2880. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 193–197.
Siena
September 22 [1850] [1]
Thank you many times my dear friend, for your kind & sympathe<tic letter> [2] which it was most pleasant to both of us to receive. I shall begin <by> telling you that I am wonderfully resuscitated by our residence here. <It was> a miserable exertion to have to come. I had to be carried in & out of the railroad carriage, & from one room to another when we arrived—and now at the end of three weeks I can walk a mile without being tired, & I get stronger still, day by day. As to Wiedeman, “he did’nt want change of air,” said Dr Harding, being “quite well,” and certainly about ten days before we left Florence he had begun to eat chicken, which he never could be persuaded into before, & that unwillingness of the appetite had been one of my reasons for looking forward fearfully towards the weaning. But though “quite well” at Florence, & with spirits & activity & brightness of countenance enough to warrant the opinion, his little face & arms & legs were far too pale—he looked like a wax doll with the rouge left out. Now all that delicacy of appearance is abolished—his two cheeks are brightly rose colored, and the dear legs (a great deal depends on a baby’s legs, you know) are properly mottled, where the complexion of them can be seen for scratches from the stubble of the Indian corn. Also, within these few days, we have weaned him—there’s glory! So frightened I was! But it has been achieved most victoriously & without an excess of vexation to him, thank God; though of course the difficulty was greater, through the habit he had had, all his life, of sucking whenever he chose & as much at last as at first, the balia’s milk being quite as abundant as ever to the last day. After diminishing for ten days, we put aloes on the breast—did’nt it seem cruel? .. and so, after trying in vain in different ways, & falling into one or two desperate furies, he gave it up, poor child, and turned his attention to grapes & “prosciutto”, his other <…> but less hopeless passions. We are very pleasantly situated here <in a s>mall villa about a mile & a half from Siena, on a hill called <“Poggio a>l vento”, because the wind sweeps all round us, .. in the midst <“our o>wn grounds” of vineyard & olive garden, not to speak of a pretty <square> flower-garden which Wiedeman does the honors of to us everyday. The whole of the house is ours .. four bedrooms, a sittingroom, a sort of hall or passage-room with two windows, (serviceable as another sittingroom), a kitchen, and a “specola” [3] at the top of the house, which is Robert’s delight .. and we pay ten dollars the month for it. Oh—not at all ‘cheap’ for Siena, I assure you! For instance we heard of another villa with twenty rooms, at six dollars the month: only that was four miles from the town, & besides we could not have taken it on into October if we had pleased. In other respects, the cheapness here does not exceed that of Florence—is much the same, perhaps; and really the good fresh air, English for freshness, Italian for elasticity, & perfectly dry .. (unlike that of the Baths of Lucca,) would be worth paying for, were there no cheapness at all. Then the country is beautiful—not romantic, .. but verdant & various, & exquisitely undulated, intersected with green lanes as in England .. not a wall anywhere. Robert sees everything with his imagination (which is happy for his wife) & that accounts for his bringing back such a deteriorating story about all these things when he came here alone on his exploring expedition: now, he is charmed, just as I am—then he was not in a mood to be charmed by a charmer. Magnificent sweeps of view we have from all our windows which all look out different ways,—on this side, towards the fantastic profile of the city, seen in silence against the sky .. on that side, across the vast Maremma bounded by the Roman mountains. So there’s our account of ourselves! better, you see, than the last one! But I have not been to Siena yet—it was necessary to wait till I could walk & stand a little. Meantime I listen to Robert’s rapturous witnessing to the glory of Sodoma whom he has never done praising!– [4]
Two pages written, without saying how I feel for your anxieties, & am grieved at your own health being less strong than usual!—and yet I think so much about both that I do hope you will write directly to let me know how you all are now. Are Alexander’s eye-teeth through? If so, he must be at an end of his troubles. But the precious little Marcia is only beginning hers, & scarcely I can hold myself back from the impertinence of urging you not to wean her by any means. The risk of these early weanings in Italy is certainly a verified thing .. one cant doubt whether there is risk or no risk—& even if we were sure of escaping worse evils than temporary suffering on the part of the child, .. why, infancy is a part of life, and it is well not to embitter it. As to balias, there will be difficulties sometimes, & we ourselves who lighted so happily at last, .. remember how we were driven about at first from balia to balia! one balia lost her milk just as your’s did, & Madme Biondi told me that it was not uncommon, from a sudden improvement in diet, though that sounds strange. Also she said that a change of balia was not hurtful to the child .. she “changed a balia”, she said poetically, “as she changed her camicia” [5] .. with as little hesitation & care. If I had been you I would have sent away your Neapolitan the same day & employed a medical man to choose you another. It is the law of balias that they should be liable to be sent away when the cause arises—they are not like other servants. Then I must tell you that Madme Biondi would never hear of our giving milk to Wiedeman while he was sucking, the mixture of milks being, in her mind, highly injurious to the stomach– I dont make an oracle of her, but she must assuredly have a full Italian experience, she is famous for her good fortune with children, and, as far as Wiedeman goes, he has justified our attention to her advice by his peculiar freedom from the usual stomach-affections. Dearest Mrs Ogilvy, I throw myself on your goodnature for pardon if I have seemed to say all this intrusively– Of course you are the judge in your own case—but I was pricked on to my impertinences by the thought of a Roman climate, (more trying for children than our Florentine one, even in winter, perhaps) & by other thoughts warmed through by my true affection for you all.
