2751. EBB to Henrietta Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 147–161.
[Florence]
[18–20 November 1848] [1]
My ever dearest Henrietta, I hope you will not have expected this letter too long. I have received Arabel’s most welcome one with your little note inside, & I thank her, darling thing, & thank you for quantities of pleasure & satisfaction—though I am not quite at ease, I do confess, as to the consequences of your Herefordshire descent. My dearest Henrietta, nothing more insane was ever committed by the sane—& how you could venture to pay all those visits & dare all that publicity, makes my head turn to think of it. If your secret is kept, the stars will be more praise-worthy than you, .. the very reverse of what happens to women who go astray, as says the poet. For the rest, Alfred managed it admirably at the Bartons– I did laugh heartily at dear kind Mrs Peyton’s embarrassment, & Reynolds’ prompt goodnature & Tom’s [2] natural protestations, & the dignified silence with which you waited for the drawing up of the curtain & coming in of candles. Nothing cd be better arranged or more amusing; & then, I dare say the briefness of the time in which you had to do so much business helped your spirits & energies, & made it more enjoyable. The next danger is Mr Chapman’s visit—altogether wrong of him .. I mean the prolongation of it after Papa’s letter. [3] You must forgive me for my opinion, Henrietta, but his conduct strikes me as ungentlemanly, indelicate in the extreme. I cant imagine how people can do such things. Observe .. it was not for him to choose as to a course of action under such circumstances, let him consider them ever so extravagant & uncalled for & the fact of his having no motive for staying stronger than the wish of amusing himself, makes it all the worse—a thousand times the worse: & I have no patience to think of his exposing you to such risks of displeasing Papa & being forced back to London, purely for the sake of so many games of cricket over & above! Well, you wont agree with me perhaps, so we will go on to something else—to dear Henry’s kind note, for instance, which I will answer before long, & for which you must thank him affectionately in the meanwhile. Very pleased too I was, at the sudden prospect of hearing from Alfred & Sette– Will they really, really write to me I wonder? What good it does, even to imagine it! As to George, it was impossible for him to have misunderstood my motive in not replying to his letter—that was explained too completely– He himself wd have thought worse of me by this time, had I accepted the position made out for me by his letter, & other letters preceding it– For anger toward him I loved & love him too much to be angry or to have been angry beyond a passing condition, & I never resented (even in my heart, as God sees!) the strong expressions which he applied once to myself, however forced & exaggerated they appeared to me. It was quite another thing which made me silent to him—& he knows & understands the meaning of the silence as well as I know the meaning of his—we are neither of us deceived– Would that I cd be as sure of his heart as he is of mine—but in spite of what you say, & what Mrs Martin said some time ago (I avoid these subjects as far as I can, except with you) when she called it a mistake rather of the intellect than the feelings .. this after a conversation she had had with George—in spite of all this, I have my own fears & opinion, & cannot help thinking how differently I shd have acted had our circumstances been reversed– The intellect wd hardly mistake, on points like these, if the feelings prompted warmly! Which I just say in reply to a word said by you or Arabel, who in your desire to conciliate everything suppose the impossible case about the unanswered letter– And when I have sent so many messages!– Why, there is not a bough of the whole olive tree, which I have not tried to draw down in every sort of way– I am not proud in these things, I assure you—I wd kiss Papa’s feet & the dust of them, to be loved by him again. Also, Robert has begged me not to think of him—“they might understand him better one day—& in the meanwhile it was enough for him to be understood by me”– Which, for me, is not enough, as you see at a glance, & ought not to be enough, & will not while I live .. <See what ink, & how I have had to rewrite the whole!> [4]
He is quite well again, thank God—& I am well too—going on perfectly, people say. Arabel does injustice to my fall, in ingloriously comparing it to a fall from a sofa—I, who fell like Louis Phillippe, over the back of my throne, the throne crashing down with me. Most providential it was that the head received the whole weight of the body & that being lightly formed, I did not suffer in the rebound as a heavier woman wd assuredly have done. Oh, I thought of being bled, & wd have sent to Dr Harding, had there been any pain of the kind Arabel speaks of, but nothing occurred .. nothing, except a general feeling of being shaken, which quickened the pulse a little the next day– Afterward I was quite well, only dreadfully disfigured—& now, a month after, there remains a very slight mark on the forehead, to show what was– Father Prout comforted me by declaring it was a mark for life—which was nonsense—for it is effaced already except to close observation– You may suppose how violent the blow was, to produce such an effect even so long, & I am told that the fact of its not having produced a catastrophe by the shock & fright of it, proves a satisfactory