3038. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 101–109.
138 A. Ch. E.
April 28– [1852] [1]
My ever dearest Arabel, have you expected to hear from me sooner? I dare say you have, in spite of Henry’s hearing & Trippy’s hearing, .. and now I think that perhaps Henrietta has gone away by this time, and you have nothing a great deal better to please you than a poor thing like a letter of mine– I, in the meanwhile have been getting out of the bark (viz the cough-bark) like the leaves of the trees, & letting my hair grow after the long prison discipline of which I was thoroughly tired. Also, to take up the time, I have had a fright with Peninni, & Mrs Jameson has arrived. To tell you first of the first–
One day he had a cold in his head, .. heavy eyes & sneezings with the rest of the symptoms of it. We were wondering how after having escaped every modification of cold in the winter, he should be attacked by it now & I was moralizing deeply about the pestilential effects of open windows & terraces, when on his waking the next morning Wilson found the cold vanished, and a rash out over his arms & legs. Great consternation fell upon the house as nobody doubted the fact of his having the measles– I sent Robert to Mrs Streatfeild’s for the “domestic medecine” [2] (never will I do such a thing again) & spent a happy morning in a pendular movement of mind between measles & scarlet fever .. with a leaning to scarlet fever, on account of its being the worse malady. The unfortunate child was shut up in his bedroom & not allowed to eat any dinner,—dancing, singing, & screaming to get out, by turns. At last we could’nt bear it any longer & Robert went for Dr Macarthy. Dr Macarthy arrives, examines the eruption (which had almost disappeared at the end of five or six hours—“a dangerous symptom” said my medecine book in the case of measles!) and pronounces with a smile of compassionate toleration of our intense ignorance that it was nothing but a little nettle rash & that he would’nt even prescribe for the invalid. So we opened the door, & the prisoner has been quite well ever since– There’s the end of that story.
Mrs Jameson has taken a small apartment in our house for a month & may stay longer. I am delighted to have her here—it’s a great pleasure—there are few persons in the world whom I like as well, in spite of some discrepancies.
Now I want to tell you of Mr Carré. It is a french name, but he is English, a native of Jersey, and is the pastor of what he calls the “Catholic Church” .. in the Newman street connection– Mr Owen certainly did’nt introduce him to us—for we have known him ever since we came to Paris almost, as he is an habitué of Lady Elgin’s salon, & called upon us I suppose, in consequence of meeting Robert there continually. He has seemed to like us both from the first, and has often spent an hour or nearly two with us in conversation theological & otherwise—& we both like & esteem him extremely, & have read certain of his writings with sympathy to a certain extent. Now observe, Arabel, .. I sympathize with him & his friends in some things– They are much wider than the dissenters or the evangelical party in England can be said to be—they are not exclusive in their society, in their literature, or in their ways of thought—indeed they profess to have had a direct command through a supernatural manifestion, to go into the world & to associate with men generally, & so to magnify Christ’s truth, “showing white by black.” [3] Also, as they recognize all the “baptized” of whatever denomination, as brethren, they have no right to make distinctions in respect to their associates. You find Mr Carré everywhere. And I do honor him for the boldness & consistency with which he uses every opportunity in every sort of society to proclaim his great doctrine of Christ’s coming—it proves how true people may be without shutting themselves up in church-coteries. I like that—I like the wideness, the largeness of intellectual sensibility .. I like, for instance, to be able to tell a man of that kind that I had been to George Sand’s & was going again, without using the sort of reserve which Robert & I have found it wise to use, with ever so many worldly men & women who from the mere point of view of the world, would have thought it very indecorous of me to go, & very improper of Robert to allow of his wife’s doing such a thing. Oh—I assure you we have not talked much to people in general about our assiduities in that direction, the poor woman’s private character simply stinks so in the nostrils of French & English accustomed to rose-water perfumed handkerchiefs. Even our noble friend M. Milsand thought we went too far, I could see. Perhaps Mr Carré might have thought so too—he smiled gently though, & observed that he had seen her at Geneva in a man’s costume & with bravado gestures throwing stones into the lake. But then he touched on things in her writings significant of good in her, & spoke of her on the whole with far more hope than he did of Lamartine who believes nothing, he thinks from the writings of the man. Well—I like the largeness of these Newman street believers——but I stop short at their idea of churchdom & priesthood, & at their emphasis on what are called the sacraments, though the church notions dont interfere with the importance to be given to the action of the Holy Spirit– In fact they profess to have daily, or weekly, or almost daily & weekly, revelations from the Spirit– They live by the Spirit in the most literal way. It must be a very happy state of reliance—no room for doubts respecting what should be done or not done—& an absolute conviction of Christ’s waiting at the doors. Mr Carré expects the second coming every hour. The coming is not to be seen of men generally, or recognized by the world. There is to be a partial resurrection, & a catching up into the air of such as “love His appearing” [4] .. not of all believers, mind .. but of the smaller number who have “part in that second resurrection” [5] for which Paul yearned. [6] Then, after such a vanishing the world is to go on as usual,—& the last evils prophecied of in the Apocalypse [7] are to be poured out to the dregs– “Yet for the elect’s sake will He shorten those days.” [8] Mr Carré does not think of dying—he does’nt consider it in the very least degree likely that he shall die at all. A delightful state of conviction, is it not? God in actual audible communication with them, and the Heavens half open in their sight!!