2818. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 17–20.
[Bagni di Lucca]
[Postmark: 8 October 1849]
I sketched this outline yesterday evening my own dearest Arabel, in the walk Robert & I had together .. yes & Flush. I cant give the effect of any of it, but you will guess something:—our path wound up where you see the rocks, so narrow a path that it made me dizzy with the precipice on one side & full of wonder how the chesnut trees managed to grow there. It is a precipitous forest above & below,—with a torrent in the midst of it. Flush is getting used to the wildness, but he keeps very close to us, I assure you—he does’nt run away, as his custom is in London or Florence. He evidently thinks that great discretion is necessary. We came to a fountain & made cups of chesnut leaves to drink out of. Oh, how I long for you Arabel. You wd enjoy everything so much—you would not miss Mr Stratten even, in the midst of these vast churches of mountain & forest. Baby went out this morning before breakfast with his balia & Wilson, & was two hours & a half away; & they came back with stories of wonderful discoveries, .. of a world of new mountains behind those we see. They are dreadfully tired—even the balia is, .. having carried baby up indescribeable places, they say—stone ladders & beds of torrents. Baby is laughing & delighted—that is just what he likes, he tells me;—& now he does’nt mind going to sleep, for an hour or so. Now really Arabel, if his warm baths have been “a risk” for him, it is wonderful that they shd have done him such good. Tell me if Arlette puts her child into cold water– Madme Biondi assured me that it was altogether an injurious practice, .. a great mistake, .. & she gave me what I thought were sensible reasons for it—and if you were to see the difference between our baby & Mrs Ogilvy’s pale, delicate, peevish poor child of ten months old who has suffered the cold-water system & been weaned prematurely, you would wonder & not wish me to change. Still, he is in only tepid water now, .. or a very little warmer than tepid.—
I am so sorry I tantalized you about the Daguer[r]eotype [1] —but Count Cottrell is not disobliging—he was overburdened with commissions, I am certain. Only, after what he said, it was impossible to ask him to do anything for us. Thank you my darling.
Do you remember my naming a Captn Packenham to you? who spoke once to Baby? Well—the authorities have ordered him straightway out of Lucca, on account of a tract which he had given to a poor cripple who had begged him for books. Perhaps you will see the protest against this act of tyranny, made by the English, in the newspapers—and Robert’s was the second signature to it. [2] Most abominable the whole affair has been! Capt. Packenham has never opposed the priests & the authorities,—doing as much good for seven years together as was compatible with the laws—and the giving of this tract, was the single point on which a finger could be laid, yet the tract itself was not controvertial, & the publication of it had been permitted at Pisa– “Primitive catholicism” the title was. [3] He had established a school for the mere teaching of reading & writing, allowing the erection of a great crucifix in the midst, & attempting no doctrinal interference. But even this was too much for the present intolerance of the Tuscan-Austrian government; & now, I suppose, the half savage peasantry of the place will be allow<ed> to recoil into whole savageness. Capt. Pakenham has gone to Florence where his bank is, but in the full expectation of not being allowed to remain very long even at Florence: it is only the beginning of persecution, he thinks.—
Arabel, we have decided! we go away on thursday– [4] The rain & scirocco have set in together, and it is damp & unpleasant, not to say that we are to lose our Galignanis & the whole news of the world. The balia is in the greatest delight!—because you see, every family having gone away, she can meet no stray ‘balia’ nor “cameriera”, [5] & has nobody to talk to, which is a dreadful misfortune—“Santissima Maria, non c’e nessuno”, [6] she has been crying aloud,—“it’s enough to make one old before the time”. Even gathering the grapes is not compensation, & now that the rain comes people cant even gather grapes. Tell dearest Minny that she never directed her note to Wilson, & that I hoped it was for me, & read the first lines in a mistake. I shall write to her again one of these days, as she wont write to me. I do hope the change of air is doing her good. Baby is seven months old tomorrow, & we are going to get him a little cage-iron bed when we get to Florence, because it really is’nt safe to leave him for a minute in his cradle. The cradle is placed on two chairs, the backs being at top & bottom; and, a fortnight ago, on Wilson’s suddenly turning round, behold! Mr Baby was standing up at the end, having crawled down, & pulled himself up by the chair-back. He might have been over on the floor in a moment.
Now, Robert is to take this to the post, & waits for it. May God bless you all! Do write to me, if you think of me. Prove it so.
Did I tell you that Gerardine was married at last,—& that she & Mr Macpherson are to see us in Florence as they go through to Rome. Mrs Jameson is not consoled, but hopes it may be for the best–
Give my best love to the Peytons– I shall be glad to see them in Italy, but have not courage to recommend Florence for the winter to Reynolds, with its cold winds that cut the hot sun. It answers for me, because I shut myself up whenever these winds prevail—but Reynolds is not likely to be so prudent! Dearest darling Arabel, I cant read my letter over– Take it as it is! I love you, I love dearest Henrietta, I love you all! I am,
your ever & ever attached Ba.
Robert’s love as always. We shall be in Florence at half past twelve p.m. on thursday—if it please God. Wilson is delighted too; because, so, she will be near to “Egidio”. [7]
Address, on integral page: Angleterre viâ France / Miss Arabel Barrett / 3 Liverpool Terrace / Worthing / England.
Publication: EBB-AB, I, 278–281.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. See the end of letter 2797.
2. The Times of 1 October 1849 reported:
We learn by a letter from Tuscany, that great sensation has been caused at the Baths of Lucca, by an arbitrary order to an English officer there to quit the territory. Our correspondent says:
“The Prefect of Lucca has issued a mandate, without previous trial or inquiry, to an officer of rank in the British service, who has been a continuous resident at the Baths of Lucca for seven seasons, to leave the department within three days, and has had the courtesy to order his lady away with him; the front of his offence being that he had given a tract upon a religious subject, published in Tuscany, to a paralytic in the hospital. The British residents have, on the occasion, agreed to the following protest, which has been forwarded to the British Minister at Florence:—
‘We, the undersigned English residents and visitors at the Bagni di Lucca, having heard that our countryman, Captain Pakenham, R.N., has received a peremptory order from the authorities of Lucca, requiring his departure from the territory within the space of three days, and forbidding his return thereto unless provided with a special permission from the Government, hereby protest against an act which, not merely arbitrary and oppressive as regards an individual, is also a deep offence to a nation whose members have ever shown a willing obedience to the laws of the country, and a prompt readiness to assist by all means in their power its local charities. We protest against the injustice of a mandate that does not convey the sentence of a tribunal, nor even the shadow of an allegation. We protest against the tyranny of an order for whose peremptory execution we are convinced no exigency calls; and finally, we protest against an act that must subvert that confidence in the due administration of justice which, as natives of a free country, we esteem a birthright, and without relying on which we never would have made this land our residence’” (p. 6).
In a book of recollections published in 1862, Pakenham’s wife wrote: that on the day she and her husband were ordered to leave, they “had just finished … dinner, when a loud ring at the bell introduced an official—the paper was handed to A.P. [i.e., Admiral Pakenham]—‘in three days we were to quit the Lucca territory’” (F.J.P. [Frances Julia Pakenham], Life Lines; or, God’s Work in a Human Being, 1862, p. 103). The Pakenhams returned to Florence, but they were ordered to leave after the Admiral’s case came to trial the following January.
3. We have been unable to identify this tract.
4. i.e., 11 October. However, according to EBB’s comments in letter 2819, they arrived back in Florence on Wednesday, 17 October.
5. “Maid.”
6. “Most holy Mary, there’s no one here.”
7. Wilson’s fiancé, Egidio Righi.
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