power of resistance in certain respects. Indeed I suppose I should set myself down as in an altogether satisfactory state, & as having felt for above a fortnight the second life—it was not the beating I spoke of, mind, which dear Minny interpreted like Mr Jago .. that was nothing but the vibration of my own heart. I am satisfied. What came on ten days afterwards, was altogether different .. something I never felt before .. & which is distinctly appreciable now by the hand through all one’s clothes. I am told that there cant be a mistake—but every now & then, I have a fit of desperate doubting, which is mere foolishness I dare say, so that I am half ashamed of confessing a word about it– I have suffered a little from cramp, (not to any painful degree) drawing the internal œconomy up into lumps & seeming to extend from the back—only rubbing for two minutes set all right again with a curious readiness, & the pain was slight as I said .. it used to come on with the least change of position .. even turning in bed .. & five or six times in the night or oftener, & did at first half-frighten me– But I have seen a monthly nurse (whom I was persecuted to engage but wd only engage provisionally) & she & others have told me that there was nothing unusual .. on the contrary, that every sort of cramp was a natural visitation: & indeed lately it seems to be going off gradually—today & yesterday I have scarcely had a return. It is probably connected with what is called the quickening, & might have been increased by the change of weather—& now that we have taken to fires & warm feet I dare say I have seen the last of it. As to nurses, the Cottrells wanted me very much to have an Italian, who is a woman of great experience, [5] & attends the Grand Duchess, princess of Parma, & all the marchionesses in Florence. But I took it into my head that she was too great a personage for us, that there wd scarcely be room for her train in our small establishment & that I might be more at ease with an Englishwoman [6] highly recommended by Mrs Ogilvie [7] whom she has just attended through a very dangerous accouchement in a very satisfactory manner. Also .. a consideration .. the latter’s charge for the month, is four guineas, while the Italian asks eight—did you ever hear of such a price? It is singular .. but in this particular department, things are twice as expensive, it appears, as in England—for instance the Italian accoucheur (par excellence) makes a regular demand of five & twenty napoleons, while the English physicians (in this same Florence) have less than half– The explanation may be that nearly all the native Italians (except of the very highest class) employ midwives, & no sort of monthly nurse—so the class which deviates from the national custom, is forced to pay. Well, the English nurse is a younger woman than her rival, & has not of course the long career of experience—but the experience is said to be sufficient, & she is quiet & pleasing enough .. & although I wd not engage with her absolutely, I have promised a preference, & she is to come & see how I get on. She maintains that she is not at all afraid of not being employed, & that everything is quite right to all appearance. God grant it! I should be miserably disappointed, I do confess, were another accident to happen,—and yet it seems too good almost, to be looked forward to serenely. I have grown very thin, although the insertion of new gores & the letting out of waist-bands goes on steadily .. & the appetite is good, & the strength keeping up, & the morphine diminishing! Will you believe that the last bottle endured to the middle of the 29th day? Yet, I do not suffer. Robert commits sorceries, I believe. Certainly when Dr Harding comes he will be surprised, for he thought that a reduction was only to be looked back upon at the end of a year. But you see it has been achieved in the most gradual manner,—& then, perhaps, the peculiar state in which I am just now may admit of the diminution more readily—there’s no knowing– We have been in the greatest fuss lately about curtains, & when I tell you that they are not yet put up you may appreciate the slowness of our Italians– Everything is bought—and we have been a little crossed by the dearness of the muslin curtains .. for which, what with the great bed in my room, & the ten large windows, we have had to pay some ten pounds– The fact is, all this muslin is English, because, by way of obliging our obliging Jew banker, [8] we went to his son who deals in English merchandise almost exclusively. It might have been done cheaper without doubt, but perhaps the deserved courtesy was worth the expence of a few crowns more– All the tops of the windows are of crimson imitation-of-damask sort of stuff, observe, Illus. (the same we bought of the French ex-chargè d’affaires, who had his drawing room hung with it—) & our dining room windows have besides each a curtain, which is to cross with another of the white muslin (cornices carved & gilt). [ART] The drawing room has our crimson satin with yellow flowers, for both tops & curtains, the latter crossed by mull muslin in like manner. The bedrooms & Wilson’s room, with the red window tops I told you of, are to have the curtains altogether of white muslin, checked in rather a large pattern—two to each window, very full. And the bed in my room is hung with the same .. checked white muslin .. you will wonder at me for having a white bed after all .. but the thick materials are out of the question for Italy—even chintz is too hot except