2848. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 108–114.
[Florence]
[?3] [May 1850] [1]
<***> see, I had had some tendency towards a cough since the cold in the winter,—and then, my imprudence in running out on the terrace when the air was damp, carried it suddenly out to perfection. Oh, it was nothing but a common cold—nothing to care for in the least, except that Robert would’nt let me stir into Baby’s room, while it lasted, which was a vexation. Now I am free again. Baby walks alone most beautifully, staggering sometimes like a drunken fairy, but managing to get across the room notwithstanding. Such little, tiney, pattering feet, Arabel! He has such a pretty little figure too .. as upright as a dart stuck in the ground, .. and so delicately made—you see it all better when he walks. We have bought open work thread socks for him, but the velvet shoes are not yet too hot. Still, he wd rather crawl—and whenever he catches sight of a puddle out of doors he wants to sit in it .. which is’nt quite so convenient, particularly as I have just finished braiding for him two silk polkas, .. one, shot with crimson & blue, .. braided with blue .. another of the raw silk of the country, which washes, & is the colour of silkworm-silk. I have an inexhaustible vanity about Wiedeman. I like people to say “What a pretty child”—and then, really he is an interesting child, a poetical child, in his looks & ways– He sings ‘Margery Daw’ [2] quite correctly now—and I dont believe that a baby of thirteen months and a half ever held a pen or pencil before as he does, .. just like a writing master. Who taught him? Nobody. But he observes everything, and he has always delighted in seeing us write. Now, if you give him a pencil, he arranges it in his right hand, with his left hand, .. first & second finger, carefully arranged, .. thumb in its place, .. in the most scientific manner you could desire to see, .. looking up gravely into our faces to find if that is perfectly as it should be. We laugh—how could anybody help laughing? .. but he is grave, & sighs deeply to express the sense of difficulty, and then looks round for the inkstand. Robert gives him an empty inkstand, into which, every two minutes, he solemnly dips his pencil, & goes on writing. This is not an accident, but his usual way of proceeding. As to reading, for these six months past & longer, he has understood all about it .. opening all the books he can find, & beginning with a loud voice, “ah, ah, ba ba, papa”– If he falls on a letter, it is just the same, he opens it wide, & reads it. There is a note of dear Minny’s to Wilson, which he is never tired, Wilson says, of pulling out of her basket & reading aloud with every sign of satisfaction. Considering that he plays on the piano, (oh, and with such sighs, and turnings of the head from side to side!) and blows the fire with the bellows, and dusts the room with the duster, & combs & brushes his own hair, and sews the table cloths, he really must pass as an accomplished baby—must’nt he? Wilson says always that she never saw a child like him for forwardness. The other evening, Robert was reading, and folded one knee over the other, as he sate by the fire– Wiedeman sate by me on the sofa, and seemed, to my amusement, quite absorbed in contemplation of his father, … when suddenly, with an indescribeably sly smile, he doubled one of his knees over the other, (just like Robert) pulling up his petticoats to see if he had done it right. I told you that he waves his hand for “addio”:— when any stranger stays too long in the room, he waves it emphatically, by way of dismission. Is’nt that ingenious? But a passionate little creature, he is. The last letter I sent you, I took into the nursery to seal. He wanted it of course, and I gave it for a moment into his hands which instantly set about breaking open the seal, so I took it away from him. Whereupon after trying in vain to persuade me to let him have it, he fell into a passion & siezed on my hair with both little fists, trying to tear it to pieces .. then, took himself away from me in disgust, & went off full speed, crawling to his balia. She received him with an explosion of sympathy .. “Poverino! La mamma non vuole darti questa lettera! Che cosa!” [3] —but before she had settled him on her knee, down he struggled again .. “miserable comforters, are ye all,” [4] .. down he dashed himself on the floor, .. face on the carpet, .. hands beating on each side … that’s always his way when he’s in a passion .. in a most theatrical state of desperation! then, in a half minute, & of his own accord,—he was up again, & coming back to me full speed, .. climbed up my knees, and kissed me with his lips full of sobs. So I said “Shall we go to Papa,” and he danced & laughed in my arms & we were the best friends possible directly. Nobody asked him to come to me! He is affectionate,—has not the least bit of sullenness in his nature.
