2869. RB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 167–170.
[Florence]
Monday Night, July 29, ’50.
I must tell you, dear Mr Kenyon, exactly how your letter finds us—else you will not quite understand how it affects us. Yesterday mg Ba had another unfortunate miscarriage—she was, it is thought, two months advanced toward confinement, & had seemed particularly well—not that we have any sort of rashness to reproach ourselves with on that account—every sort of risk was avoided, & she kept the house,—indeed the sofa, for the last six weeks: spite of all precautions, however, she became unwell some days ago, and the result has been more serious than on former occasions—but we had good prompt medical assistance—& though a painful, dubious day was followed by a worse night—yet morning brought decided relief—by noon the distressing symptoms had greatly abated—& now (10ock) my own eyes assure me that the Doctor’s entire satisfaction, on his last visit just now, may be safely shared in by us all. She is wonderfully better indeed—has slept at intervals, & taken a little nourishment—& may be expected to pass a good night. To let you know what she rallies from … ought I to subjoin that Harding assured me this mg she had lost above a hundred ounces of blood within the twenty four hours? Not one in five thousand women would suffer to the same extent, he says. I pain you, I am sure—but how otherwise can I put you into my place & make you fancy that, after sitting all night by the little patient white face,—that could smile so much more easily than speak,—your letter & its proposal for her good reach me? You surely feel that whatever I say presently, the real business is over & ended—in the truest sense I have, as you express it, “already accepted” this last of your kindnesses & laid it away with its fellows in my heart forever: [1] also you will feel there can be no room in me for any silly affectation of pride, or playing at independence or the like folly. You have a noble princeliness of spirit to which such generosities come readily, and would be glad if I took your money—hear why I cannot. I should be vexed, of course, to leave Italy without Ba seeing the south of it—such a pleasure has always been dreamed of & schemed for every year—little attempts, indeed, were made & broken off—& this present year, when we formed the Paris-plan, there was no avoiding the fact that unless we put our project into execution this winter, the hope must be given up—then came Ba’s situation to render the journey all but impossible. As the event proves, that difficulty is gone. Our finances are straitened certainly, nor will this new doctor’s bill improve them, but we have economized of late, and I do not see so imperative a bar to our getting to Rome (at least) & staying there a month or two, as to justify my looking beyond for help which on every principle ought to be reserved for extremities. All my life I have elected to be poor—& perhaps the reason, or one among other reasons, may be that I have a very particular capacity for being rich; like Chaucer’s monk “to ben an Abbot able” [2] —so that there is no poor spiritedness in my choosing to bound my wishes by any means, seeing that fortune could not easily supply me with means which I could not, if I pleased, out go, at one stride, by my wishes—& were RB the RP. of the divers thousands a year, noticeable just now in the newspapers; [3] be assured I could so effectually turn those moneys to account that not one unprofitable penny should cumber my pocket at the year’s end. But it was decreed otherwise. How, in all likelihood, I am wronging myself in your thought by writing lightly .. a very outside lightness! .. Set it down at worst to an a<wk>ward attempt at ridding myself of any symptom of the sour ungracious air of one who should say in his self-conceit <“>Let you delight me so much? No, indeed”—& so, shouldering arms, as it were, mount guard more stiffly than ever over the Wordsworthian allotment to “mighty poets in their misery dead”. [4] I might blamelessly say “For me, I want nothing of Rome & Naples, knowing each nook of one & corner of the other,—but since Ba will not see them unless by your help,—why, you shall, like yourself, help her, for you know whether kindness might not be worse bestowed.” But it would be a vile habit, to say no worse,—that of looking wistfully up at the clouds, on all occasions, to see what facilities may drop down to carry into effect any pleasant wish that one might be tempted to frame in her behalf. Observe we have £100 less shipmoney this year than last, and are likely to fare no better for the future. So let nothing be of this offer, beyond the memory & gratitude which I shall often enough enjoy, both in company with Ba, & “by myself walking, to myself talking” as Charles Lamb hath it. [5] See what I have tried to say in two letters, which I tore for saying it so ill—this must go. Well, the doctor orders Ba into the country, as soon as she recovers sufficiently to bear the transporting. I had heard before of a little comfortable & cheap villa, just our affair, at some four hours’ drive from Florence, on high ground, four miles from Vallombrosa. I shall hope to take her there for six weeks or two months—and our child will share in the benefit—on our return,—who knows how things may look? There is Ba’s new edition, (full of beautiful new things)—there may be reviews, &c. Perhaps we may see an opportunity of letting these rooms to proper people (because there are things easy to spoil)—in that case we may manage the journey—& such a house as Miss Bayley describes with such kindness .. but Ba will thank her when she can—in that best of situations for us, as I well remember—would suit us exactly—if we can compass the expense, for it seems a little beyond us, just now—to be sure our requirements are not unlike the boy’s memorable pennyworth of cheese which he wished to be “very long & very thick” [6] —so we want situation, spaciousness, and as many other advantages as possible, and all for an old song .. or rather, a new one! Still if Miss Bayley does really mean to go to Rome—and, particularly, to our very house there—why, we may be “dazzled with the Forum & pleased with ruin”. Will she follow up her good offices by sending the “plan” she speaks of? And any other information in her power. Briefly, if we can, we will go & be happy—if not, we will stay—and not be unhappy neither, when we think how we might have gone. Let me leave off lest I grow indignant at this letter also.