for two months of the year—& then, white muslin is better than white dimity, which used to be my favorite aversion in England, you know. Then, there’s a new carpet laid down in my bedroom—I wanted a drugget, but the carpet was as cheap, & very thick & rich looking it is. Wilson & I prefer it to all the carpets in the house. And did I tell you how in settling here at first, we had bought for that room a beautiful chest of drawers which originally stood there, walnut-wood inlaid with ivory—very beautiful? Robert bought the other day a companion-chest, infinitely more beautiful—in fact far too good for any bedroom—ebony & ivory inlaid, with the curiosest gilt handles, .. Tritons holding masks. It is altogether beautiful & striking, & he gave two pounds for it. So that my room will be something splendid, when finished. Also we have had cane matting put down at the entrance & all along the little passage which runs at the back of the apartment—& the whole will be as complete & comfortable as a house can be, when everything is done. The best is that we find it very warm—infinitely warmer than our lodging last winter, in spite of that sunniest of situations. Count Cottrell & others had tried to frighten us by doubting whether these large rooms cd be easily warmed—but it is not the size of the rooms but the thickness of walls & the position of doors & windows, on which warmth depends. The fire-places do not smoke, & the heat of our pine-logs is thrown out admirably in this drawingroom where we still sit. The little study will be far less warm, I believe, in spite of the stove. The weather has turned from the autumnal raininess, to a sharp clear air .. too sharp for me .. so, I keep by the fire or walk up & down the room & Robert cd not tempt me on to the terrace this morning though the sun shone gloriously. Oh, how afraid I am lest you should have been expecting a letter too long for your comfort! I remember with deep remorse that it is a month since I wrote last. Do forgive me, & set down that it shall not be so again. There were uncertainties which kept me from writing. I put it off from day to day, thinking of you & loving you, believe me, everyday without fail.—
And now, will you all believe that Mr O’Mahony, commonly called Father Prout, has spent every evening here, except one, since I wrote last! Oh, it’s a settled thing—he is our ‘man of the mountain,’ whom Sinbad carried on his back, [9] & we think it a decided gain whenever we can get tea over (at half past six) before he comes & fixes himself at his smoking post for three hours at least. As a matter of course the wine is rung for instantly, with an apparatus for spitting .. & gradually & after passing through various transitional states of phrenzied impatience, we are becoming resigned, & what is called “acclimated”. Poor Robert has been sorely tried between his goodnature & detestation of the whole proceeding—& then, every now & then, he falls into a mood of indulgence, & we agree that when a man throws himself on you with such a “sublime confidence” as Robert says, & appeal[s] to sympathy, it is impossible to get up a spirit of repulse strong enough to be effectual! At first you know, he was going to Rome in two or three days—that made us endure for a time—but presently he told us calmly that “Florence agreed with him better than Rome did, that he liked the place, liked the beef—liked the bread, & especially liked his Attic evenings with Browning & Ba”!– He should be forced to go to Rome on ecclesiastical business .. more was the pity .. but should come back again .. at the quickest!– This morning, Robert met him out walking, & ventured to ask “if he had quite given up Rome”. “No .. he should have to go next week, & stay a fortnight”: “and then,” said he, “I shall return to Florence for two months, & spend every evening with Ba.” “Sublime confidence,” observed Robert to me, in repeating this– Very sublime indeed! only one requires some sublimity of another sort, oneself, to be able to bear it with meekness; because you see all our evenings, so happy & tranquil, are absolutely done for, ground to powder, smoked to ashes—and then, nobody is equally inclined every evening for three hours to talk as Robert is forced to do .. to make conversation .. & this for a person who however full of talent & reading, is by no means near to him on the ground of sympathies of any sort, even literary. Never were two clever men more unlike—ways of thinking, ways of feeling, ways of imagining, all most unlike. As for me, I dont take much trouble– I lie on the sofa, & listen, & let myself be called “Ba” (for I assure you it comes to that) without much minding: and when he goes away, there’s a general burst of indignation & throwing open of doors to get rid of smoke & malice– After all, there are things in the man which one cant help liking– I firmly believe that he is kind-hearted, in spite of his cynicism brought up on every occasion– I believe him to be kind-hearted & feeling—and then, his agreeableness, when he pleases, & cleverness in every way, are quite undeniable:—while as to principles, wherever the unscrupulous Jesuitism may lie & lurk, it always appears to me that he has a hold by some essential points of Christianity– He will talk with plain disgust of this & that “blasphemous rascal,” even while he praises somebody else for calling “life a jest” .. which as Robert rightly observed to me afterwards, was “a commonplace of Atheism.” What is the unpleasant part of it, is the defect in delicacy conventional or