2803. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 313–316.
Bagni di Lucca Toscana
[mid-July 1849] [1]
At last, you will say, dearest friend—— The truth is, I have not been forgetting you (how far from that!) but wandering in search of cool air & a cool bough among all the olive-trees, to build our summer-nest on. My husband has been suffering beyond what one could shut one’s eyes to, in consequence of the great mental shock of last March, .. loss of appetite, loss of sleep, .. looks quite worn & altered. His spirits never rallied except with an effort, & every letter from New Cross threw him back into deep depressions. I was very anxious, & feared much that the end of it all (the intense heat of Florence assisting) would be a nervous fever or something similar. And I had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to leave Florence for a month or two—he, who generally delights so in travelling, had no mind for change or movement. I had to say & swear that baby and I could’nt bear the heat, & that we must & would go away. Ce que femme veut, homme veut [2] .. if the latter is at all reasonable, .. or the former, persevering: at last, I gained the victory. It was agreed that we two should go on an exploring journey, to find out where we could have most shadow at least expense; and we left our child with his nurse & Wilson, while we were absent. We went along the coast to Spezzia, saw Carrara with the white marble mountains, passed through the olive forests & the vineyards, avenues of accacia trees, chesnut woods, glorious surprises of most exquisite scenery. I say olive-forests advisedly—the olive grows like a forest tree in those regions, shading the ground with tents of silvery network. The olive, near <Flo>rence, is but a shrub in comparison,—& I have learnt to despise a little too, the Florentine vine, which does not swing such portcullises of massive dewy green from one tree to another as along the whole road where we travelled– Beautiful indeed it was. Spezzia wheels the blue sea into the arms of the wooded mountains,—and we had a glance at Shelley’s house at Lerici. [3] It was melancholy to me of course. I was not sorry that the lodgings we enquired about were far above our means. We returned on our steps (after two days in the dirtiest of possible inns) saw Seravezza a village in the mountains, where rock, river & wood enticed us to stay and the inhabitants drove us off by their unreasonable prices. It is curious,—but just in proportion to the want of civilization the prices rise in Italy. If you have’nt cups & saucers you are made to pay for plate. Well—so finding no rest for the sole of our feet, [4] I persuaded Robert to go to the Baths of Lucca .. only to see them. We were to proceed afterward to San Marcello or some safer wilderness. We had both of us, but he chiefly, the strongest prejudice against these Baths of Lucca,—taking them for a sort of wasp’s nest of scandal & gaming, & expecting to find everything trodden flat by the continental English: yet I wanted to see the place, because it is a place to see after all. So we came, & were so charmed by the exquisite beauty of the scenery, by the coolness of the climate, & the absence of our countrymen, .. political troubles serving admirably our private requirements, .. that we made an offer for rooms on the spot, & returned to Florence for Baby & the rest of our establishment without further delay. Here we are, then—we have been here more than a fortnight. We have taken an apartment for the season .. four months .. paying twelve pounds for the whole term, & hoping to be able to stay till the end of October. The living is cheaper than even at Florence, so that there has been no extravagance in coming here. In fact, Florence is scarcely tenable during the summer from the excessive heat by day & night, even if there were no particular motive for leaving it. We have taken a sort of eagle’s nest in this place, .. the highest house of the highest of the three villages which are called the Bagni di Lucca, & which lie at the heart of a hundred mountains, sung to continually by a rushing mountain-stream. The sound of <the> river & of the cicali is all the noise we hear. Austrian drums & carriage-wheels cannot vex us—God be thanked for it! the silence is full of joy & consolation. I think my husband’s spirits are better already & his appetite improved. Certainly little Babe’s great cheeks are growing rosier & rosier. He is out all day when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it that he is prettier than the whole population of babies here. He fixes his blue eyes on everybody & smiles universal benevolence .. rather too indiscriminately it might be, if it were not for Flush. But certainly on the whole, he prefers Flush. He pulls his ears & rides on him .. and Flush, though his dignity does not approve of being used for a poney, only protests, by turning his head round to kiss the little bare dimpled feet. A merrier, sweeter-tempered child, there cant be than our baby—and people wonder at his being so forward at four months old & think there must be a mistake in his age. He is so strong that when I put out two fingers & he has siezed them in his fists he can draw himself up on his feet—but we discourage this forwardness which is not desireable, say the learned. Children of friends