3013. EBB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 45–49.
138. Avenue des Ch. Elysées
Saturday– [Postmark: 28 February 1852]
Thank you, thank you my dearest George! You are too kind & generous! & really I could almost reproach you in right earnest for sending me Longfellow’s poem. [1] As to the letter, that was acceptable without a drawback. You are dear & good, George. Robert’s most affectionate regards & thanks for it!–
The poem is, as you say, not very full of poetry though we both consider it by far the best production of its author up to this time. While there are beautiful conceptions & images, the language occasionally is very conventional & watery, .. & the scheme of the poem generally, is taken, I understand, from a German work. [2] Longfellow can do anything except be original. Much of the style he has adopted in some places, is imitated from Robert,—(as indeed we heard from England it was) only, as might have been expected, the familiarity has not his keenness, nor the idiomatic simplicity his raciness. After all however, it’s an interesting poem, & more likely to be popular perhaps than if it were better–
Reynolds was two days in Paris before giving us what he brought. [3] We did not think him looking ill, but he declared he had had a weekly illness throughout the winter, .. & I set it down as very foolish that he should have let slip the opportunity of spending the cold months in the south. He declared he could not before get his business done. I have had two notes lately from Mrs Peyton & Berry– Did I tell Arabel, I wonder?
Just now I receive her darling letter. Yes, Wiedeman is better, I thank God. Dr Macarthy did not think it necessary to repeat his second visit, & therefore he is of course sincere in making light of the affection—but the child is not altogether well, notwithstanding. He continues to have slight attacks every night .. slighter & slighter .. & we hope the thing is wearing itself out. I say “every night,” but it is rather the morning now, .. for the attack which came on as he went to sleep has now ceased, & he is only affected upon waking in the morning at five or six oclock. Also, for the last two nights there has been no laughing .. only a convulsive thrill through the body, with a gasp of breath, & sometimes a striking together of the teeth. The most curious kind of siezure it is that ever was observed I should fancy in so young a child. He fixed his eyes this morning on the ceiling with a most seraphic expression, for a moment or two, as if looking at something intently & rapturously—& then came the usual spasmodic shudder—after which, without a moment’s pause, he began to beat time gently with his hands & sing to himself softly, in his usual way & with quite his usual calm. On asking him afterwards what he saw in the ceiling, he said that he saw an angel playing on a trumpet .. “musica bella”. [4] I observed perhaps it was a “captain”– ‘No’—he persisted .. [‘]‘no, mamma! no ’apitano .. angiolino”—not a captain, but a little angel. Wilson is half inclined to think that the child has real visions. It’s curious altogether. But plainly, (we all are of opinion) the affection is diminishing gradually,—and, in the daytime, a more joyous, healthful little rosy creature you could not wish to see– Oh yes– tell Arabel, we keep him as much back as we can, & as quiet,—but that is very difficult– He ran in to me yesterday to make a grave complaint against Wilson– “Mamma, Lili no buona. Peninni ‘viva Peone’, e Lili ’cina Peninni.” Lili was’nt good. She was going to give him medecine because he cried viva Napoleone– Certainly a hard case. A case indeed of decided political persecution, it seems to me.
I am afraid dear Minny is right in her conjecture about our having waited too long to give him medicine. That never shall happen again in any case. Also, when the two teeth are through, much of the irritation is likely to cease—by God’s will.
My dearest George, I could say a great deal in answer to your letter to Robert. Certainly crimes are crimes, .. whether perpetrated by a people or an individual .. but “crimes” must be proved, if you please, as well as charged—though I know that is’nt the way of the Times, & some other newspapers. I believe, upon the whole, that no revolution ever took place in France with so little bloodshed & suffering, as the coup d’etat of the second of December, and that the exiling of the heads of parties, was the most merciful alternative of civil war, possible to the government– Even now, some of the men sent away, are readmitted into France,—and after a time, the others will be received, I do not doubt. Here is Cavaignac standing for Paris meanwhile. [5] I hold fast to the hope that we may see our way more clearly presently. It is right to observe, that, after all the stringent laws on the press, & the particular article upon foreign newspapers, [6] we get our English journals (with their frantic invectives & exaggerations) precisely as usual .. Times, Examiner .. Leader, & the rest. (Punch, excluded by Louis Phillippe, enters freely now.) This is curious at least. The president seems to choose to have all the reins in his hand, but to pull them only when the necessity occurs. A bad system of government, you will say, & I agree with you entirely. Still, let us distort & exaggerate nothing. The French are a most extraordinary people, & the present position of the country is not to be siezed at a glance– A democracy, with a responsible man at it’s head, is no despotism, whatever ugly despotic signs may be shown by the actual executive. What vexes me extremely in the English journals, is their denial of facts .. the great fact for instance, of the freedom of LN’s election– Truth, truth—do let us have truth. “C’est la verité,”—said George Sand—“on ne peut pas la nier.” [7]
I understand that Thackeray disapproves of the violence of the Examiner. [8] So much the better. It quite refreshes me to hear a little sense (though the sixth of a grain) from an Englishman talking on French affairs. As to our beloved friend Mr Forster, I would chain him up & gag him (if I had my own way) for the next six months, .. even if dear Mr Kenyon’s social dinners had to suffer for it–
Lord Malmsbury, your new secretary for foreign affairs, is said here to be a personal friend of Louis Napoleon, [9] & very acceptable on that account,—but the government papers dont like the change of ministry in the main– They are afraid of the Tories who always have been unfavorable to France,—& there’s an idea (I hope unfounded) that the new ministry will be more likely to encourage the war-cry than the whigs were. Louis Napoleon shows marked attention to the English. At the great ball at the Tuileries last saturday, to which the Hedleys went, he walked through the rooms with the wife of the English ambassador on his arm. [10] Aunt Jane almost fainted through the crowd & crush–
Yes, tell Arabel, I heard all about Anna Hedley, & it was a dreadful case, as like insanity as a different thing could be. She looks better though pale—she never looked ill exactly. The intimidation used was, to apply hot irons to the soles of her feet—anything but a homœopathic remedy, I should fancy. Mrs Stewart Mackenzie called in a homœopathic man a month or two ago, & was much the worse for it– I believe, to a certain extent .. but, in the case of rapid remedies being needed, my faith breaks in the middle.
