2978. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 175–179.
138 Avenue des Ch. Elysées
Decr 1– [1851] [1]
My ever dearest Henrietta, so you & Surtees are not at all afraid of the disturbances [2] in Paris, only of the expense of running away from them—I understand– Ah, but, seriously, if you wait till there shall be no prospect of a row here, you may wait fifty years: these stormy elements will not assuage themselves easily. Robert says you are wise—only, if you are wise, we are foolish,—for, so far from thinking of going away, we are meditating a settlement: and, do you know, the plan is, that Mr Browning & Sarianna should leave New Cross at the end of March, & take an apartment here in the same house as ourselves, and furnish & reside. We are to live quite independently of one another. It will be as if we had separate houses in England: the establishments will remain perfectly distinct. Also, Robert does not bind himself in any way, as he told them .. & he may even go to Italy for a year—we cant give up our travelling vocation whenever the money admits of its exercise. As to this climate, I cant say much about it so far. The cold has been universal, you see. At Marseilles, which is far hotter than Florence, there is ice & snow in the streets, and they have had snow too at Rome .. which we have not seen in Paris, except in the shape of the most infinitesimal powder, falling & vanishing. Everyone assures us that it is exceptional weather, and people have lived here eight years without feeling it so cold. Therefore, one must be reasonable & wait. I have not suffered from it nearly as much as might have been expected, I assure you. The cough was occasionally rather tiresome, and I grew thin as I always do in cold weather; but I never was unwell as in England in August—never. The air is of a different quality from the English air—that is certain, and I breathe & live in it much better. Then we have a warm house, & keep up enormous fires, & have no passages or staircases to catch one’s death in. I dont compare it all to dear Italy– I love Italy, and like Paris—there’s the difference– Now the cold has comparatively passed away, and I was very nearly going out yesterday, the air was so soft & mild; and today we are in a splendid sunshine though the atmosphere is sharper again– We have tickets for the Institute [3] on saturday week, and I shall be in despair if I cant get there. As it is, I have had to give up the chamber of Deputies, both for myself & Robert, who would’nt go there without me.
It is supposed that Mr Browning will be able to get his unfurnished apartment of seven rooms, for thirty or forty pounds a year, & that we may get our’s of eight larger rooms, for forty or fifty, in a good situation. Robert saw a pretty little house of thirteen rooms (a complete house—not apartment) with garden & coach house, the other day, which was to be let at forty pounds a year. Not dear, most assuredly—& there are no taxes worth speaking of–
I like Paris very much—and people are inclined here to be over-kind to us, I see, rather than the contrary. We dont want a crowd of visitors, Henrietta,—that is’nt what I call society—& then, the English might be a little troublesome perhaps. I have never been able to go out in the evening except twice; but I make Robert go sometimes, because we might as well be at Florence if he shuts himself up here as he does sometimes for days together. To go out for an hour in the evening gives him opportunities of social intercourse, which really is good for him, with his temperament––I quite agree with you, Henrietta. We had Lady Elgin here a few evenings ago, .. Lady Elgin & Madme Mohl together, .. and a great long talk about Shelley, & the poets generally. It was their own proposition to come, and we gave them tea & bread & butter, Henrietta, and Desirée made them a cake, & they liked it, they said, & meant to come again soon.
Aunt Jane has not been well—nothing of consequence .. some bilious affection, I believe, but enough to keep her in bed for several days. She is well again now, & was here on saturday, bringing George [4] with her who is past all recognition. He was a boy when I saw him last– He has grown less in wisdom I fear, than in other ways. Robin, [5] too, is in Paris—not altered, I think, at all—(I have seen him only once) but grave, he seemed to me, and so does Ibbit– I may be mistaken, having seen so little of either of them—but Ibbit was full of animation, you will remember, as a child, joyous & fervid, .. and the fire struck me as having died out, rather. Well—it may be a mistake. I have not seen their apartment since they furnished it, but I dont fancy that I shall ever be in great admiration on the subject of it—it is not an apartment which particularly charms me, though handsome & comfortable of course.
While Sarianna was here, she had a Daguer[r]eotype, with two paper copies, taken of Wiedeman,—the plate, for us, the two others for herself: but she means to give one of them to Arabel, so that you will see it. It is very like, & picturesque too, I think—but it makes him look four or five years old, which is curious .. so much taller & larger than he is actually! He is very much admired, I assure you, in Paris, and I dont wonder at it for my part. His hair is quite beautiful, for instance .. &, when Wilson has combed it in the morning, you would declare that it had lain through the night in fifty curl papers at least. There are two rows of glossy ringlets all round the head, dripping in gold over the forehead & neck—oh, it’s far too pretty for a boy, we all agree. The hair grows darker & darker, & thicker & thicker, & longer & longer, though we have never (through my obstinacy) touched even the ends of it with a pair of scissors. Wilson says “it will be magnificent hair presently.” How does Altham’s get on? I think that washing it every morning is good for producing curl. I had set my heart on Wiedeman’s hair curling, & used to study the separate hairs as they rose out of the down which appeared first,—asking everybody, “Do you think it will curl? do you think it will curl?” & somebody said ‘yes’, & somebody said ‘no’, until the event issued gloriously in the stiff ringlets of today– He is a very good darling child, I must tell you, however he may be spoilt. He sate on my knee last night in his little nightgown, & said, “Peninni buono, Mamma?” Yes—I answered—“he was extremely good.” “Domani, more! Domani, Mamma pepa (pregha) Dio Peninni, e more buono” … Mama was to pray to God for Peninni, to make him good again tomorrow. He has great ideas of God, little angel, & understands or professes to understand, that God makes him good, just as God makes the snow & the sun. When the sun shines, he always says .. “Un!” (sun) “Dio, Mamma.”—meaning that God had sent it. His language is something extrordinary with its Italian, English, & French. He understands a great deal of French now, having made an intense friendship with our French servant Desirée, who is always laughing with him & amusing him, professing to have never seen such a child in her life. He is a funny little creature certainly. When he is at the height of naughtiness he puts out his arm at full length & says “Boum” .. meaning to shoot you on the spot. I get shot very often, I assure you, & always have the greatest difficulty to keep my countenance, as you may fancy. Paris agrees delightfully with him– I am never tired of looking at his red cheeks. I think his musical organ is developping itself gradually—he sings quite pretty airs in his songs about the ‘swans’,—and the ‘gun’, which last has a decided military movement. If we ask him to sing, he begins directly, with a grave conviction of Art, in his manner, which is ineffable, really.