– The repulsion must be strong from certain doctrines, that I am not more strongly drawn– I think too, that the position of women is marked too low among them—it seems so to me. As to the supernaturalism, it’s all attraction to my mind. Every now & then (quite commonly I mean) there is a miracle. A little dying child was cured by Mr Carré he told me, a week or two ago .. “in the name of Jesus Christ.” I can believe that without difficulty. But I cant go with them on the whole. <I do not feel the attraction I feel for the children they …> [9] It seems to me a clear scriptural doctrine that the “priesthood” is absorbed into Christ’s life & dignity, and I cant accept as small “retail” popes, such men as Mr Owen & Mr Carré. Mr Carré is however very upright, direct, & devoted. He has a wife, & a large family of children, [10] —& sometimes they have soirées, to which we have been invited of course, but have not been able to go. He is at Lady Elgin’s every monday night, & probably oftener, for she like[s] him and has a strong leaning towards the Newman street churches .. indeed has been on the very point of joining them, but does not feel herself strong enough in her convictions, as she confessed to us one evening. She however attends Mr Carré’s church here, & listens with reverence to the “voices.” A most singular woman she is—and for my part I am quite fond of her .. which perhaps I ought to be out of gratitude, for she shows a warm feeling, amounting to affection, towards Robert & me, & I hear of her speaking of us to others in a manner really touching. Her daughter Lady Augusta Bruce, [11] maid of honour to the Duchess of Kent, has just returned from her duties in England, & told me last night that her mother filled her letters so with us, she forgot to mention her own illness. In fact Lady Elgin is one of those fervid earnest human beings who carry out their nature in all things, & who dont play at life as pasteboard women do. Generous & noble she is, .. never forgetting the relations between the soul & God. This, with a sort of simplicity which is quite childlike, & amusing or affecting, just as you happen to be in the mood for considering it. Clever too—highly cultivated .. with sympathies all abroad—& a kindness & benevolence to everybody which nobody can well exaggerate. I like her extremely. Then she & I agree about spiritualism, mesmerism, clairvoyance, visions, & the like—and she sends me all the news she has from America about the Rapping Spirits. Poor Mr Carré carried me a heap of printed papers on this subject from her, with a sore conscience of his own, .. explaining to me how they were assuredly evil spirits, and how I was to keep my beautiful soul clean from their communion. Both he & Lady Elgin are of this opinion .. holding that the access to this world permitted lately with affluence to these spirits, is one of the great signs of the Coming. She & I have a great deal of (peradventure unlawful) curiosity as to all these things——in which I hold what may be called a potential belief .. that is, I could believe anything of the sort upon sufficient evidence. The evidence is not however sufficient yet. Mr Powers of Florence, and the American poet whom I think you saw with us in London, [12] told us first of them—& Mr George Thompson the abolitionist related wonderful things in their connection .. of which I cant tell you here. Wait till I go to London. The Athenæum said once that the “trick” had been found out, [13] which is so far from being true, that these phenomena are spreading throughout America to an extent most extraordinary. The believers say that there is communication between the living & the dead, .. the dead having discovered a door opening back, upon the world. There is actually a periodical magazine which is carried on wholly on this subject, professing to convey the last news from the spirit-world. [14] And you are told that nothing for the future will hinder the daily intercourse between families & their deceased kindred. Napoleon & Franklin, & various others, have been kind enough to give their autographs lately in confirmation of the same. [15] An American lady assured Mr Thompson with a burst of tears that her dead husband had kissed her. The spirits dash about tables & chairs .. and if you provide them with a guitar or any other instrument & desire them to play, they will do so beautifully. You will even see the guitar carried into the air above your head & hear the music– Mr Thompson began by extreme incredulity of course, & ended by an admission of the phenomena. He himself saw a heavy table dashed from one side of a room to another because he wished internally for that sign– And the curious part of it is that these things are not confined to one house, or one town even—no machinery consequently can be prepared to produce the effects in question. Mr Carré maintains that the spirits are evil spirits who personate the dead—“he has seen enough of that in his own experience”. You will think it curious to hear reasonable men talking so, at least—so I tell you. As for me, you know I am unreasonable altogether, & you wont be surprised at anything I can say.