Happy fortunes be with the book which is to come out at Christmas! [6] What will be about the number of pages, & who is the publisher? and does it consist of more matter than the “traditions”? I need not say what pleasure the success will be to us– My new edition is out of the press but waiting to the end of October to be published, because Mr Chapman wishes to inaugurate it from his new house, in Piccadilly. [7] Robert’s book has not reached us yet—think of that! It was trusted to somebody, who took it into his head to send it by sea & travel by land himself– I should like to send you both my book & Robert’s—because mine contains all my poems worth a straw, though many which I should like to burn as stubble & cant. It is difficult to recover one’s misdeeds from the press—a practical repentance is in every other part of life, easier. Also I want to send you (when I can get it myself, & look it through) Professor Blackie’s Æschylus, a copy of which he has had the goodness, I hear, to leave in London for me. [8] Mr Ogilvy was interested in him & reminded me how I had had some correspondence with him—& I shall like to give you an opportunity of comparing together what we two have done with the poor ‘Prometheus’. Tell Mr Ogilvy that, from me. I know he is learned in Greek dramatists. Tell him too, because he will remember our poor friend’s [9] note from Gibralter which spoke of the Captain of the ship’s death from smallpox, that her child caught the infection, his life being despaired of for many days. Think—without medical help .. in the midst of the seas, what she must have suffered! Then, when that grief was past, came the last agony!– Yet indeed it was better, as you say, that all should have gone together! Also, she was a melancholy human being. The usual difficulties & sadnesses which await a woman in literary life, were embittered into enmity on all sides, by an unfortunate line of opinion and a most uncompromising courage. Her face & soul were full of furrows, through continual wrestling with the world. For my part, I honored her for her truth & boldness, & affectionately admired the native tenderness of character which were contrasted with both. She was chiefly known in America by her vivâ voce lectures, in which great power of analysis is said to have been displayed, & by her connection with the newspaper press. Dont read her writings, because they are quite below & unworthy of her. The only work to which she had given time & labour, she told me herself, was the unfinished one on Italy, lost with her. In conversation she much excelled, & one could not but be struck by the vividness & dignity (equally remarkable) of her mind. Now, may God have received her into rest. Rest, she wanted—& never found it here.
Mr Ogilvy was wrong & you right about Gombo. Robert went to explore & came back disgusted. I do wish I could even hope for Rome this year, but I dont see how it is to be done.
May God bless & keep you all. Robert’s love goes to both of you with <that of your ever affectionate
Elizabeth Barrett Browning>
It is said that some of the m∙s. work on Italy was rescued .. but nothing could have been finished– My impression is that it must have been rather a sketch for a work than the work itself. [10] She spoke to me of it the last evening, as if she had need of more mental concentration & labours, in order to make it a worthy book. Whatever else she had written, was thrown off rapidly—mere newspaper writing, &, that, quite inferior to what might have been expected from so masculine an intellect.
Address, on integral page: Alla Signora / Signora Ogilvy, / Villa Falcon, / Sorrento, / Napoli.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 26–32.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. EBB’s signature has been excised, affecting text here and below.
3. “Observatory,” or “belvedere.”
4. Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 1477–1549) was one of the leading Sienese artists of the Renaissance.
5. “Chemise.”
6. According to The Publishers’ Circular, Mrs. Ogilvy’s Traditions of Tuscany, in Verse was issued during the first two weeks of January 1851. The publisher was Thomas Bosworth.
7. Chapman and Hall moved into new offices at 193 Piccadilly by December 1850. The firm’s headquarters had been at 186 Strand. EBB’s Poems (1850) would be announced as “this day is published” in Chapman and Hall advertisements that ran in The Morning Chronicle (p. 8) and The Morning Post (p. 1) of 8 November 1850.
8. The Lyrical Dramas of Æschylus (1850) by John Stuart Blackie (1809–95), who for many years held the Greek chair at the University of Edinburgh. He was currently professor of Latin at Marischal College, Aberdeen.
9. Referring to Margaret Fuller.
10. Although some of Margaret Fuller’s books and manuscripts were recovered, her work on the Italian revolution was never found.
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