otherwise—& of course it is this which prevents him from perceiving at a glance that the constancy of his evening visits is an excess—to say the least of it. Still, one likes the human-nature of the man—& when he was kind the other day, & because Robert long ago had wished before him to know Rossini, begged him to go with him to Baron French’s soirée musicale where there was to be not only the great lion, but Ivanoff & the English prima donna Miss Hayes, [10] .. I thought it very kind & considerate– Baron French wd be delighted to know Robert & had desired Father Prout to introduce any of his own friends– “Oh no” said Robert, “Ba cant go–” “And why cant she pray? What nonsense”. And the next day he brought us a written invitation from the Baron expressing all sorts of politeness– I did what I could to persuade Robert .. but I might as well have tried at the chimney-piece. I should have liked him to go & hear the music he enjoys so much .. & it is really a complete extravagance, to shut himself up with me evening after evening—he might as well refuse to go out walking in the morning, & then we shd both die comfortably together. Nobody else does such things:—but he is like no one in the world, & there’s the truth .. carrying out goodness & tenderness to the point of the impossible. It was some comfort to me to hear afterwards that Rossini was not present after all, being unwell .. all the princesses & duchesses in Florence being in his place—heaps of royalties & grandees– Father Prout sent an account of the whole affair to Galignani, [11] & was on the point, he says, of naming us & shaming us .. but on second thoughts, he might get into a scrape with us, he imagined, which was really an extraordinary delicacy for him. Count & Countess Cottrell were here yesterday & I did not think her looking quite as well as usual. She is forced to give up nursing her baby, not being strong enough, which is a vexation of course, but appeared very happy & in good spirits. He is kindhearted, I think, & fond of her, & they seem to get on perfectly together. Poor Mr Tulk has taken a house somewhere at Brompton & is to live with one of his sons—but Sophia said she knew that he cd not be comfortable without female society, & she talked of a plan about a niece living with him– I am sorry for Mr Tulk– So affectionate a father, to lose the society of all his daughters!—and I cant understand why he should not live in the house of one of them, in his state of uncertain health. The Cottrells wished him to stay with them very much .. but though business was the pretext on his part I doubt whether the real obstacle lay precisely there. Always he spoke highly of Count Cottrell’s heart .. only the sympathies otherwise were not apparent by any means between the ex-chamberlain & the enthusiastic republican & Swedenborgian. The Miss Tulks are settled for the winter at Florence, & are coming to see us. Sophia said directly– She enquired affectionately after you .. & Mary Minto, & told me that she had expected to see the latter in Italy this summer.—
We were surprised the other day by an application from Mr Phelps, the manager of Astley’s, for the author’s permission to bring out straightway a revival of the “Blot on the Scutcheon”, [12] which was acted only for a few nights at Covent Garden in consequence of a peculiar treachery of Macready. [13] Phelps knew all the circumstances at the time, & understands as anyone may, the dramatic capabilities of the tragedy. I have always said that for pathos & exquisite tragic beauty, it is the first of Robert’s plays. Of course he cd only give his assent, stipulating for the purity of the text– This is a great compliment, this taking a printed work, & involves no mixing up of the author with theatrical nuisances—he has nothing whatever to do in the matter except as far as the pecuniary proceeds of the new Copyright act make an established claim, Mr Phelps being forced to pay so much tax to the author, every night it runs. So the pecuniary advantage may be something to us. The new edition is coming out soon, & was advertized in the last Edinburgh Review we hear. [14]
Now I am allowed to commit to you what has hitherto been a great secret, because Wilson was unwilling to make her mother uncomfortable without a fixed necessity, & I was bound to say nothing. Do you remember how a year or more ago, I said some jesting words, about her being sure to marry one of the Grand Duke’s bodyguards. They are all highly respectable & moral men, & some six feet high, which are the necessary conditions of their status—& they are employed exclusively in the palace & the Grand Duke’s personal exigencies. Well, most pure jest I spoke in that letter, not being aware at the moment even that Wilson knew one of them except by sight & at beat of drum,—&, in jest besides, I repeated to her with a smile, what I had written. To my astonishment she looked a little confused, & blushed & laughed, & “wondered what I should think if my joke were to turn out a true thing”. And then it all came out that “Mr Righi of the Ducal guard, [15] had been introduced to her by such a friend, & had paid her such & such attentions, & that although she had refused to enter into an engagement yet she thought so highly of him, considered him so superior & excellent, it had become a question with her &c &c”. At first, I confess to having been confounded & not a little sorry– All the objections struck me with great force .. the Italian husband, .. the difference in religion, chiefly. I said what I could, & urged