rome!,—where we shall probably be in a month from hence, with the intention of staying the winter– Am I writing? Do you talk to my conscience, pray. One may see & hear, muse, dream, & enjoy, & all that, you know, may justify itself in writing at last. My husband is busy still with the preparation for his second edition– Your tale of the Howitts is dreadful or worse .. hateful– As to Tennyson, hope for him—for Mr Forster of the Examiner wrote to tell us some time ago that the new poem on a ‘Commonwealth of Women’ surpassed anything hitherto produced by the writer—and therefore we must pardon the pipe which is not pastoral, and the gin & water which .. is not bearable after all. One excuse for him is that he is of a morbidly irritable nature .. his nerves are so .. and he turns for relief, I suppose, to the first resource. I had a letter from Miss Martineau very lately, on her return to England, & she speaks in it of her “beloved Jordan” as if she had brought such vivid impressions full of pleasure. Oh yes—we shall go back to you all one day– I have left full security in Wimpole St for my re-appearance, be sure– In the meanwhile you may have the “joint volume” you kindly desire [5] .. I wont swear against it. So well I am, dear Mr Westwood, and so happy after a year’s trial of this stuff of marriage .. happier than ever, perhaps! .. & the revolution is so complete that one has to learn to stand up straight & steadily (like a landsman in a sailing ship) before one can do any work with one’s hands & brain. Flush thanks you as his mistress does for the remembrance you give him. Flush hated Vallombrosa & the black pine-forests & the wild mountain-side, and rejoiced visibly in our return to civilized life and to little Florentine dogs. How is Flossie? Tell me of yourself & that you are going on well & being happy– We have had a delightful letter from Carlyle who loves my husband, I am proud to say– How good you are about the newspaper– Here we might have received one, but we are going from hence, & I am ignorant of the regulations at Rome– Let me have a letter from you in any case, and a letter, believe me, is better than any newspaper in the world– We knew of the People’s Journal & the notice there– [6] Now farewell! With my husband[’]s regards, I am ever most faithfully yours
EBB.
Direct care of Messrs Torlonia, Rome. [7]
Address, on integral page: T Westwood Esqre / 1 or 7 Denmark Street / Camberwell.
Publication: LEBB, I, 342–344 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. The year is provided by EBB’s reference to the recent visit to Vallombrosa.
2. EBB is referring to the Irish bishop Senanus (or Senan, 488?–560), who built a monastery on Scattery Island, to which women were forbidden. In fact, when St. Cannera arrived requesting to be buried there, St. Senanus turned her away. Thomas Moore put the legend into verse in “St. Senanus and the Lady” (1821). See letter 2679, note 4.
4. “It doesn’t hurt” (cf. Barker, Parriana, II, 296–297).
5. From EBB’s comment in letter 2660 (see note 7) and RB’s comment near the end of letter 2657, it appears that the Brownings had discussed the possibility of producing a book together. Whether Westwood heard the possibility discussed, or proposed it on his own is not clear.
6. Either Westwood thought the poets had not seen the review of RB’s Colombe’s Birthday in the August 1846 issue of The People’s Journal (for the complete text of this review, see vol. 13, pp. 402–404); or perhaps he had mentioned a review of Margaret Fuller’s Papers on Literature (a collection of her critical essays previously published in The New-York Daily Tribune) in the February 1847 edition of The People’s Journal. That review extracted a paragraph from her essay on RB’s Paracelsus; for the complete text of her review of RB’s works, see vol. 12, pp. 377–384.
7. Bankers in the Via Condotti at Rome (Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy, 1843, p. 251).
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