2727. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 48–52.
Florence.
April 15– [1848] [1]
Now if you knew, my dearest dear Miss Mitford, how my heart went out to you in reading your letter,—sounding as it did to me, graver & sadder than usual, [2] —you would understand how impossible it would have been for me to wait this nearly a month without replying to such a letter, unless some strong cause had forced me to silence. Ah, you half complain .. very gently complain .. of my not immediately answering your letters. But you shall not think that I love you less, or act out the traditions of people “marrying & forgetting their friends.” No, indeed. Sometimes I wait, to send my letter to you with a packet, so as to save you the foreign postage—& this last time, I have been ill– I received what you wrote, in bed, & since then, have scarcely been permitted to write once to my sisters. Ill, I was, but not as ill as at Pisa—& now I am quite recovered, except as to having lost the hope which had made me glad again– There is no use in hoping—& certainly in making a moan there is no gratitude. Far happier I am than ever I counted on being in this world—& perhaps after all, if I had to choose between additional comforts, I should choose the smile of my own father to that of my own child .. if I could have either—oh yes, I should & would. And God knows what is best for us, & what weight of blessing we can bear.–
Now for you, my beloved friend! Pray, why do you seem to write out of spirits .. as you do .. there’s no denying it to me!– What is this about K. & Ben “marrying when you are gone”. Gone—gone!– Unless that’s a parliamentary adjournment of six months to the reading of a bill, I cant imagine what it is at all. I “give notice” on my part, that I wont have such things written to me—& still worse it would be to think them than to write them, .. so you may lay them ‘on the table’ for the next twenty or thirty years, if you please, & tell me in the meanwhile what has happened to put you out of spirits– You have not been well, for one cause—and how are you now? Do let me hear everything of yourself, & whether you think of London for this spring .. or of the last year’s plan of going near Mrs Acton Tyndal for the summer. [3] You probably want a little change of air & scene—& if the effort were once made, would be glad afterward, <be> sure! It is a bad plan to have the dog, too, since she wont be adopted frankly—& I do wish you would rather make one of your many friends (any one of whom would be proud to do it for you) choose a pretty & young descendant of quite a new dog-race & send him straightway to you. Oh, I wish I were in England to make a stir about it & see what could be done. Robert would do his best, I can answer for him. K’s little son must be a cheering cricket to have at one’s hearth .. but I shd like you to have a dog besides, you, who are used to that excellent kind of society. My Flush has recovered his beauty & is in more vivacious spirits than I remember to have seen him– Still, the days come when he will have no pleasure .. & plenty of fleas .. poor dog! for Savonarola’s martyrdom here in Florence, [4] is scarcely worse than Flush’s in the summer. Which does’nt prevent his enjoying the spring, though: and just now, when, by medical command, I drive out two hours every day, his delight is to occupy the seat in the carriage, opposite to Robert & me, & look disdainfully on all the little dogs who walk afoot. We drive day by day through the lovely Cascine (where the trees have finished & spread their webs of full greenery, undimmed by the sun yet, ..) first sweeping through the city, past such a window where Bianca Capello looked out to see the Duke go by, [5] & past such a door where Tasso stood, & past the famous stone where Dante drew his chair out to sit. [6] Strange, to have all that old world-life about us, & the blue sky so bright besides, & ever so much talk on our lips about the new French revolution, & the king of Prussia’s cunning, [7] & the fuss in Germany & elsewhere .. not to speak of our own particular troubles & triumphs in Lombardy close by. [8] The English are flying from Florence, by the way, in a helter skelter .. just as they always do fly, except (to do them justice) on a field of battle. The family-Englishman is a dreadful coward, be it admitted frankly. See, how they run from France—even to my dear excellent uncle Hedley, who has too many little girls in his household, to stay longer at Tours. Oh—I dont blame him exactly! I only wish that he had waited a little longer, the time necessary for being quite reassured. He has great stakes in the country .. a house at Tours & in Paris—& twenty thousand pounds in the Rouen railway. But France will fall upon her feet, we may all be certain, let the worst happen that can. Meanwhile, republicans as I & my husband are by profession, we very anxiously, anxiously even to pain, look on the work being attempted & done just now, by the theorists in Paris .. far from approving half of it, we are, & far from being absolutely confident of the durability of the other half. Tell me what you think, & if you are not anxious too. As to communism, surely the practical part of that, the only not dangerous part, is attainable simply by the consent of individuals .. who may try the experiment of associating their families in order to the cheaper employment of the means of life .. & successfully in many cases. But make a government-scheme of even so much, & you seem to trench on the individual liberty–– All such patriarchal planning in a government, issues naturally into absolutism, & is adapted to states of society more or less barbaric. Liberty & civilization when married together lawfully, rather evolve Individuality than tend to generalization. Is this not true? I fear, I fear that mad theories promising the impossible, may in turn make the people mad. Louis Blanc knows not what he says.– [9]