of mine, at ten months & a year, cant do so much. Is it not curious that my child should be remarkable for strength & fatness? He has a beaming, thinking little face too:—oh, I wish you could see it. Then my own strength has wonderfully improved, just as my medical friends prophecied; and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb the hills with Robert & help him to lose himself in the forests. Ever since my confinement I have been growing stronger & stronger, & where it is to stop I cant tell really: I can do as much, or more, now, than at any point of my life since I arrived at woman’s estate. The air of this place seems to penetrate the heart, & not the lungs only: it draws you, raises you, excites you. Mountain air without its keenness .. sheathed in Italian sunshine—think what that must be! And the beauty, & the solitude—for, with a few paces, we get free of the habitations of men .. all is delightful to me. What is peculiarly beautiful & wonderful, is the variety of the shapes of the mountains. They are a multitude—and yet there is no likeness. None, except where the golden mist comes & tran[s]figures them into one glory. For the rest, the mountain there wrapt in the chesnut forest, is not like that bare peak which tilts against the sky .. nor like that serpent-twine of another which seems to move & coil, in the moving, coiling shadow. Oh, I wish you were here! You would enjoy the shade of the chesnut trees & the sound of the waterfalls—and at nights to seem to be living among the stars, the fireflies are so thick .. you wd like that too. We have subscribed to a French library, where there are scarcely any new books. I have read Bernard’s “Gentilhomme Campagnard,” [5] —(See how ar[r]ières [6] we are in French literature!) & thought it the dullest & worst of his books. I wish I could see the Memoirs of Louis Napoleon [7] —but there is no chance of such good fortune. All this egotism has been written with a heart full of thoughts of you & anxieties for you. Do write to me directly & say first how your precious health is, & then that you have ceased to suffer pain for your friends. How is Mrs Niven? How is K’s boy? [8] I was so afraid for my baby, in coming from Florence—for in the same rail-carriage were two children with the hooping-cough. Most wrong & cruel for people to expose others to such dangers, .. is it not? But we have escaped, thank God. Nothing is so good for hooping cough, they say, as change of air. I shd be glad to hear that your boy was well again. But your dear self chiefly—how are you my dearest Miss Mitford? I do long so for good news of you. On our arrival here, Mr Lever called on us. A most cordial vivacious manner, a glowing countenance, with the animal-spirits somewhat predominant over the intellect, yet the intellect by no means in default—you cant help being surprised into being pleased with him, whatever your previous inclination might be. Natural too, and a gentleman past mistake– His eldest daughter is nearly grown up, & his youngest, six months old. He has children of every sort of intermediate age, almost—but he himself is young enough still. Not the slightest Irish accent. He seems to have spent nearly his whole life on the continent & by no means to be tired of it. Ah—dearest Miss Mitford!– Hearts feel differently .. adjust themselves differently before the prick of sorrow & I confess, I agree with Robert– There are places stained with the blood of my heart for ever & where I cd not bear to stand again– [9] If Duty called him to New Cross, it wd be otherwise—but his sister is rather inclined to come to us, I think, for a few weeks .. in the autumn perhaps. Only these are scarcely times for plans concerning foreign travel– It is something to talk of– It has been a great disappointment to me, the not going to England this year, but I could not wish to run the risk of the bitter pain to him. May God bless you from all pain. Love me & write to me, who am ever & ever
your affecte
EBB.
Address, on integral page: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 271–275 (as [18? July 1849]).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to having been at Bagni di Lucca for more than a fortnight; the Brownings arrived there on 30 June 1849.
2. “What the woman wishes, the man wishes.”
3. Casa Magni, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s last residence, is in San Terenzo less than 2 miles N. of Lerici on the Gulf of Spezia. Shelley and his wife moved there from Pisa in April 1822. The house would be “melancholy” to EBB as a reminder of the poet’s death by drowning and, by association, her brother Edward’s death by drowning in 1840.
4. Cf. Genesis 8:9.
5. Charles de Bernard, Le Gentilhomme campagnard (6 vols., Paris, 1847).
6. “Behind.”
7. Unidentified.
8. James Henry Taylor; see letter 2718, note 19. “Mrs. Niven,” Anna Jane Niven (née Vardill, 1781–1852), was Miss Mitford’s friend and a frequent visitor.
9. Doubtless, EBB is thinking of Hope End and Torquay. In a letter to Julia Martin, dated [6 August 1851], EBB writes: “As to Hope End, it is nothing– I have been happier in my own home since, than I was there & then– But Torquay has made the neighbourhood of Hope End impossible to me– I could not eat or sleep in that air” (ms at Wellesley).
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