2840. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 88–91.
[Florence]
April 2d [1850] [1]
You have perhaps thought us ungrateful people, my ever dear friend, for this long delay in thanking you for your beautiful & welcome present. [2] Here is the truth. Though we had the books from Rome last month, they were snatched from us by impatient hands before we had finished the first volume. The books are hungered & thirsted [3] for in Florence, and although the English reading club [4] has them, they cant go fast enough from one to another. Four of our friends entreated us for the reversion—and although it really is only just that we should be let read our own books first, yet Robert’s generosity cant resist the need of this person who is “going away”, and of that person who is “so particularly anxious” for particular reasons perhaps .. so we renounce the privelege you gave us (with other pomps of this wicked world) and are still waiting to finish even the first volume. Our cultivated friends the Ogilvys, who had the work from us earliest .. because they were going to Naples .. were charmed with it: Mr Kirkup the artist, [5] who disputes with Mr Bezzi the glory of finding Dante’s portrait [6] … yes, and breathes fire in the dispute .. has it now:—Madme Ossoli .. Margaret Fuller, the American authoress .. who brought from the siege of Rome, a noble marquis as her husband,— .. asks for it:—and your adorer Mr Stuart who has lectured upon Shakespeare all the winter, entreats for it—. So, when we shall be free to enjoy it thoroughly for ourselves, remains doubtful. Robert promises everybody, “You shall have it next, certainly”—and I only hope you will put him & me in your next edition of the martyrs, for such a splendid exercise of the gifts of self-renunciation. But dont fancy that we have not been delighted with the sight of the books, with your kindness, and besides with the impressions gathered from a rapid examination of the qualities of the work. It seems to us in every way a valuable and most interesting work—it must render itself a necessity for art-students, and general readers & seers of pictures like me, who carry rather sentiment than science into the consideration of such subjects. We much admire your introduction—excellent in all ways besides the grace & eloquence. Altogether, the work must set you higher with a high class of the public; and I congratulate you on what is the gain of all of us. Robert has begun a little pencil list of trifling criticisms he means to finish. We both cry aloud at what you say of Guercino’s angels and never would have said if you had been to Fano & seen his divine picture of the ‘guardian angel’, [7] which affects me everytime I think of it. Our little Wiedeman had his part of pleasure in the book by being let look at the engravings—he screamed for joy at the miracle of so many bird-men, and kissed some of them very reverentially, .. which is his usual way of expressing admiration. You would be surprised to see him, (giving him back his kiss perhaps) for really it may well puzzle anybody to think how he could belong to me, with his radiant health & inexhaustible vivacity. Never still for a moment, & never sullen, & never cross .. planning how to get into mischief .. scratching the door open like Flush, trying to climb the chairs, most premature in every sort of innocent wickedness: and with all that, the sweetest, sunniest, lovingest disposition in the world. People say to us, “I never saw a child with such a touching look in his face as that child has.” Of course, then, it is touching to us—and how he is ever to escape being spoilt, is a problem. Not that I believe much in the mythology of children spoilt by too much love: it’s too pagan, such a creed!—and then, Robert & I exhort one another to justice & providence & various parental virtues, so that there may be hope for the child yet. How sorry we were, not to see Gerardine, after all– She wrote from Rome to me such a kind little note & so expressive of happiness, that I was still more sorry than before to have missed the sight of her. Well! it must be for another day—and I hope you, dearest friend, & she & all of us may meet under some sunrise yet. You keep yourself to the Italian plan for this year—now dont you? oh, do! We think still of England, and if our circumstances allow of it, which is not certain .. not by any means certain indeed .. for wetnurses & babies bring their expenses, and a summer-journey home & back again, is very expensive .. we shall go for a few months & bring you here .. shall we not? But if we dont go, you will come—oh, you ought to come, if it were only for Gerardine who talks of you as if you were her prospect. We have seen Dr & Mdme Braun .. I had the advantage of knowing her in England .. of knowing & appreciating her to the fullest—and we were both delighted with Dr Braun during the single hour of our passing acquaintance. There is a mixture of fervour & simplicity in him which took my fancy the first five minutes—and she seemed to me as happy as a woman well could be who had made a choice & felt it justified.
Whether you will like Robert’s new book, I dont know, but I am sure you will admit the originality & power in it. I wish we had the option of giving it to you, .. but Chapman & Hall never seem to think of our giving copies away, nor leave them at our disposal. There is nothing Italian in the book: poets are apt to be most present with the distant. A remark of Wilson’s [8] used to strike me as eminently true, .. that the perfectest descriptive poem (descriptive of rural scenery) would be naturally produced in a London cellar. I have read Shirley lately: it is not equal to Jane Eyre in spontaneousness & earnestness: I found it heavy, I confess, though in the mechanical part of the writing, .. the compositional savoir faire, .. there is an advance. Robert has exhumed some French books, just now, from a little circulating li<brary> which we had not tried—and we have been making ourselves uncomfortable over Balzac’s ‘Cousin Pons’. [9] But what a wonderful writer he is! Who else could have taken such a subject, out of the lowest mud of humanity, & glorified & consecrated it? He is wonderful—there is not another word for him:—profound, as nature is. I complain of Florence for the want of books—we have to dig & dig before we can get anything new—and I can read the newspapers only through Robert’s eyes, who only can read them at Vieusseux’s in a room sacred from the foot of woman: and this is’nt always satisfactory to me, as whenever he falls into a state of disgust with any political regime, he throws the whole subject over, & wont read a word more about it. Every now & then, for instance, he ignores France altogether .. and I, who am more tolerant, & more curious, find myself suspended over an hiatus (valde deflendus) [10] .. and what’s to be said & done? M. Thiers’ speech [11] .. “Thiers is a rascal– I make a point of not reading one word said by M. Thiers–” M. Prudhon [12] .. “Prudhon is a madman .. who cares for Prudhon?” The President,—“The President’s an ass—he is not worth thinking of”. And so we treat of politics.
