2850. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 118–119.
Florence.
May 4– [1850] [1]
Dearest friend, this little note will be given to you by the Mr Stuart of whom I once told you that he was holding you up to the admiration of all Florence & the Baths of Lucca as the best English critic of Shakespeare, in his lectures on the great poet. We are not afraid that his gratification in making your personal acquaintance will be without a reflected pleasure for yourself—he is a gentleman in the highest sense, of liberal views & sympathies, and full of cultivation. His specialty seems to lie among your Germans,—and all their philosophy about Shakespeare, he is skilled in. Need I say besides that he is among our few friends in Italy, and that we shall count among your many kindnesses to ourselves, any graciousness you may show him? He will be in London a very short time & returns to his family here, where he has married an Italian & has three little children. [2]
Robert bids me say that he wrote you a constrained half-dozen lines by Mr Henry Greenough [3] who asked for a letter of introduction to you, while the asker was sitting in the room, and the form of “dear Mrs Jameson” could’nt well be escaped from. He loves you as well as ever, you are to understand through every complication of forms, and you are to love him .... and me .. for I come in as a part of him, if you please. Did you get my thanks for the dear Petrarch pen (so steeped in double-distilled memories, that it seems scarcely fit to be steeped in ink) and our appreciation as well as gratitude for the books, [4] which indeed charm us more & more? Robert has been picking up pictures at a few pauls each .. “hole and corner” pictures, which the ‘dealers’ had not found out .. and the other day he covered himself with glory by discovering & siezing on (in a corn shop a mile from Florence) five pictures among heaps of trash: one of the best judges in Florence (Mr Kirkup) throws out such names for them as .. Cimabue .. Ghirlandaio, Giottino, .. a crucifixion painted on a banner, Giottesque if not Giotto, but unique or nearly so on account of the linen material .. and a little Virgin by a Byzantine master. The curious thing is that two angel-pictures, for which he had given a scudo last year, prove to have been each sawn off the sides of the Ghirlandaio, so called, representing the ‘Eterno Padre’ clothed in a mystical garment & encircled by a rainbow, the various tints of which, together with the scarlet tips of the flying seraphs’ wings, are darted down into the smaller pictures & complete the evidence, line for line. It has been a grand altar-piece, cut to bits. Now, .. come and see for yourself. We cant say decidedly yet whether it will be possible or impossible for us to go to England this year, .. but in any case, you must come to see Gerardine and Italy, & we shall manage to catch you by the skirts then, so do come. Never mind the rumbling of political thunders, .. because, even if a storm breaks, you will slip under cover in these days easily, whether in France or in Italy. I cant make out, for my part, how anybody can be afraid of such things.
Will you be among the likers or dislikers, I wonder sometimes, of Robert’s new book. The faculty, you will recognize, in all cases:—he can do anything he chooses. I have complained of the asceticism in the second part, but he said it was ‘one side of the question’. Dont think that he has taken to the cilix, [5] —indeed he has not—but it is his way to see things as passionately as other people feel them.
Our child is beginning to run alone .. patters across the floor with such little feet, you wonder how they go. I look at him in his development of sensibility & intelligence, much as a savage does at a ticking watch––“Can it be alive?” It seems a marvel altogether. And Robert has much my feeling, & we are never tired of examining him, .. you would laugh– Also he is a very forward child, & the most loving little creature .. just made for being kissed. Flush & he have grown to be devoted friends.
Chapman & Hall offer us no copies or you should have had one of course. So Wordsworth is gone—a great light out of heaven!
May God bless you, my dear friend! Love your affectionate & grateful .. for so many reasons ..
Ba.
Will you tell me of Gerardine?
You will think how I have been moved by my sister’s marriage. I do not fear for her happiness on any account. It was a five years engagement, and he is much attached to her & an upright excellent man.
Address: Mrs Jameson / Ealing / near London.
Publication: LEBB, I, 448–449 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the death of Wordsworth.
2. James Montgomery Stuart (1816–89) and his wife Maria (née Gherardini, d. 1892, aged 70) were married in 1845. They had three children at this time: Giulia Adriana (1846–78), her twin brother Roberto Pietro (1846–92), and Maria Vittoria (1848–1905). The Stuarts later had a fourth child, Rosa Euphemia (1852–97).
3. Henry Greenough (1807–83), a younger brother of the sculptor Horatio Greenough. He and his wife, Frances (née Boott, d. 1897) were on their way back to Massachusetts via England.
4. Sacred and Legendary Art (2 vols., 1848).
5. “Hair-shirt.”
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