Henrietta, dearest, you send me a delightful account of your Altham, but I am sorry to hear that he should be suffering from the inconvenience you mention. It would have been wise, I think, if you had never left off the baths, keeping them warm, & drying him well after each: I am convinced of the advantage of a warm bath—not too warm. Of course, you have used the powder-puff several times a day, ever since his birth—you have not failed in this, of course. It was used to Wiedeman twice a day at least until he was two years old—(yet, not being a fat child, there was not the same need of it as in Altham’s case) & Wiedeman never was inconvenienced in the way you speak of. We used a great deal of powder & were very particular in keeping him dry .. which is a great point. I dont understand why you should have left off the warm baths for a feverish attack. If Wiedeman were to be feverish, I would have the water still warmer, & keep him in longer—that would be just my remedy. Does Altham begin to crawl yet? (Wiedeman could crawl across the floor at nine and a half months old—) do you put him down on the carpet to let him kick? Tell me this– Do take care not to weaken yourself by over-nursing. I dont quite like to hear of the dizziness in the morning. If you over-nurse him you will under-nurse him, remember: that is, the milk wont remain so good. I would increase the quantity of artificial food, I think. The great thing is to keep on the nursing, so as to have it to fall back upon in the case of teething illnesses– Now if you exhaust yourself, you lose the advantage, of course.
The newspapers must make our situation here seem tremendous, but nobody in Paris, except M. Thiers, has been very particularly frightened as yet, and although it is a moment of crisis doubtless, we shall all survive it, be sure. Where is the danger, as long as one stays in the house? In these Champs Elysées, they could only hear the sound of the cannons at a distance, in the last revolution. I am not in the least frightened. Not nearly as much as I should be at a thunderstorm.
Mr Justice Talfourd has been printing a very flattering sonnet to Robert in the Household Words. [6] And the Florentine review (Italian) has been praising my last book in an unwise manner, I fancy .. lifting to the skies my “politics & poetry,” Henrietta,!! as a “poema stupenda”. [7] Robert has finished & is sending off his Shelley, & I am about to prepare a third edition of my poems, which is likely to be called for soon. [8] We dont mean to idle away our time in Paris—oh no.
<Your ever attached
Ba.> [9]
Publication: Huxley, pp. 147–149 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address; the only December in which the Brownings resided at 138 Avenue des Champs Élysées occurred in 1851.
2. English newspaper accounts during the period prior to this letter were rife with rumors of civil war in France because of the deep divisions between Louis Napoleon and the Assembly. A report in The Times of 18 November noted that “the number of foreigners in Paris is daily diminishing, many of them being, it is said, deterred from fixing themselves here for the winter by fears of the consequences of the increasing breach” (p. 6).
3. i.e., l’Institut de France. Founded in 1795, it is the seat of five learned societies: l’Académie Française, l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, l’Académie des Sciences, l’Académie des Beaux-Arts, and l’Académie des Science Morales et Politiques. The Palais de l’Institut is located on the left bank of the Seine across from the Louvre. The Brownings were planning to attend a reception there on 13 December that was being given by the Académie Française for Charles de Montalembert, who had been elected a member on 9 January 1851. According to Le Constitutionnel, the reception was postponed in order to elect two other members. It was later held on 5 February 1852.
4. George Lake Hedley (1831–80), the youngest son of Robert and Jane Hedley.
5. Robert (“Robin”) Hedley (1825–1912), the Hedleys’ eldest son.
6. “Sonnet. To Robert Browning: Suggested by a Sunset of Unusual Beauty” appeared in Household Words, 22 November 1851, p. 213. The poem was included in The Dramatic Works of Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, D.C.L. Eleventh edition. To which are added, a few sonnets and verses (1852), p. 352. A presentation copy of this volume, inscribed by the author: “Robert Browning Esq With the kindest regards of T N Talfourd 24 August 1852,” is now at ABL.
7. “Wonderful poem.” EBB slightly misquotes the concluding words of a lengthy notice by James Montgomery Stuart of Casa Guidi Windows that appeared in Scritti Inglesi Sulla Politica Contemporanea, November 1851 (pp. 237–277). For the full text of this review, see pp. 339–351. Stuart focuses on Part I of EBB’s work; he had planned to deal with Part II in a continuation, but only one issue of Scritti Inglese was ever published.
8. Her third edition was not published until 12 October 1853.
9. The conclusion of this letter, is missing. Closing is supplied from a copybook made by Surtees Cook (ms at ABL/Altham).
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