3011. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 37–40.
138. Avenue des Champs Elysées
February. 26. [1852] [1]
Never believe of me so bad a thing as that I could have received from you, my ever dear & very dear friend, such a letter as you describe, & rung hollow in turn. I did not get your letter—so how could I send an answer? Your letter’s lost, like some other happy things. But I thank you for it fervently .. guessing from what you say, the sympathy & affection of it .. I thank you for it most gratefully.
As for poor dear Miss Mitford’s book, I was entirely upset by the biography she thought it necessary or expedient to give of me. Oh—if our friends would but put off anatomizing one till after one was safely dead, & call to mind that, previously, we have nerves to be agonized, & morbid brains to be driven mad! I am morbid, I know. I cant bear some words even from Robert. Like the lady who lay in the grave & was ever after of the colour of a shroud, [2] so I am white-souled—the past has left its mark with me for ever. And now, (this is the worst) every newspaper critic who talks of my poems may refer to other things .. I shall not feel myself safe a moment from references which stab like a knife.
But poor dear Miss Mitford—if we dont forgive what’s meant as kindness, how are we to forgive what’s meant as injury? In my first agitation I felt it as a real vexation that I could’nt be angry with her. How could I, poor thing? She has always loved me & been so anxious to please me—& this time, she seriously thought that Robert & I would be delighted!– Extraordinary defect of comprehension!
Still, I did not .. I could not .. conceal from her that she had given me great pain—and she replied in a tone which really made me almost feel ungrateful for being pained .. she would “rather that her whole book had perished than have given me a moment’s pain”– [3] How are you to feel after that?
For the rest, it appears that she had merely come forward to the rescue of my reputation—no more than so!– Sundry romantic tales had been in circulation about me—I was “in widow’s weeds” in my habitual costume .. and, in fact before I was married I had grievously scandalized the English public .. (the imaginative part of the public) & it was expedient to “tirer de l’autre côté.” [4]
Well—I might have laughed at that—but I did’nt. I wrote a very affectionate letter, .. for I really love Miss Mitford, though she understands me no more under certain aspects, than you in England understand Louis Napoleon & the French nation. Love’s love– She meant the best to me—and so, do you, who have a much more penetrating sense of delicacy, forgive her for my sake, dear friend!–.
Delighted we shall be to see you when you come. I have not certainly been as well in the chest since I left Italy .. but the spring is at hand .. we can hear her footsteps along these [‘]‘champs Elysées,” & the trees in our garden are breaking into bud. Also, though we have had some keen days this winter .. three which took away my voice for two months, for instance .. the general quality of the air agrees with me much better than English air which does’nt agree with me at all. And the sun has much of the character of a southern sun—we are forced to let down the blinds & put out the fire when the sun shines—it is sufficient. And do you know, you do wrong to Paris when you guess at it as an “uncomfortable residence”. Socially speaking, it is charming .. quite perfect: the resources & the liberties combine in an absolutely perfect manner—and Robert is enchanted with it altogether. Then by “domestic appliances” if you mean what we boast of in England as “comforts,” I never will admit that you are less comfortable in these continental houses in any sense of the word– You escape the fatal staircases & mortal passages of English houses, by having an apartment to yourself, .. and as to furniture, .. easy chairs, spring sofas, where do you find in England anything like what we find here .. except indeed in rich English houses where everything is found. I assure you I never lived in so warm a house as the one we occupy:—every room (to the bedrooms) carpeted throughout: and we have coal fires, .. with wood & turf, as in Florence, to keep up a blaze. Still, I look back fondly to dear dear Florence, .. & the grey church wall opposite our terrace, which I never was tired of– The repose & the climate suited me well.
I almost wish, that you came to Paris a little later, that I might be able to go about with you– As it is, I am not “free” yet—though I have quite recovered my voice & dont cough much now.
We have been uneasy about our child, who has had slight attacks of laughing & convulsive hysteria at night .. the consequence, it is supposed, of a too excitable temperament. We have had to give him ‘bella donna’ & to keep him as quiet as possible—& the physician, we had recourse to, assures us that “he is in the most absolute health[”] & that nothing whatever is to be apprehended. Still, it has saddened the associations of his joyous spirits, his songs & his dances– Now, instead of laughing with him, we have to say “hush,” & quench, as far as possible, those happy vivacities. And he not three years old yet! That’s sad—is’nt it? He is quite a peculiar child, with quite divine touches of moral beauty in him—the intellectual precocity being far less remarkable, & also far less precious, as you may suppose. But the sensibility, the lovingness, the spiritual fragrance in him altogether, make me feel sometimes as if he were likely to melt away under our kisses from the unworthy world. God have mercy on us– Love is a dangerous thing. Paris has seemed to agree very well with the darling—very well. He has cheeks, like peaches, & a better appetite than he ever had in his life. He draws, & sings, & knows all his letters, & writes “ti amo,” [5] though we have kept him back by every means, never teaching him anything we could help .. & recoiling from the idea of a precocious child–
Of the memoirs of Madame Ossoli, I know only the extracts in the Athenæum. [6] She was a most interesting woman to me,—though I did not sympathize with a large portion of her opinions. Her written works are just naught .. she said herself that they were sketches, thrown out in haste, & for the means of subsistence, and that the sole production of her’s which was likely to represent her at all, would be the history of the Italian revolution. In fact, her reputation, such as it was in America, seemed to stand mainly on her conversation & oral lectures. If I wished anyone to do her justice, I should say, as I have indeed said, “never read what she has written.” The letters, however, are individual, & full, I should fancy, of that magnetic personal influence which was so strong in her. I felt drawn in towards her, during our short intercourse, .. I loved her .. & the circumstances of her death shook me to the very roots of my heart. The comfort is, that she lost little in this world—the change could not be loss to her. She had suffered, & was likely to suffer still more.
And now, am I to tell you that I have seen George Sand twice, & am to see her again? Ah, there is no time to tell you, for I must shut up this letter. She sate, like a priestess, the other morning in a circle of eight or nine men, .. giving no oracles, except with her splendid eyes, .. sitting at the corner of the fire, & warming her feet quietly, in a general silence of the most profound deference. There was something in the calm disdain of it which pleased me,—& struck me as characteristic. She was George Sand—that was enough: you wanted no proof of it. Robert observed that “if any other mistress of a house had behaved so, he would have walked out of the room”—but, as it was, no sort of incivility was meant–. In fact, we hear that she “likes us very much”—and as we went away, she called me “chere Madame” & kissed me, & desired to see us both again.
<…> [7]
I did not read myself the passage in question from Miss M’s book– I could’nt make up my mind, .. my courage .. to look at it– But I understood from Robert–
Publication: LEBB, II, 57–60 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address; the only February in which the Brownings resided at 138 Avenue des Champs Élysées occurred in 1852.
2. We have been unable to trace EBB’s reference to the “lady who lay in the grave.”
3. Miss Mitford had expressed herself quite differently to William Cox Bennett regarding the pain she had inflicted upon EBB; see SD1544 in vol. 17.
4. “Shoot from the other side”; or “balance the scales.”
5. “I love you.”
7. The remainder of the letter is missing, except for the following paragraph written at the top of page one.
___________________