Have I not mentioned to you a very gifted woman, a sculptress, Mademoiselle de Fauveau, who lives in Florence with her mother, practising her profession, an exile from France, in consequence of their royalist opinions & participation in the Vendée struggle, [10] some sixteen or fifteen years? On that occasion she was mistaken for & allowed herself to be arrested as Madme de Larochejaquelain [11] —therefore she has justified, by some suffering in the cause, her passionate attachment to it. A most interesting person she is—she called upon us a short time ago, & interested us much. And Mrs Jameson wd tell you that her celebrity in her art, is not comparative .. “for a woman” .. but that, since Benvenuto Cellini’s, more beautiful works of the kind, have not been accomplished. An exquisite fountain she has lately done for the Emperor of Russia. [12] She has workmen under her & is as “professional” in every respect, as if neither woman nor noble. At the first throb of this revolution, of course she dreamt the impossible about that dear ‘Henri cinq’ who is as much out of the question as Henri quatre himself; [13] and now, it ends with the ‘French Legation’ coming to settle in the house precisely opposite to her’s, with a hideous sign-painting appended, of the Gallic cock on one leg & at full crow, inscribed [“]Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” [14] This & the death of her favorite dog, whom, after seventeen years affection she was forced to have destroyed on account of a combination of diseases, has quite saddened the sculptress. When she came to see us, I observed, that after so long a residence at Florence, she must regard it as a second country—“Ah, non!” (the answer was!) “il n’y a pas de seconde patrie”. [15]
What you tell me of ‘Jane Eyre’ [16] makes me long to see the book. I may long, I fancy. It is dismal to have to disappoint my dearest sisters who hoped for me in England this summer, but our English visit must be next summer, instead—there seems too much against it just now– The drawback of Italy is the distance from England. If it were but as near as Paris, for instance!– Why, in that case, we should settle here at once, I do think, the conveniences & luxuries of life are of such incredible cheapness, the climate so divine, & the way of things altogether so serene & suited to our tastes & instincts. But to give up ‘England & the English’, [17] .. the dear dearest treasure of English love, .. is impossible—so we just linger & linger. The Boyles go to England from the press of panic, Lady Boyle being old, & infirm– Ah, but your talking friend [18] wd interest you, .. & you might accept the talk by infinitesimal doses,—you know. Lamartine has surely acted down the fallacy of the impractical tendencies of imaginative men. I am full of France just now. Are you all prepared for an outbreak in Ireland? [19] I hope so. My husband has the second edition of his collected poems [20] in the press by this time, by grace of Chapman & Hall who accept all risks. You speak of Tennyson’s vexation about the reception of the Princess. [21] Why did Mr Harness & others who “never cd understand” his former divine works, praise this in manuscript [22] till the poet’s hope grew to the height of his ambition? Strangely unfortunate! We have not read it yet. I hear that Tennyson had the other day everything packed for Italy, then turned his face toward Ireland & went there. [23] Oh for a talk with you!– But this is a sort of talk, is’nt it? Accept my husband’s regards. As to my love, I throw it to you over the Alps with both hands. God bless you!–
Your ever affectionate
Ba.
Tell me of Mr Horne’s new work of ‘Judas Iscariot’. Bold!– [24]
Address, on integral page: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 233–238.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. In a letter to Charles Boner, dated 28 February 1848, Miss Mitford wrote that she had “been miserably ill of the sort of low fever which has been called influenza. I am now recovering, but it weakens people bodily and affects the spirits” (Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle, 1871, I, 122).
3. Acton Tindal (1811–80) and his wife Henrietta resided at the Manor House, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
4. Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98) was a Dominican monk who fiercely condemned corruption in Florentine cultural life. He was executed for sedition and heresy in Florence on 23 March 1498.
