2891. EBB to Mary Louisa Boyle
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 236–239.
Florence–
Dec. 5– [1850] [1]
Now I am coming to you, my dear Miss Boyle, in sack cloth & ashes, and I do hope .. that is, we do hope .. Robert being as deeply in the scrape as I, .. that the powers of absolution are not used exclusively by the Tractarian & Roman hierarchies, at this time reigning in England. We have certainly behaved to all appearance as ill as we could, and that you should have been at the pains of writing us a third letter, proves your long-suffering & kindness to a degree which really touches us .. really makes us grateful to you. Let me tell you what is to be said in our defence– We received your three letters– The first came just before my confinement when I was ill able to write, and I said, “I will answer it as soon as the question is settled whether or not we are to have a living child”, .. previous accidents having filled me with misgivings. A fortnight after the birth of our baby, just as we were in the very bloom of the joy of it, & expecting happy congratulations from our friends in England, came fatal news of the sudden death of my husband’s mother from an unsuspected affection of the heart. She never heard of our joy. Poor Robert’s letter which he sate up to write after three oclock in the morning of the birth of his child, reached her bedside when she was dying & could not open it. She never blessed his child—it was too late. He was dreadfully overpowered—the reaction from the great joy to the sudden affliction shook him, soul & body,—for he had adored his mother, .. it had been more than a common filial tenderness. It was hard for me also. I felt for the first time I could do nothing for him. Our poor little babe seemed something for which a greater good had been ill-changed——do you understand? Then, even after the early agony was passed, there remained such deep depressions that I was really afraid of a nervous fever, and had to use all my influence to get him to change the air & scene. We went to Spezzia, leaving our child behind, & afterwards returned for him & spent the rest of the summer at the Baths of Lucca, where the still mountains and God did us some good. And now you have forgiven me for not answering that letter. You will understand how month followed month & I shrank from writing down all our sadnesses, and our joys which by association were sad too. The second letter reached us this summer, and as it came, I exclaimed, ‘I will answer this directly’—upon which, I was taken ill, & for the fourth time lost a hope, in the midst of severe & indeed frightful physical symptoms. Indeed I have not been so ill in Italy. For six weeks I could not walk from one room to another, & then, Dr Harding sent me away (very loth & feeling very unable) to Siena for change of air, & we were rusticating in a villa for one month, & loitering in the city afterwards, .. so the time passed away—and I was “thrown out,” on our return to Florence, .. by Sir George Hamilton’s death and the changes at the embassy. [2] Now, do we seem a little less black than we did? does there seem some excuse for our silence’s—and can you believe that your letters were received gladly & read with the truest interest, and that we do, both of us, affectionately thank you for persisting in remembering us? Our excuses contain, you see, a great deal of our history since we saw you last. The plan of taking & furnishing an apartment has answered with us delightfully. Robert did the furnishing with carved wood & tapestry, and I interposed occasionally with modern spring sofas & chairs, my Lollard habits not according exactly with those of the Medici. Altogether, we look both artistical & comfortable—a happy combination, .. & are able to live very cheaply. As to the revolution & counter-revolution, including the Austrian invasion, & the civil-war between Florence & Leghorn, we lived through the dangers of them most calmly. Our child was born to the roar of cannon at the Pitti—innoxious cannon of course, & only relating to the planting of the tree of liberty under our windows—but the noise was tremendous, & Dr Harding could scarcely get through the crowd to us, and the poor little new baby started in his cradle at the new noisy world. ‘Questo bimbo è molto nervoso,’ [3] said the monthly nurse,—but it only proved that he had ears. A more healthy, vigorous, joyous child never was, and since the beginning I have looked at him with wonder as my child. Robert says he is like his (Robert’s) mother, and I say he is like Robert. Now, he is, or will be in a few days, twenty one months old—very forward in everything but talking, gesticulating like a little Italian, passionately fond of music, and the churches, and Flush, and astonishing us with new revelations every day. We have got already to think him rather a supernatural child. He goes down on his knees when he hears the piano, because he has associated music somehow with the churches—goes down on his knees & folds his little hands, looking up with grave eyes, like an infant Samu<el.> Is’nt that curious. I read your account of your child [4] with the greatest interest, both because it was in itself so pretty & poetical & because our baby, as far as a dumb baby can, seems to be much of the same kind of nature. Ours too has a fair complexion with dark blue eyes & dark long eyelashes, & a golden fleece of lamb’s curls all over his head. He plays the cymbals with his hands to Robert’s piano, raising them high & clapping them together in exact time to the music—he who cant say a word yet, except Papa, & Mama. A very sensitive child in every way—crying when he sees the oxen struck .. shuddering all over at the sight of a dead bird,—and very careful & kind to the little flies. Robert doats upon him, & so do I .. a little .. In fact he is the King of the house, & we dont ask for a constitution. So happy we are, indeed!