I wish you would write us a little oftener (or rather a good deal) and tell us much of yourself. It made me very sorry that you should be suffering in the grief of your sister, [13] you whose sympathies are so tender & quick! May it be better with you now! Mention Lady Byron– I shall be glad to hear that she is stronger notwithstanding this cruel winter. We have lovely weather here now, and I am quite well & able to walk out, .. and little Wiedeman rolls with Flush on the grass of the Cascine. Dear kind Wilson is doatingly fond of the child, and sometimes gives it as her serious opinion that “there never was such a child before”.– Of course I dont argue the point much.
Now will you write to us? Speak of your plans particularly when you do– We have taken this apartment on for another year from May. May God bless you– Robert unites in affectionate thanks & thoughts of all kinds, with your
EBB—rather Ba.
This letter has waited some days to be sent away, as you will see by the date. [14]
Address, on integral page: Mrs Jameson / Ealing.
Publication: LEBB, I, 440–443 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Sacred and Legendary Art (2 vols., 1848).
3. Cf. Matthew 5:6.
4. We have been unable to trace this club, but it may have been associated with the Free Lending Library that was part of the Anglican church in Florence; see Catherine Danyell Tassinari, The History of the English Church in Florence (Florence, 1905), p. 107.
5. Seymour Stocker Kirkup (1788–1880), an English artist and antiquarian, had lived in Italy since the 1820’s. For his part in discovering the portrait of Dante, he was later created a cavaliere of the Order of S. Maurizio and Lazzaro, which he stylized as “Barone.” During the time the Brownings knew him in Florence, he occupied “an old house, formerly a residence of the Knights Templars, hanging over the Arno, just as you come upon the Ponte Vecchio” (Hawthorne, 14, 391).
6. In 1840 a fresco portrait of Dante, attributed to Giotto, was discovered in Florence beneath a layer of whitewash in the Bargello (formerly the Palazzo del Podestà). Three men were principally responsible for the discovery and subsequent restoration: Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847), an American lawyer and poet with a scholarly interest in Dante; Giovanni Aubrey Bezzi (see letter 2826, note 11); and Seymour Stocker Kirkup (see note 5 above). The “dispute” revolved around the question of who played the principal role in the affair. Two years after the fresco had been unveiled, Wilde, hearing that “Bezzi had been taking too much credit for himself, commented: ‘Mr. Bezzi’s behavior in relation to this matter is to say the least unhandsome. I hope Kirkup will execute his promise of laying the truth in some way before the public’” (Edward L. Tucker, Richard Henry Wilde, Athens, Georgia, 1966, p. 58). Kirkup’s views were made known when a letter from him to a Signore Cavalcaselle was published in The Spectator of 11 May 1850, wherein he disputed claims of primacy, purported to have been made by Bezzi, and suggested that he (Kirkup) was the chief agent in the enterprise. Bezzi responded with his version of events in The Spectator of 25 May 1850, declaring that he had never taken credit for the discovery and naming Wilde, not Kirkup, as the prime mover. For a full account of the finding of Dante’s portrait and the ensuing controversy, see Richard Thayer Holbrook, Portraits of Dante (1911), pp. 73–103.
7. Or “L’Angelo Custode” by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), called “Guercino”; see letter 2744, note 4. In Sacred and Legendary Art, Mrs. Jameson writes: “The angels of Domenichino, Guercino, and Albano, are to me less pleasing. … I never saw an angel in one of Guercino’s pictures that had not, with the merely human character, a touch of vulgarity” (p. 47).
8. EBB is referring to the critic John Wilson (pseud. Christopher North, 1785–1854).
9. Le Cousin Pons (1848) was Balzac’s last complete novel.
10. “A gap greatly to be deplored.”
11. Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877), statesman and writer, was one of the principal members of the conservative majority who were directing much of French government policy from behind the scenes.
12. Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–65), socialist author, was at this time serving a three-year prison sentence for his incendiary writings. He was released in 1852.
13. Camilla Sherwin (née Murphy, 1797–1886). Her husband Frank Sherwin (1790–1849) had died at their London home on 4 November 1849.
14. This letter bears an Ealing receiving stamp of 21 April 1850. EBB held back the letter in order to enclose it in one to New Cross, from where it was posted to Ealing.
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