5. Bianca Capello (1548–87) was the second wife of Grand Duke Francesco I de Medici (1541–87).
6. A stone in the Piazza del Duomo marking the place from which Dante supposedly observed the construction of the cathedral.
7. Riots had broken out in Berlin on 15 March but were quelled by Prussian soldiers. When fighting resumed on the 18th, “Frederick William announced his intention to grant reforms, and a crowd gathered in the palace courtyard, apparently in support of the King. However, troops in the royal household panicked and shots were fired. At this point craftsmen and workers took to the streets and erected barricades. Frederick William seems to have lost his nerve and decided to throw in his lot with the revolution. He paraded in the streets of Berlin, swathed in the German tricolor, announcing that ‘Prussia merges into Germany’” (Peter Jones, The 1848 Revolutions, 1991, p. 81).
9. Charles Louis Blanc (1811–82), socialist, journalist and historian, was the author of Histoire de dix ans (1841), which severely attacked the July Monarchy. It formed part of his comprehensive Histoire de la révolution française (1847–62).
10. In 1832, a Royalist insurrection in support of a Bourbon restoration was suppressed in the Vendée, a department of western France.
11. Marie Louise Victoire, Marquise de La Rochejaquelein (1772–1857), the wife of Louis du Vergier, Marquis de La Rochejaquelein (1777–1815), was a key figure in the Vendée revolt in 1832. Closely associated with the Marquise, Félicie de Fauveau (see letter 2708, note 2) was arrested for her involvement and spent seven months in prison before going into exile in Italy.
12. In 1846 Czar Nicholas I (1796–1855) visited Mlle. Fauveau in her Florence studio and “commissioned a graceful Fountain with Nymph and Dolphin, a rare example of a nude in Fauveau’s work (Félicie de Fauveau. L’amazone de la sculpte, 2013, fig. 28).
13. Henri IV, King of France (1589–1610), founded the Bourbon dynasty. “Henry cinq” refers to Henri Charles Ferdinand (1820–83), Comte de Chambord, Duc de Bordeaux, and Bourbon claimant to the French throne. He was the son of Charles Ferdinand (1778–1820), Duc de Berry—the younger son of Charles X, King of France (1824–30). “Henri Cinq,” as he was known by the Legitimists, was living in exile in Vienna at this time.
14. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” the motto of the French Revolution, would have been an insult to a legitimist.
15. “Oh, no! .. there is no such thing as a second homeland.”
16. Charlotte Brontë’s first novel was published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell.
17. EBB is alluding to the title of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s book, England and the English (1833).
18. Unidentified, but perhaps the “English lady” mentioned by Miss Mitford in a letter to Charles Boner, dated April 1848. She explained that the lady had “lived twenty years in France and is just returned here. She was intimate with his [Lamartine’s] wife, and speaks of him as a man of very distinguished appearance, but cold and almost repulsive manners. … She … was also intimate with Arago and Cava[i]gnac” (Charles Boner, I, 127–128).
19. Famine, tenant evictions, and the winds of revolution coming from the continent, resulted in several Irish uprisings in 1848, but they were quickly put down by British forces.
20. i.e., Poems (1849).
21. According to Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., who quotes this letter from EBB as a source for Tennyson’s reaction to the critics, “There can scarcely be any doubt that the vexation referred to was at the critical reception of The Princess rather than over the reaction of the general public or of individual readers whose opinions he might have learned of” (Tennyson and the Reviewers, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1952, p. 117).
22. Miss Mitford writes in letter 2733 that William Harness had not read the poem in manuscript.
23. In December 1847, Tennyson wrote to Edward FitzGerald: “I am going to bolt as soon as ever I can and … would go to Italy if I could get anybody to go with me which I can’t and so I suppose I shant go which makes me hate myself and all the world” (Tennyson, I, 281). Early in 1848, he was contemplating a visit “to Bude to see north Devon waves,” but Aubrey de Vere “lured him to Ireland instead, where he arrived in March 1848” (Peter Levi, Tennyson, 1993, p. 188).
24. Judas Iscariot: A Miracle Play (1848), which EBB may have thought “bold” for its sympathetic portrayal of Judas.
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