Robert goes, & I, when I can go anywhere (for we have never been to Mr Carré[’]s church) to the French independents in Rue Taitbout. There is one preacher, M. Bridel, whom Robert quite loves .. and another whose name I forget [16] .. and Robert is out & I cant ask him– He knows more than I do, because every sunday there is something wrong in the wind or weather otherwise and I have not been there since the autumn– You see, one may go all the way in a carriage, but I should have to walk back as far as the boulevard before I can get another carriage to return in—& then, the staircase & passages of the place are cold– Robert has gone regularly. M. Bridel is most devoted—purified by suffering. He had a horrible misfortune three years ago. He lost his only child, a little girl from three to four years old, a lovely little creature, .. killed by a waggon wheel in the street, through slipping from her nurse’s hand. The nurse was almost frantic, & the father & mother with divine selfabnegation, set themselves quietly to console her. It was too much however for the poor mother——the other child she was hoping for, died within her, .. & she herself did not long survive. [17] The husband struggled on with his duties in spite of his desolated home– It is said to be a most spiritual church, “a most praying people” .. that was the expression which reached me.
Do you think me in a dangerous position, my darling Arabel, what with the “scamps” [18] and the rapping spirits, and the heretics & the infidels? Remember two lines of my own .. I will quote myself for once ..
“without assimilation
Vain were inter-penetration”– [19]
It is not said to us .. “Touch not, taste not, handle not” [20] .. on the contrary, it seems to me. Let us touch, taste, handle, & prove all things, holding fast to what is good. [21]
I never find myself attracted, simply because I approach.
The truth is, I want a knowledge of real life. It would be useful to me in my profession, and I have felt my defects in this respect very much indeed. I have read too many books in proportion to other kinds of knowledge. Now I am most greedy of actual sights, sounds, facts, faces. I want to see everything in the world, good & bad, .. nothing scarcely is too low or too high for me. I should like to hear the rapping spirits, & to see Louis Napoleon give out the eagles. [22] These things supply a defect in my experience, and I am convinced that I shall think & write better & stronger for the knowledge of them, & have the means of doing more good in my hands, therefore.
As to the state of the intellectual world, you little suspect, I am quite sure, the extent of the evil of it .. I dont say here more than in England & Germany & America– Yes, in England. Everywhere among intellectual people there is the profoundest infidelity—though, of course, persons of sensibility & taste keep their opinions to themselves & spare the feelings of others, all unnecessary negatives. If a man believes in God & the soul—why that is much. Revelation & Christ Jesus .. are out of the question. Mrs Jameson was saying to me the other day, .. “Nobody in England believes anything” .. yet she mentioned exceptions .... Owen the great anatomist for instance, who is an orthodox Christian, .. and Faraday, who is a Swedenborgian. [23] I have observed the same thing, myself—but on the continent & in America there is a sort of sentimental philosophical modification of Christianity, with a dash of Swedenborgianism through the more devout natures, which is not at all uncommon—indeed nearly all our American friends have accepted it in a stronger or weaker degree.
As to Germany, you know how they tear the scriptures to pieces there, with teeth & nails– The French socialists use Jesus Christ, & deny Him in the same sentence. To them, He is crucified between Robespierre and Marat. [24] Mazzini writes “God & the people” on a banner, [25] & thinks this enough both for theology & politics.
Jadin, Alexandre Dumas’ friend, had tea with us the other night– Oh, he is’nt a bit of a “scamp,” Arabel. I like him. He has lost his wife, and he takes care of his two children, seven and eight years old, [26] like a woman .. has them to sleep in his room, one on each side his bed. Dont you like a man for that? How can such a man be a scamp I wonder? Very amusing too he is himself, and I hope we may get at Alexandre Dumas by his means. The great Alexander is to be in Paris soon, he says.