her to enter on no engagement until she had absolutely made up her mind, & not to make up her mind until she had better opportunities of knowing the man .. representing the obvious disadvantage of her imperfect acquaintance with the language & customs of the country. Oh, she saw & admitted everything .. especially the obstacle of the point of religion—and she wd take time she said: and she really did take time. Some six months intervened between the declaration & the engagement– But then, she was resolved. He promised her the full & free exercise of her religion—she never shd be interfered with on any point—and for his part, he believed that a christian was a christian, whether protestant or catholic:—he told her & he told others that he loved her for her consistent conduct & good principles .. that one of his own friends had married an Englishwoman, & that no home in Florence appeared to him so clean & cheerful & well-conducted as his, & also (a great point) he had no reason to be jealous of his wife,—& that therefore, among other reasons, he himself preferred an English wife to any other sort of wife! (The Italian women are said to set about choosing a lover directly they have succeeded in choosing a husband, you are to understand!)– Well! this Mr Righi is the son of a medical man: his mother is alive, & lives with his elder brother who is a rich tradesman in Prato, with town & country house .. & it appears that the whole family are very kindly inclined towards Wilson, & even wanted them both to marry & take a share of the establishment, which Mr Righi wd rather not do. The ducal guard is not allowed to marry, while in office, .. & when they prefer to leave the office for the wife, there are various situations open to them according to their qualifications .. clerkships in the palace & the like: so that he, being of rather superior education, writing a good hand & knowing something of latin, is looking out for a vacancy—& he may get from forty to seventy pounds a year perhaps, which in Florence is a high point of prosperity. In the meantime, he shows the utmost attention & attachment, as “promesso sposo,” [16] .. & even Robert, who began by disliking the whole matter on account of the difference in religion & country, confesses that he appears to be very good & superior. After all, you see, she has a full right, as every human being has, to know her own mind & judge & choose for herself in such a personal thing as marriage is—and she declares that she never could have liked that London candidate [17] enough to become his wife. Mr Righi is a very fine looking man .. indeed handsome .. with a most open, amiable, prepossessing countenance, and I have too high an opinion of Wilson to believe that she has chosen him on the mere strength of his externals. She wears a ring of betrothment, & so does he—it is the custom here: and she hopes to have leave to go to England with us in the spring, though the tears come into his eyes, she says, when it is talked of, he is so afraid of her being persuaded by her friends in England to stay with them when they once get hold of her. Oh, there is no danger of her not coming back again! You may suppose how delightful all this has made Florence to Wilson, & how wonderfully it has quickened her progress in the language– I assure you she is quite fluent in Italian, & even could write Italian letters when we were on our travels. Earnestly I hope it may all come to good & happiness, & that he may prove himself worthy of one who has so much real worth, well proved—also, I do believe, for my own part, that he will, & that she will be perfectly happy with him, great as this sacrifice is, of country & home. He promises to take her to England whenever they can afford it—& here it is by no means an uncommon thing for English ladies’ maids to marry Italians & settle happily. The English nurse, I told you of, has an Italian husband, & declares that a better never lived. The female natives dont always give so good an account of their husbands, it is however to be confessed:—“and whose fault is that?” says Alessandro– “Is’nt it the fault of the women for choosing to have lovers?” “Has your wife a lover,” Wilson asked. “If she had, I would stab to the heart both him & her”– We continue to like him very much. He is as good a servant in his department, as can be—an excellent cook & manager .. for he goes to market, & selects everything .. meat, poultry, fruit .. & our dinners are perfect in their little way .. so hot & neatly arranged. From beefstake pies up to fricassees, he is a master—& from bread & butter puddings to boiled apple-dumplings, (curiously arranged with a mixture of currants .. I mean, dried currants) an artist– He apologized in a set oration the other day for not having sooner provided us with a roast turkey, .. placing one on the table, as he spoke, to our extreme admiration .. just such a one, Wilson thinks, as at this time of year wd cost twenty shillings in London, & the whole price of which was one shilling & ten pence. It wd be hard to find a better turkey. The only fault .. not in the turkey .. but in Alessandro .. is a wonderfully supporting principle of vanity which makes him aspire to do everything more cleverly than any other human being .. everything without exception. He does’nt like Wilson to interfere, or anybody to give a direction, .. & she declares that he repeats so many times a day “I have been to Paris .. I have been to London .. I have been to Germany .. I must know”, .. she is quite tired of it. Also he