He is very fond of Robert, & of me too .. and I was proud to see the balia out of temper yesterday, & to hear her say, that she “never would nurse the baby when I was in the room”. “What was the use of it? he attended to nobody but me .. he would’nt suck or do anything”–
We have taken a new room .. I think I told you .. a new drawing room with three windows, a most beautiful room, to which our rooms open through a once condemned door: we pay two additional pounds a year for this—I think I told you, .. & we began to have access to it from the 1st of May. We do not want it particularly just now, but we might want it, and in any case it is well to have another great room, if only for Baby to play in, as we have no garden. This room I sit in, our old drawingroom, is hung round with tapestry .. did I tell you of our ancient tapestry, .. & with the carved wood & old pictures, it looks antique. The carved bookcase is beautiful– [5] Dr Braun called it a “most poetical room.” The pictures are a few, which, Robert, who understands a good deal about Art in general & Florentine art in particular, has picked up at different times & places, for a few shillings each—you know we cant afford to buy pictures in the grand sense—but he has been very successful in getting them for nothing or next to nothing. We have specimens of Gaddi, Lippi [6] .. the like. Well—in the early part of the winter, he bought two companion pictures of angels .. gave four & sixpence for the two .. painted on panel. Some understanding persons admired them much, and Mr Ogilvy offered to take them at any price Robert liked to mention—but he would’nt part with them of course. He heard, where he procured them, that they had been sawn off the sides of a great picture representing the Madonna, in a church at Arezzo—the priest was reported to have said that the Madonna cd take care of the altar alone, .. saying which, he had sawn off the angels & sold them. Well—Robert sent to Arezzo to try to get the Madonna for a few shillings more—he thought the priest cd not resist a few more shillings. The answer was, the holy man had gone to Rome, & nothing cd be done until his return. So we thought no more about it.– A few days since, Robert fell upon some pictures in a corn shop outside the walls, & was much struck by one called the “Eterno padre”, [7] —by a Christ with an open gospel in his hand,—by a crucifixion which was curiously like Giotto, [8] .. & two smaller pictures. When he told me of them, I said .. “Oh, but I do hate those subjects .. the Eterno padre!”. “So do I,” said he, “but its a very fine picture, and we can get it for two pounds—we may be sorry afterwards, if we dont take it, for even a delay may throw it into the hands of some artist, & then our chance is gone.” We agreed, then, that he shd get the pictures. They arrived yesterday. On putting them into the light in our new drawingroom, the whole glory of the discovery became apparent. One curious thing I must tell you first. The ‘Eterno padre’ (so called) is surrounded with a rainbow, & sits clothed in a sort of high priest’s mystical garment—an open book in the left hand, the right hand upraised– It is very grand. Robert cried out .. “How curious! the hands are painted precisely in the manner of the angels from Arezzo, in the next room– I will go and fetch them & prove it to you.” In a moment he came back with the angels, and immediately burst out into fresh exclamations. Arabel, our angels had been sawn off that very picture. There is no doubt about it– The circle of the rainbow, and bits of the mystical garment join on line for line– Is that not surprising? Robert is in a state of rapture at the discovery– Whenever we can afford it, we shall have the pictures fastened together, and a frame to unite them. It is a fine picture of Ghirlandaio, of whom I think there is only one specimen in the Florentine gallery. [9] But this is not all– Robert went directly to Mr Kirkup the artist and antiquarian, who has a fine collection himself, & great experience & acumen in matters of art. Mr Kirkup came here without losing time. After recognizing & praising the Ghirlandaio, he said that Robert had done admirably in respect to the other pictures—that the crucifixion, if not Giotto, was Giottesque, of his time, and an unique specimen or nearly so, being painted upon linen .. it was very valuable, .. and that the Christ with the open gospel, a deep, solemn, moving picture, he believed to be a Cimabue, & worth five hundred guineas. [10] Think what good fortune, .. great fortune, I may say! Robert has walked me backwards & forwards to the next room “to see our Cimabue and Ghirlandaio” till I am quite tired today. Certainly he may well be pleased, because if the fortune was good, the perceptive faculty in himself was better & more effective. I forgot to tell you that of the two little pictures, one was of the Greek school & very curious, and the other, a Giottino, Mr Kirkup said, & rarer than a Giotto. It seems fabulous that this treasure of pictures shd have been found together & at a corn shop, & I dare say you will scarcely believe it. The fact is that they had been deposited by somebody who objected to paying the picture-duty on passing the gates of Florence, & who had left them there in ignorance & indolence, two or three years. One or two of them to which at last Robert made his way, were pushed behind the corn-dealer’s bed—& there were trashy pictures in their company, as you may suppose. It was a mile from Florence.