We have not yet seen Lamartine (but shall)—nor have we seen George Sand yet for the third time. Tell Arabel she is far too severe on her indeed– There was not the least intention on her part of being otherwise than most cordial to us—& the confidence she showed us was fuller of compliment than any banality of mere manner could be. The effects were singular notwithstanding– You should have seen the disdain with which she looked at my respirator. I took it out of my muff to show it to her—because her chest is not strong, & though better since she came to Paris, she has had a great deal of cough & was bled for this the other day. “Ah”—said she .. “life would’nt be worth the trouble of such precautions.” And when somebody enquired how she was .. “Je ne me porte pas bien,” [11] she answered .. “but as to that, I never think of it except when I’m asked”—which perhaps was a way of saying “Dont ask.” She nevertheless looked very well that day. Brilliant eyes, certainly, & a smile which outflashed them—only so rare a smile!–
So Henrietta is to be in London on wednesday– I envy her a little—and I envy you. Let Arabel write me a long descriptive letter, as she promises, about Altham & about Henrietta herself. I am going to write to her very soon, being deeply in her debt, dear thing!– I mean Henrietta– This envelope is scarcely an improvement on my last– It’s too thick now– But I will reform it all, tell Arabel.
Give my love to Sam Barrett. Best love to Trippy & all of you says
Dearest George’s ever attached Ba.
Mention Papa whoever writes. And ask Arabel to say how Mrs Orme is. Ask her, too, to find out for me whether Mrs Jones [12] is quite well, as a friend of hers enquires.
Address: Angleterre / George Goodin Moulton Barrett Esqre / 50 Wimpole Street / London.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 171–175.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. The Golden Legend; see letter 3010, note 1.
2. Der Arme Heinrich, a late twelfth-century poem by Hartmann von Aue (ca. 1160–ca. 1210). Heinrich, a wealthy nobleman, contracts leprosy and is told by a doctor that only the blood sacrifice of a virgin can cure him. A virgin falls in love with him and is prepared to offer her life for his. Ultimately, Heinrich intervenes to prevent the sacrifice and is afterwards miraculously cured by God. In The Golden Legend, Longfellow introduces Satan as an agent of manipulation in the person of the doctor and later of a priest.
3. i.e., the Longfellow poem.
4. “Beautiful music.”
5. Louis Cavaignac was one of three republicans elected as deputies to the Legislative Body in the February–March 1852 elections; however, they never took their seats as they refused to swear the oath of allegiance.
6. In the 17 February decree that limited the freedom of the press in France (see letter 3006, note 7), Article 2 reads: “Journals on political matters or on social economy, published in foreign countries, cannot circulate in France unless with the authorisation of the government. Any person introducing or distributing a foreign journal, the circulation of which shall not have been authorised, shall be punished by an imprisonment of from one month to one year, and a fine of from 100fr. to 5,000fr.” (The Daily News, 20 February 1852, p. 5).
7. “It is the truth” … “one cannot deny it.”
8. We have been unable to confirm this statement; however, Thackeray was so enraged by the treatment of Louis Napoleon in Punch that he resigned from the staff; see The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed. Gordon N. Ray (Cambridge, Mass., 1945–46), 2, 823.
9. James Howard Harris (1807–89), 3rd Earl of Malmesbury, had just been appointed foreign secretary under Lord Derby’s new government. In a letter dated 29 March 1852, describing Louis Napoleon’s character, Malmesbury wrote that he had known Louis Napoleon “personally for many years” (Earl of Malmesbury, Memoirs of an Ex-Minister: An Autobiography, 1884, I, 324).
10. Olivia Cecilia (née Fitzgerald, 1807–85) was the wife of the new ambassador, Henry Richard Charles Wellesley (1804–84), later (1857) 1st Earl Cowley, who had taken up his post in Paris on 17 February 1852; he presented his credentials to Louis Napoleon on 20 February.
11. “I am not well.”
12. Eleanor Charlotte Jones (1813–1903), youngest daughter of EBB’s former governess, Charlotte Orme (née Scarman, d. 1862, aged 75).
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