offends her by being of opinion that “London is by far the most immoral place in the world to his certain knowledge,” (he was there for a month once) and when she talks of the domestic happiness enjoyed in England, he shakes his head disputatiously, & bids her “not take her ideas of English domestic life from the Signore & the Signora .. who were quite exceptions:—he never saw anything like their way of living together, certainly, though he had been to Paris, & been to London, & been to Germany—but the Signore was an angel, & there was the truth of it .. yes, & the Signora was rather an angel too .. she never spent two thousand scudi on her dress at once, as he had seen women do .. so the signore might well be fond of the signora .. but still for a signore to be always sitting with his wife in that way, was most extraordinary .. & he had been to Paris, & been to London” .. & so on “da capo”– So poor Wilson’s head goes round, she declares, & she leaves the field of battle from absolute exhaustion.–
I have not heard yet from Nelly Jago—& I quite forgot to speak about Sharpe’s Magazine. [18] Perhaps Arabel will say for me, if she is asked or has the opportunity, that just now I cant get up the steam for contributions .. unless Mrs Jago should for some particular reason, wish it .. which wd be a strong reason with me at all times. Dont say to her the absolute truth .. that Robert does’nt like my writing for magazines .. because <it sounds too proud, & besides> [19] if she wished it, I wd really send her something for Sharpe’s. He is very proud, I tell him—but he maintains that it is taking a wrong position with the public, a thing which he himself never did, except when Hood was dying & wanted help, [20] .. & which Tennyson has never done– Blackwood, he says, may be an exception; but even Blackwood, I see plainly, is a medium rather excepted than acceptable .. & Robert wd rather, I am quite certain, that I had nothing to do even with Blackwood. As to a third rate publication like Sharpe’s, he does’nt like it at all—though Sharpe has been reviewing him, I observe by the advertisement. [21] I have not returned my proof yet to Blackwood. Does George understand that the £25 refer[s] only to those fugitive poems, I sent some time ago? Perhaps to the Prometheus also,—but if so, or not, I am by no means sure. At any rate the “Meditation” stands in a separate account altogether—therefore I do call it liberal enough. I wish you wd tell me if there is anything in your Wimpole St shapes & manners, in the way of gowns, mantles &c worthy of Florentine imitation– Not that I shall have anything new till after February, but in the meanwhile Wilson has turned for me last winters black merino, which is more becoming under present circumstances than anything else. I want to know too, .. (as a matter of curiosity, & of satisfaction in the abstract) the price in England of that very fine French cambric, of which babies’ caps are made, because I have heard it sworn to that things are so much cheaper with you than they used to be, that we shd not know them again. Not that I believe half! or what do the taxes mean? By the way, your dear gifts, which I never liked to look at, dear Minny’s pincushion & all, have come into light & hope & prospect again! Should I not bring up a new question? Which I do. Ask Arabel to mention if her green plaid gown (the double to mine) washed well– Or is the date of it lost in the dark ages? We are only just beginning to think of the feasibility of washing mine– As to my silk gown like yours, I have not worn it since we were in Paris!– Too hot for the summer .. too pretty for the winter fireside, it seems always. I am glad for the kindness of the meaning, that dear Papa gave you the merinos—but what a state of things is otherwise hinted at .. with regard to the chapel for instance? Oh, it is grief to me that, through me, this miserable unpleasantness shd have come! If I were my darling Arabel—I wd not however leave the chapel for any such reason as the one she mentions– As to observation, it is as easily & certainly to be excited by her absence as by Papa’s– I see no difference. Mr Stratten was never a favorite preacher of his, & there is no sacrifice, I imagine, on his part. At any rate .. if for a sunday or two during Mr Stratten’s illness, she goes to another place, she will have the opportunity of judging of effects at home. God bless her, dear thing! Tell her to send me the receipt for Sally Lun[n]s. Wilson is distracted from kneadcake making, by all sorts of mysteriously minute work.
Dearest Trippy—cover her cheeks with kisses from me—& do let her & all you be careful in respect to cholera .. which does not seem to strengthen itself in London, I thank God. Take care of your diet & do observe all the medical rules– It is a simple duty, observe. Dreadful news from Rome! the world seems quite mad just now! Poor Rossi—& poor well-meaning Pope!! [22] He was at his prayers, while his faithless flock were pointing the cannons at him. Dearest Henrietta, tell me everything of yourself & all you care for! I love & pray for you. Robert[’]s love with mine to dear Henry, & affectionate thanks for the kind mention of his illness. Quite well & strong he is now. Do you hear of the Hedleys—& Bevans .. & Reynolds’s? Love to Susan & Surtees Cook. My love is very near to all of you always. It is fair to say of Father Prout that he has really had two clean pocket handkerchiefs in the course of our acquaintance– I like him for some things .. but am not a Jesuit, Henrietta.