Tuesday Eg Ba has passed an excellent night, & day—& is much better—could not well be better. The doctor’s opinion confirms mine—he has been twice. Did I say that I read your letter & Miss Bayley’s to her yesterday? —Spite of the wrongness of exciting her at all—but there was no helping it & I did properly by instinct. Yet she is a little vexed, she says, at having perhaps, unconsciously, given an impression which was the last in the world she wished to give. I never see her letters, nor she mine—lest we should lose freedom in writing of each other—but I can fancy something of the spirit of her letter to Miss Bayley & how it might be misunderstood. We get the habit of telling our two or three intimates how we housekeep, to interest ourselves in what else is dull enough; but as I might tell you about my picking up pictures without being arrogant, so, if I said that, “having had losses” like Dogberry, we yet were not put to selling one of our “two good suits to ourselves”, [7] there would be not an atom of querulousness in it. Bless you, we are rich & eccelenza’d and signoria’d all Florence over—& I patronise art in a way. Come to Italy & see, for after all, I have a presentiment that it will be less difficult to meet so than by any contrivances of our own,—we who are here & likely to be. And now a word on other matters. The Storeys were very kind & attentive at Florence—all Americans are. I had a half-thought, when sending them the letters desired, of giving them one for you—but I remembered your crowded way of life & how emphatically you conceive hospitality—& that it would be better to give you the chance, sure to follow, of meeting them elsewhere & taking your own course. The lady is charming—is she not? I find Forster has been very kind to them,—as to another friend I sent him, [8] —indeed he is always most kind, and just now, among his multifarious occupations, is caring for Ba’s new Edition. Chorley, too, is ever friendly to us both. The Ward you mention is a capital fellow, [9] —full of talent & congeniality. And now I will leave off– All thanks and gratitude to you, dear Mr Kenyon, from yours ever most affectionately
Robert Browning.
Publication: LRB, pp. 27–30.
Manuscript: Brown University.
1. As RB explains in letter 2872, Kenyon had offered the Brownings £100 towards a visit to Rome and “£50 for the journey to England afterwards.”
2. The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, line 167.
3. RB may have in mind the Pope, or Roman Pontiff. Following Pius IX’s return to Rome in April 1850, he was faced with a shortage of government funds, a result of the revolutions of 1848–1849. The Times of 15 July 1850 reported that the Pope was calling on his clergy for a “contribution of … 100,000 scudi (500,000f.) a-year, to be levied not only on the property of the regular clergy, but upon all religious and pious foundations, benefices, commanderships, nunneries, hospitals, monts de piété, orphan asylums, &c” (p. 6).
4. Wordsworth, “Resolution and Independence” (1802), line 123.
5. “Hypochondriachus” (1802), lines 1–2.
6. We have been unable to trace the source of this quotation.
7. Cf. Much Ado About Nothing, IV, 2, 84–86.
8. Probably James Montgomery Stuart, who had travelled to England in May. In letter 2856 EBB mentions his “breakfasting with Mr. Forster.”
9. Presumably Frederick Oldfield Ward (1817–77), through whom RB had submitted contributions to Hood’s Magazine in 1844 and 1845, among them “The Tomb at St. Praxed’s.”
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