2703. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 309–314.
[Florence]
[ca. 20 September 1847] [1]
Ever dearest Miss Mitford, I am delighted to have your letter & lose little time in replying to it. The lost letter, meanwhile, does not appear. [2] The moon has it, to make more shine on these summer-nights,—if still one may say “summer” now that September is deep & that we are cool as people hoped to be when at hottest. Dearest friend, how glad you make me by this comforting account of yourself, of K’s & the new gardener’s [3] good conduct, & of the friends you are able to see without fatigue, & best of all, of the improvement in your walking. And yet, and yet, I dont like “the stick” and the “two or three miles only” a day; and cant understand why either a mere sprain or a mere rheumatic affection should produce a lasting effect of such a nature as you apprehend. Do you try warm baths? Pray take care & apply remedies, & let me see you as active as ever when we meet … at Paris? is it to be? or at Reading? for we may reach England, I prophecy, before you reach France. Settling in England is different & more difficult .. but I long to see some dear, loving faces that glitter with a melancholy light in the distance!—yes, the faces, for instance, of my dear dearest sisters– If they did not write to me, I could not bear this absence. One set of affections does not exclude another, & that the oldest: it is the heart which grows larger rather, to take all in– I love my family, and my friends too, better than ever I did! Understand how that must be– Thank you, my dear friend, for caring to go & see my sisters whenever you shall go to London. You will be welcome to them, be sure, both for my sake & yours– As to Tennyson, I am sorry, I cant help being sorry, both for the two women as well as for him, and for all women as well as those two. [4] I am “spoilt as a judge,” do you say .. but why, pray, am I spoilt as a judge? I throw my own case aside, which is exceptionally happy, I do believe, among wives of Tennysons or Thompsons, & so does not apply .. and I hold on general principles that it is better to be tormented by Apollo than left asleep in the sun by Marsyas, [5] —that it is better & nobler. You would feel it to be better—at the bottom of your soul you do!—and so would any woman, not prepared to accept the flats of life flatly– Then you know I never could believe that a poetry could come out of a man which never was in him, & that the artist was altogether separate from the individual & personal. Deep, deep, under the personal habits, may lie the poetical nature .. and black, black, with tobacco smoke & gin-fumes, may gather the personal habits—but that the poetical nature, the deep feeling, the noble sympathy, should not be there, in the poet, is what nothing could make me doubt, though the tongue of men & angels [6] should assert it. Remember that Mr Harness professes not to understand Tennyson’s poems:—he may understand Tennyson just as little– Do tell me your full thought of the Commonwealth of women. [7] I begin by agreeing with you as to his implied under-estimate of women: his women are too voluptuous, .. however of the most refined voluptuousness– His gardener’s daughter, [8] for instance, is just a rose; and “a Rose” one might beg all poets to observe, is as precisely sensual, as fricasseed chicken, or even boiled beef & carrots. Did you read Mrs Butler’s “Year of Consolation”, & how did you think of it in the main? [9] As to Mr Horne’s illustrations of national music, [10] I dont know .. I feel a little jealous of his doing well what very inferior men have done well .. men who could’nt write Orion, & the Death of Marlowe. Now, dearest dear Miss Mitford, you shall call him “tiresome” if you like, because I never heard him talk, and he may be tiresome for aught I know, of course .. but you shant say that he has not done some fine things in poetry– Now, you know what the first book of Orion is! and Marlowe .. & Cosmo!—& you shant say that you dont know it, & that when you forgot it for a moment, I did not remind you. For the marriage, may it be very happy. Nineteen!—how young!—it had not struck me that she cd be so young– A great difference indeed! Still, marriages are happy on different principles, .. & some women like to be loved down to, with fondness rather than sympathy, .. while some like the level ground of conformity of taste & character, so as to be nearest all ways. Still, nineteen is very young, & in the case of ordinary women & men, one might stand aghast at it. Poor Mrs Partridge, (you see, however) married without any such disparity, (in a worldly sense!