Arabel, tell me if Alfred obtained the situation he hoped for [11] —tell me too, if George continues to get on in the circuit– Has Occy no prospect at present? How I should like him to come to us & see Florence! it would be an advantage to him in his profession. Mention Stormie whenever you hear from him. As to Henry, I cant wish him among these Austrians even for the pleasure of having him near me. Tell him so. There is a strong feeling among the Italians against the Austrians—an Italian lady who dances with an Austrian, is a marked woman & injured in reputation. A lady refused, at the Grand Duke’s ball the other night, to dance with an Austrian officer, who afterwards in some dance which admitted of the gentleman selecting his own partner, drew her out, forcing her compliance. She exclaimed in great emotion .. “Vous m’insultez, Monsieur! vous êtes un lache” [12] .. (French being the means of communication when Italian & German are not mutually understood.) There was a sensation & confusion, as you may suppose, in the whole room. The best of it was, that the lady’s husband looked frightened out of his wits & by no means inclined to accept the situation patriotically.
Did dear Lizzie hear from her father—and what news? [13] If you go to see Nelly Jago, describe her child to me, and give her my best love– I want to know too of Arlette’s child particularly, it is so nearly the age of mine– How many teeth? can she walk? can she talk .. say any word, I mean. Is she fat? & tall? and rosy? and pretty? how is her hair? is she of fair or dark complexion? Well!– I hope I may see her for myself this summer .. I hope so. I am very glad that on the whole you liked the poems. [14] We hear that the book is “much talked of” in London, and “accused of irreligion.” [15] There’s the effect of writing a religious book! Its always so. People have reproached me for “irreverence;” and “boldness approximating to blasphemy,” because I used liberty in speaking of divine things: [16] if I had never named them or thought of them, there wd have been clear approbation, as far as the world went. At the same time I can understand how much in Robert’s book is open to misunderstanding with the ordinary run of readers. Then, the last part, which on some accounts, I, too, prefer, I think much too ascetic– I told Robert so at the time .. but he answered that it was one view of the subject .. which is true, though it is not the view from the height, it seems to me. All men who have lived in caves, starved on columns and forsworn “fashionable yellow starch” [17] like our puritan ancestry, have taken that view and no other, .. but Christ and the sunshine are wider & more abundant than these, and the large-hearted christian is called to inherit the earth as well as the Heavens. Music, Beauty, Joy, Love—even in the terrestrial senses, are good for us all, and should be welcome, I do hold, in Christ’s name. The sacrifice of them is enjoined, as fasting is enjoined, .. when they impede duty, .. & not otherwise, I believe. Still there is a condition of Christian experience when the line taken by the poem is verified,—and Robert sees things passionately:—that’s his characteristic: to feel passionately is more common. Certainly the poem does not represent his own permanent state of mind, which was what I meant when I told you it was dramatic. [18] What a dissertation! The Athenæum’s virulence is to be accounted for by a Unitarian influence, which, we hear, is predominant in it of late. [19] I suppose you are all in a storm in England on the Gorham question. [20] Mr Lindsay has called here once this winter .. Clara, rather oftener, .. but we see scarcely anything of them. Clara came to congratulate me on Henrietta’s marriage, & approved of it altogether. I fancied at first that Mr Lindsay had more taste & cultivation than I can see in him now– He is a strange, unwieldy sort of man, I think. I am going to write to Surtees & Henrietta– Tell them of our having received their letters & how happy they made me feel. Robert’s best love. How is dearest Minny? Mind you let her take great care of you & pet you properly–
My own Arabel’s devotedly attached
Ba–
A letter from Mr Kenyon just arrived. “I will not gossip about the late marriage at No 50, of which indeed I have not had time to hear much. Henrietta wrote to me beforehand, but for obvious reasons I did not answer her letter nor did she, I know, expect to hear from me. I did not like to seem a conspirator against her father, even in what I consider a just cause.” He says that if we go to England, we are not to leave it without paying him a visit of a day or two, in his country house [21] .. his “hut”, he calls it.
