2888. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 228–229.
[Florence]
Sunday morning. [?10 November] [1850] [1]
My dear Miss Blagden, In spite of all your drawing kindness we find it impossible to go to you on monday. We are expecting friends from Rome who will remain only a few days perhaps in Florence. [2] Now it seems to me that you very often pass our door. Do you not too often leave the trace of your goodness with me? And would it not be better of you still, if you would at once make use of us & give us pleasure, by pausing here, you & Miss Agassiz, to rest & refresh yourselves with tea, coffee, or whatever else you may choose? We shall be delighted to see you always—& dont fancy that I say so out of form or “tinkling cymbalism.” [3]
Thank you for your intention about the Leader. [4] Robert & I shall like much to see anything of John Mill’s on the subject of socialism [5] or any other. By the British Review, do you mean the North British? I read a clever article in that review some months <ago> on the German socialists, [6] ably embracing in its analysis the fraternity in France, & attributed, I have since heard, to Dr Hanna, the son in law & biographer of Chalmers. Christian socialists are by no means a new sect, the Moravians representing the theory with as little offence & absurdity as may be– What is it, after all, but an out-of-door extension of the monastic system? The religious principle, more or less apprehended, may bind men together so, absorbing their individualities, & presenting an aim beyond the world,—but upon merely human & earthly principles, no such system can stand, I feel persuaded, & I thank God for it. If Fourierism could be realised, which it surely cannot, out of a dream, the destinies of our race would shrivel up under the unnatural heat, & human nature would, in my mind, be desecrated & dishonored. Because I do not <believe> in <purification> without suffering, in progress without struggle, in virtue without temptation– Least of all, do I consider happiness the end of man’s life. We look to higher things—have nobler ambitions.
Also, in every advancement of the world hitherto, the individual has led the masses. Thus, to elicit individuality, has been the object of the best political institutions & governments. Now, in these new theories, the individual is ground down into the multitude—and society must be “moving all together if it moves at all” [7] —restricting the very possibility of progress by the use of the lights of genius. Genius is always individual.
Here’s a scribble upon grave matters! I ought to be acknowledging instead your scrupulous honesty as illustrated by five franc pieces & Tuscan florins. Make us as useful as you can—do, for the future,—& please us by coming often. I am afraid your German Baroness [8] could not make an arrangement with you, as you do not mention her. Give our best regards to Miss Agassiz, & accept them yourself, dear Miss Blagden, from your affectionate
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Publication: LEBB, I, 467–468.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dating based on EBB’s reference to “friends from Rome” (see the following note). 10 November 1850 was a Sunday.
2. Presumably, EBB is referring to the Brauns, who visited the Brownings “a few evenings” prior to 15 November; see the following letter.
3. Cf. I Corinthians 13:1.
4. A weekly started in 1850 by George Henry Lewes and Thornton Leigh Hunt.
5. In a letter headed “Restraints of Communism” in The Leader of 3 August 1850 (p. 447), John Stuart Mill (1806–73) refuted the charge that his book, Political Economy, opposed communism because it meant wealth and ease for the masses, arguing instead that his book opposed communism because it would tend to diminish individual initiative.
6. In the August 1849 issue of The North British Review, entitled “German Socialism” (pp. 406–435). We have been unable to confirm William Hanna as the reviewer, but he has been identified as the author of several other articles in The North British Review from 1856–63.
7. Cf. Wordsworth, “Resolution and Independence” (1802), line 77.
8. Unidentified.
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