—for I dare say there may be disparity enough at bottom) does not appear the happier for that even. I am sorry that she should seem so depressed, poor thing– If she had children, it would be an interest in life—but oh, I can understand how dreadful it must be to look round for an answering thought, word, smile, and find nothing. Resolute, sensible women shape themselves in time to this position,—but it must be a painful process—especially with such as have suffered their imagination to overflow into their actual life: for when the waters dry up, there is a desolate prospect then:—and she is a woman of that class, by your description. Did the Anglo-Saxon romance come to nothing? [11] Does she like gardening? Does she see you often? Tell me of Mrs Tyndal’s [12] visit, which will be such a pleasure to two, of course .. saying nothing of Mr Tyndal’s, who will know you then for the first time. I hope you may like him, & find her as joyous as you expect. Did I tell you that my cousin Arlette Butler has married Captain Reynolds with the approbation of the whole world, & that bride & bridegroom are on the point of setting off for Italy? We are to see them at Rome: but it is improbable that they should go to Naples according to their plan, the disturbances there having burst into full revolt. [13] It was our plan to leave Florence on the 21st We stay however one month longer, half through temptation, half through reason—which is strongest, who knows?– We quite love Florence & have delightful rooms,—and then, though I am quite well now as to my general health, it is thought better for me to travel a month hence– So I suppose we shall stay.
In the meanwhile our Florentines kept the anniversary of our wedding day (& the establishment of the civic guard) most gloriously a day or two or three ago, forty thousand persons flocking out of the neighbourhood to help the expression of public sympathy & overflowing the city. [14] The procession passed under our eyes into the piazza Pitti, where the Grand Duke & all his family stood at the Palace window melting into tears, to receive the thanks of his people. The joy & exaltation on all sides were most affecting to look upon– Grave men kissed one another, & graceful young women lifted up their children to the level of their own smiles, and the children themselves mixed their shrill little ‘vivas’ with the shouts of the people. At once, a more frenetic gladness & a more innocent manifestation of gladness were never witnessed. During three hours and a half the procession wound on past our windows—& every inch of every house seemed alive with gazers all that time—the white handkerchiefs fluttering like doves, .. and clouds of flowers & laurel leaves floating down on the heads of those who passed. Banners, too, with inscriptions to suit the popular feeling .. ‘Liberty’ .. the ‘Union of Italy’ .. the ‘Memory of the martyrs’, ‘viva Pio nono’ .. “viva Leopoldo secondo” .. were quite stirred with the breath of the shouters. I am glad to have seen that sight .. and to be in Italy at this moment, when such sights are to be seen. My wrist aches a little even now, with the waving I gave to my handkerchief, I assure you,—for Robert & I & Flush sate the whole sight out at the window, & would not be reserved with the tribute of our sympathy. Flush had his two front paws over the window sill, with his ears hanging down.—but he confessed at last that he thought they were rather long about it, particularly as it had nothing to do with dinner & chicken bones, & subjects of consequence. He is less tormented, & looks better,—in excellent spirits & appetite always .. & thinner, like your Flush.—& very fond of Robert, as indeed he ought to be. On the famous evening of that famous day I have been speaking of, we lost him—he ran away & stayed away all night, .. which was too bad, considering that it was our anniversary besides, & that he had no right to spoil it. But I imagine that he was bewildered with the crowd & the illumination—only as he did look so very guilty & conscious of evil on his return, there’s room for suspecting him of having been very much amused, “motu proprio”, [15] as our Grand Duke says in the edict. He was found at nine oclock in the morning at the door of our apartment, waiting to be let in.