Address, on integral page: Care of Miss Tripsack / (Miss Barrett) / 12. Beaumont Street / Devonshire Place / New Road / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, I, 312–318.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Month and year provided by London receiving stamp of 11 May 1850. Conjectural day suggested by the length of time it took a letter to reach London from Florence during this period: between eight and ten days. EBB’s remark about having had “access” to the “new room … from the 1st. of May” suggests the shorter duration.
3. “Poor little thing! Mama doesn’t want to give you this letter! What’s the matter!”
4. Job 16:2.
5. See illustration facing p. 177; see also Reconstruction, H381.
6. We have been unable to trace any work by Fra Filippo Lippi (1406?–69) belonging to the Brownings. A portrait of St. Jerome by Giovanni Toscani (d. 1430), attributed by RB to Taddeo Gaddi (1300?–66) and mentioned in “Old Pictures in Florence” (stanza 26), formed part of lot 66 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H22). This painting is reproduced facing p. 113.
7. “Eternal father.” This picture by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483–1561) sold as lot 43 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H9). It is easily recognizable above the mirror over the mantelpiece in Mignaty’s painting of the drawing room at Casa Guidi.
8. Giotto di Bondone (1267?–1337), Italian painter.
9. Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers in Northern Italy (1847) describes an “Adoration of the Magi” in the Uffizi, as well as a “Nativity” in the Accademia delle belle Arti, both by Ghirlandaio (pp. 540 and 566).
10. This painting of “Christ with the open gospel,” supposedly by Cimabue (Cenno di Peppi, 1240?–1302), has not been located, nor has “the crucifixion … painted upon linen.” Another crucifixion attributed to the “Tuscan school” sold as lot 64 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H23).
11. Presumably the position in South America mentioned in the penultimate paragraph of letter 2829.
12. “You insult me, sir! you are a coward.”
13. Concerning her removal from Miss Sykes’s school; see letter 2836, note 25, and SD1451. Lizzie’s father was George Goodin Barrett (1792–1854), Edward Moulton-Barrett’s first cousin and head of the Barrett family interests in Jamaica. He resided at The Ramble near Moneague in St. Ann’s Parish.
14. Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
15. In the following letter, EBB implies that Henry Fothergill Chorley was the source of these comments.
16. In her review of EBB’s Poems (1844), Martha Jones in The British Quarterly Review (November 1845, pp. 337–352), commenting on “A Vision of Poets,” noted: “We must, without suspecting the writer of any intentional irreverence, strongly censure the phrase—‘Poet-God,’ which occurs more than once in the poem” (see vol. 11, p. 349). Referring to “The Cry of the Human,” George Gilfillan wrote in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine (September 1847, pp. 620–625): “The poem may truly be called a prayer for the times, and no collect in the English liturgy surpasses it in truth and tenderness, though some may think its tone daring to the brink of blasphemy, and piercing almost to anguish” (see vol. 14, p. 382).
17. We have been unable to trace the source of this quotation. Starch was commonly used in ruffs, which were worn by the well-dressed during the Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. “Yellow starch” for ruffs was made fashionable in England by Anne Turner (née Norton, 1576–1615), a notorious murderer who was hanged at Tyburn on 14 November 1615. Puritans, already averse to finery, would have been even more so in this case because of the connection to Mrs. Turner. At her trial, she was declared to be “a sorcerer, a witch” and “the daughter of the devil” (ODNB).
19. We have been unable to verify EBB’s impression that The Athenæum was under a “Unitarian influence.” The reviewer was John Westland Marston; see letter 2846, note 3.
21. Lime Cottage, Wimbledon Common.
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