Your own
Ba–
As we cant send this to New Cross as usual (because I wont wait another day & Robert is forced to delay sending his letter, & because I know you wd rather pay postage than have a silence prolonged) I shall cover this place of address with a few more words. Oh, how tantalizing it is to think of what dear Henry tells me about the ship & the possibility of seeing him & somebody else here in Florence, How delighted & more than delighted, I shd have been at such a burst of sunshine! We would have found room for them here—they shd have had no expences at Florence; & Robert wd have made all the lions of the place roar gently for them. And now, I suppose there’s no chance .. is there? Where is the ship sent after all? Too tantalizing it is.
Have you heard anything of Clara Lyndsay? I could not write to her, not knowing her address. Mrs Ogilvey, to whom & her husband, Clara gave a note of introduction to us, has been very kind & useful to me in late circumstances– She is the authoress of the “Highland Minstrelsy,” [23] nothing extraordinary but graceful,—a young & pretty woman, with amiability more than sufficient to cover the heights of other pretensions: & Mr Ogilvey is cultivated & gentlemanly. Two children they have [24] —the youngest some two months old. It was she who recommended Madme Petri .. who has been here again, by the way, since I began to write & pronounces that all is as right & favorable as possible. The sickness is not gone but begins to intermit—which after five months of it, one might really hope for. Cramp wonderfully better the last few days, .. & for these three nights I have slept like a sleeper by profession, notwithstanding the diminution of morphine. I feel too very much better .. suffer less from flatulency, & scarcely at all from achiness &c– So, mind you set me down in your thoughts as something not to be anxious for! Dear Mr Kenyon does not write– Mention him if you know where & how he is– We have thought much lately of the natural anxiety he must be feeling if his brother remains in Vienna. [25] Where is Bummy? How did Papa receive you? Robert says he has told you that Flush was growing old, & I am very angry. Certainly he is not as pretty as he was, because of the climate affecting his hair in the summer, but it is all coming back again—& he is growing quite fat again. I am offended for Flush. I tell Robert Flush has lately taken a passion for grapes, & eats bunch after bunch. Wd Folly [26] be so wise?
Your Ba–
[Continued on a separate sheet]
Private.
My beloved Henrietta, I write a private word to these rather more public dull words, in order to advise you to be prudent & keep a good heart & a good prudence as to things to come– Earnestly I hope that Surtees may gain his appointment—give him my love,—and remember that as long as you love one another, there is nothing to fear nor despond over. Take courage– I am more anxious, to tell you the truth, for my dear Arabel than for you. When the moment comes for action, you must act with decision; & in the meanwhile, give no unnecessary cause for conversation. For instance, if I were you, I would not incline to the late walking. Do let me hear everything. I listen for everything with the deepest anxiety. All this is written in the greatest haste, & feeling my way with my pen, in the dark. Can you read any of it? Keep your spirits up, & be vivacious & take exercise, & look well. At the end, & in the “fairy bower”, may you be nearly as happy as I am! More cannot be– May God bless you, dear, dear–
Your Ba–
I shall write to Arabel soon—tell her–
Love to dear Minny.
Publication: Huxley, pp. 91–99 (in part) and TTUL, pp. 77–78.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Dated by reference to letter 2752, which accompanied this one, and in which RB remarks that EBB’s “long letter was written rationally by easy stages,” indicating that it took several days to complete.
2. Thomas Griffith Peyton (1816–87), second eldest son of Nicholson Peyton and his wife Eliza (née Griffith).
4. Bracketed passage is interpolated at the end of an unfilled line, in a lighter hand than is discernible elsewhere on the page.
5. EBB later refers to her as Madame Biondi. She may be Giulia Biondi, daughter of Andrea Salvini, who is listed at 1902 Via Maggio (Palazzo Guidi) in the San Felice church census for 1849.
6. Madame Petri, an English nurse/midwife, whom the Brownings declined to engage in favour of the Cottrells’ preference, Madame Biondi.
7. Eliza Anne Harris Ogilvy (née Dick, 1822–1912) and her husband David Ogilvy (1813–79) were introduced to the Brownings in the summer of 1848. For details of their friendship, see the biographical sketch, pp. 357–359.
8. Marco Philipson (1783?–1859). He and his wife Anna (née Wolf) had two sons, Abramo (1805–60) and Beniamino (b. 1807?). Although both sons were listed as shopkeepers in an 1841 census, it was probably Beniamino who sold the muslin to the Brownings. An 1853 letter from RB to his uncle Reuben indicates that Abramo took over the banking end of the family business upon his father’s retirement.