—mind, .. I dont mean the Grand Duke. Very few acquaintances, have we made at Florence, & very quietly lived out our days. Mr Powers the sculptor is our chief friend & favorite—a most charming, simple, straightforward, genial American .. as simple as the man of genius he has proved himself needs be. He sometimes comes to talk & take coffee with us, & we like him much. His wife is an amiable woman, & they have heaps of children from thirteen downwards, all except the eldest boy, Florentines [16] —and the sculptor has eyes like a wild Indian’s, so black & full of light. You would scarcely wonder if they clave the marble without the help of his hands. We have seen besides the Hopner’s, Lord Byron’s friends at Venice, you will remember. And Miss Boyle, the niece of the Earl of Cork, & authoress & poetess on her own account, having been introduced once to Robert in London at Lady Morgan’s, has hunted us out & paid us a visit. A very vivacious little person, with sparkling talk enough. Lord Holland has lent her mother & herself the famous Careggi villa where Lorenzo the Magnificent died, and they have been living there among the vines these four months. These and a few American visitors are all we have seen at Florence—we live a far more solitary life than you do, in your village & with the ‘prestige’ of the country wrapping you round. Pray give your sympathies to our Pope, & call him a great man. For liberty to spring from a throne, is wonderful, .. but from a papal throne, is miraculous– That’s my doxy– I suppose dear Mr Kenyon & Mr Chorley are still abroad. French books I get at, but at scarcely a new one, .. which is very provoking. At Rome it may be better– I have not read ‘Martin’ ever since the first vol. in England, nor G Sand’s ‘Lucretia’—even. [17]
May God bless you. Think sometimes of
your ever affectionate
EBB–
Direct Toscana & not Italia—& bear in mind that we are here for one month longer.
Address, on integral page: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 219–224 (as [15? September 1847]).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Conjectural date provided by EBB’s references to the Florentine celebrations on 12 September 1847, and to the delay in their plans to leave Florence on 21 September 1847.
2. EBB had referred to a “missing letter” a month earlier; see letter 2694.
3. In a letter to Lucy Anderdon Partridge, dated 28 August 1846, Miss Mitford described him as “a nice lad from Dinton proper,” (Chorley, I, 227), but he was eventually replaced by Sam Sweetman (see letter 2642, note 2).
4. Most likely a reference to Charlotte Rosa Baring, an early romance and probably the inspiration for Amy of “Locksley Hall,” (see letter 2694, note 11), and Emily Sellwood, who married Tennyson in 1850.
5. This comparison between Apollo and Marsyas, god of music and skillful challenger respectively, seems to echo EBB’s previous contention that marriage should be based upon love and mutual interests and abilities, and not simply a matter of convenience, as Miss Mitford asserted; see letters 2206 and 2317.
6. Cf. I Corinthians 13:1.
7. In a letter to Miss Mitford on 28 May [1848], EBB professed “to be a good deal disappointed” in Tennyson’s poem, The Princess (EBB-MRM, III, 240).
8. Rose was the name of the central figure in “The Gardener’s Daughter,” (1842).
10. We have been unable to trace any book or article by Horne to fit EBB’s description. It may be that he had mentioned the possibility of such a work to Miss Mitford, which he never completed.
11. Costanza of Mistra: a Tale of Modern Greece, which appeared anonymously in 1839, is the only work known to have been published by Lucy Anderdon Partridge.
12. Miss Mitford’s friend Henrietta Harrison (d.1879) married Acton Tindal on 30 July 1846.
13. A pamphlet entitled Protesta del popolo delle Due Sicilie was published anonymously in Naples in 1847, in which the author, Luigi Settembrini (1813–76), criticized the King and his government in the harshest terms, inciting public demonstrations. Cf. Casa Guidi Windows, I, 1203–19.
14. See letter 2697, note 3, and letter 2701.
15. “Of his own accord.”
16. See letter 2681, note 14. Nicholas (1835–1904) was the eldest child at this time. Both he and James had been born in Cincinnati.
17. Lucrezia Floriani was published in 1846. EBB had mentioned Sue’s Martin a year earlier; see letter 2590, note 4.
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