We live just as quietly as we used to do, though I am very well just now & able to walk two miles, which is extraordinary for me. One drawback is, not being able to get new books till they are old—in spite of which, we have just read “In Memoriam”—how beautiful!—how full of pathos, and subtle feeling & thought! Worth two ‘Princesses,’ I think. Then we have Carlyle’s Latter day pamphlets [5] .. powerful & characteristic—and seventeen numbers of David Copperfield, [6] which we both set down or rather set up as Dickens’s masterpiece. We have had a visitor too, welcome as books, in the person of Goëthe’s grandson, [7] who did us the honour of passing two days in Florence to be with Robert. A most interesting young man, remarkable for simplicity & elevation of character. He said, like a man of his race, “he feared he was scarcely made for an artist, .. being conscious of moral preferences.” My husband’s view of Paracelsus, had made him anxious to know the writer—he is a poet himself (in spite of the moral preferences) & is mentioned in Humbolt’s Cosmos as one of the most learned & accomplished men in Germany. [8] All this of ourselves, & not a word of you!—and yet, do believe with how much deep sympathy we read every suggestion of your joys & sorrows. Do write as much in detail as you can. The vexation about Nebworth [9] must have been great—only, perhaps that party may renew itself—who knows?
<…> [10]
How do the Medici go on? is it impossible to find a publisher? [11] No room for Robert today, but he joins with me, dear friend, in every feeling which leaves me your affectionate
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
May we offer our kindest wishes & remembrances to Lady Boyle?–
We have visions in the street sometimes of your “Felicia”. [12] She has removed to the house opposite Mr Powers as perhaps you know. Tell me—Is there any hope for us of your coming back to take the desolate corner of our supper tray? Dont let me quite forget to tell you that your Parisian clairvoyante erred in saying that our marriage was postponed. It never was.
Address, on integral page: Miss Mary Boyle / Millard’s Hill / Frome / Somersetshire.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Pen’s age, “twenty one months.”
2. George Baillie Hamilton (1798–1850) was the British minister plenipotentiary to Tuscany from 23 May 1846 until his death in Florence on 6 September 1850.
3. “This baby is very excitable.”
4. Presumably Miss Boyle’s nephew, Mordaunt Charles Boyle, born 21 June 1850 to Charles John Boyle and his wife Zacyntha (née Moore).
5. Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), edited by Thomas Carlyle, appeared in eight parts between February and August 1850. Both it and In Memoriam were gifts from John Kenyon, sent via Charles Eliot Norton (see SD1459). In Memoriam is inscribed “John Kenyon to Elizabeth B. Browning. 1850.” It sold as lot 1145 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A2278).
6. The seventeenth number had appeared in September 1850. The final installment, containing numbers 19 and 20, was issued in November 1850.
7. Wolfgang Maximilian von Goethe (1820–83), the younger son of August and Ottilie von Goethe, was a jurist and writer. At this time he was attached to the embassy at Rome, where he was proceeding after having come from a visit to his family in Austria. Mrs. Jameson had provided him with letters of introduction.
8. Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), traveller and scientist, was the author of the five-volume Kosmos: Entwurf einer physicien Weltbeschreibung (Stuttgart, 1845–62). We have been unable to trace such a reference to Wolfgang Goethe in the first three volumes of the English translation of Cosmos that had been published by the time of this letter.
9. Mary Boyle had been invited to participate in one of the theatrical performances organized by Edward Bulwer-Lytton at his seat at Knebworth, but she had to cancel due to the death of a close friend (see Mary Boyle: Her Book, ed. Sir Courtenay Boyle, 1901, pp. 232–235).
10. A line and a half obliterated by the recipient or a third party.
11. We have been unable to clarify EBB’s remark.
12. A reference to Félicie de Fauveau.
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