9. EBB has in mind “the old man of the sea,” as described in the tale of “The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor” in The Arabian Nights.
10. Catherine Hayes (1825–61), an Irish soprano, who had made her Italian debut in 1845. Anthony French (d. 1876, aged 74), son of Anthony French, of Prospect Hill, Galway, Ireland, was created Baron French in 1839 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was a partner in the banking firm of Plowden and French on Via dei Legnaioli, Florence (see Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy, 1854, part II, p. 444). Nicola Ivanoff (1810–80) was a Russian tenor, who, in 1844 at Parma, “sang the title role of Ernani, with an extra aria, commissioned from Verdi and paid for by Rossini, who had adopted the tenor as his protégé” (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., 2001, 12, 682).
11. A short notice in Galignani’s Messenger of 18 November 1848 contains “an extract from a private letter, dated Florence, 7th Nov.:—‘Apropos of Rossini, whose residence in this fair city I spoke of, we assisted last evening at a monstre soirée musicale, of which the Irish prima donna, Miss Hayez [sic], was the star. Her triumphs at the theatres of Lombardy and Northern Italy having been cut short by the entrance of Bellona on the scene, she remains to repose here; but Baron French, a distinguished amateur, her compatriot, proud of her success, assembled at his saloons, opposite the old palace of the Medici, the élite of Florence to hear her. Among the invited were the Maestro Rossini, the not-to-be-forgotten heroina of song, Catalani, Signor Ivanoff, and various dilettanti. There were present over two hundred members of Florentine society, the Neapolitan, Swedish, and Danish ministers, Counts Griffeo and de Molke, the Duke de Talleyrand, Duke de Casigliano, Prince Carlo Poniatowski … Hardings, Sir Charles and Lady Herbert, … Mrs. Trollope, … the Vansittarts, &c., &c., &c.’” (p. 5).
12. Samuel Phelps (1804–78) was at this time manager of Sadler’s Wells Theatre where he revived A Blot in the ’Scutcheon on 27 November 1848. It ran the next two nights, as well as December 7–9, and was performed twice in February 1849. The current manager of Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, located in Westminster Bridge Road, was William Batty.
13. In early 1843, RB and his friend William Charles Macready (1793–1873) quarrelled over the production of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, which the latter staged at Drury Lane. Both parties felt ill-used and blamed the other for the play’s failure. For a summary of these events and RB’s later, softer version of them, see Orr, pp. 109–118. See also vol. 3, p. 319.
14. We have been unable to trace such an advertisement.
15. Egidio Raimondo Righi (1820–78), born in Prato, was the fifth child and third son of Pietro Righi, a watchmaker—not a “medical man” as EBB states further on, and his wife Anna (née Pacchiani), a seamstress. Righi had joined the Ducal Guard in 1846. The “elder brother” mentioned below was Luigi Giovambattista Righi (1816–92).
16. “Betrothed.”
17. Unidentified.
18. We have been unable to determine the connection between Nelly Jago and Sharpe’s London Magazine. There is no evidence that either of the Brownings ever contributed to it.
19. The bracketed passage is interpolated above the line.
20. At the request of F.O. Ward, RB contributed “The Laboratory” and “Claret and Tokay” to the June 1844 issue of Hood’s Magazine; see letter 1614. He also contributed “The Boy and the Angel” to the August 1844 issue.
21. Probably in The Athenæum of 28 October 1848 (no. 1096, p. 1086), where Sharpe’s London Magazine advertised that their November issue would contain an “article” on RB’s Bells and Pomegranates. The article was a review of Pippa Passes (Bells and Pomegranates, No. I), that ran in the November and December 1848 issues. For the text of this review, see pp. 382–389.
22. Pius IX’s proclamation of papal neutrality towards the outbreak of revolution against Austria in Milan in March 1848 precipitated open resistance to authority. His premier, Count Pellegrino Rossi (1787–1848), was assassinated on 15 November, and the Pope was compelled to assent to the formation of a radical ministry. When the Swiss Guard was subsequently disbanded, the Pope became vulnerable to his enemies. Late in November, he fled to Gaeta.
23. A Book of Highland Minstrelsy (1846) by Eliza Ogilvy.
24. Louisa Mary (1846–70) and Alexander William (1848–87).
25. John Kenyon’s brother Edward (1786?–1856) lived with his Austrian wife Louisa in Vienna. In early October 1848, Vienna was the scene of rebellion, causing the Emperor Ferdinand to leave the city. By the end of the month, however, the uprising had been put down and order restored.
26. A King Charles spaniel that Surtees had recently given Henrietta (Surtees, 28 August 1848).
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