No, Arabel—everybody does’nt wear a “mask” in the same degree—and if they did, one may like to see the more picturesque kind of masks .. dont you understand? But they dont mask close in the same degree, because it is the characteristic of very strong natures to manifest themselves—you see the teeth shine, the eyes flash .. every now & then you catch sight of a bit of moustache. They lift up the mask for air .. and then you see .. even a nose perhaps.
We have just found out why Lamartine did not come, just as both Robert & I were getting into a rage. Our intermediate poor friend Eugene Pelletan, who was to have come with him, is in a political scrape, & sent out of Paris. [27] Here’s the explanation– We were getting into a rage, because it seemed unnecessary that Lamartine should send us messages about not being able to live & take breath till he had seen us, when all the time he did’nt care two straws to come at all– But now it is explained at once–
Arabel, I was at Lady Elgin’s last monday night. A Madame Ledru, [28] a half professional person, recited very well from the Phèdre and Misanthrope, [29] and it was altogether agreeable & amusing– Everybody was only too kind to me, & glad to see me out again. There was a Greek gentleman there who was full of intelligence & told me a good deal of the modern Greek ballads—and in the midst came up the Duc de Rouchefocault-Doudeauville, [30] starred with orders, who desired to be introduced to me, .. & began the conversation in this fashion … “I have the gift of intuitions .. I dont call myself a prophet, and yet when the impulse comes on me it is most difficult for me not to speak”—(all in french, of course)– “I confess to you that I knew you were to be here .. but I looked round the room and recognized you at first sight in the crowd. I know you perfectly. You can conceal nothing from me. I know your past, your present and your future”—— Oh—I exclaimed, in an agony of fright .. “pour le passé, n’en parlez pas.[”] [31] “Non” .. said he gravely .. “je vous ferais trop de peine en faisant cela”– [32] He sate by me on the sofa half an hour at least, and I tried to divert the conversation to some less personal subjects. A most curious man, certainly! He spoke of my poetry .. which he said he saw in my face .. for “he could’nt read English, & it was not translated into French.” He told me some of its characteristics– He satisfactorily assured me besides that I was “extremement bonne.” [33] That was encouraging of course. Moreover he could’nt allow of my having any tea—he sent away the tray, as offering just poison for my sort of constitution!—— I was half amused and half frightened. He is one of the greatest of the old noblesse, & “sans tache et sans reproche” [34] as to private character—yes, and the Duchess [35] is so too—but she was not in the room on monday.
Here’s a letter at last, long enough I think– Robert says I must send it if it is to go today– Do write Arabel, & speak of Papa– The wind has changed—has’nt it?
Dearest love to you all. I shall write to George next– I love you & think of you– God bless you, beloved! Your own Ba– Kiss Trippy for me and say that she is well, if you can.
How is dear Minny? My love to her always– Speak how you are—& faithfully. The Ogilvys are to be here en masse on the first of May, & I have taken an apartment for them—five bedrooms, large drawing & dining rooms, antichamber, kitchen &c, at ten pounds the month!—excellent situation & furniture.
Robert’s best love.
Address: Angleterre. / Miss Barrett / 50. Wimpole Street / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, I, 482–490.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by postmark.
3. Perhaps an allusion to the vestments of black cassock and white alb worn by the Catholic Apostolic priests.
4. II Timothy 4:8.
5. Cf. Revelation 20:6.
6. See, for example, II Corinthians 5:8 and Philippians 1:21.
7. In chapters 8–11 of Revelation, the opening of the “seventh seal” sets into motion a final series of torments, catastrophes, and plagues for mankind, among which were locusts in the shape of horses, with the “teeth of lions” and “tails like unto scorpions.”
8. Cf. Matthew 24:22.
9. The passage in angle brackets is a partial reconstruction of a line that has been obliterated after receipt.
10. The Carrés had six children at this time: Collings Mauger (b. 1839), George Tennant (1840–1912), Francis William (1843–1901), Margaret Elizabeth Frances (d. 1855, aged 10), Henry Chase (1847–98), and Edith Gertrude Adelaide (1849–1922).
11. Augusta Frederica Elizabeth Bruce (1822–76), second daughter of the 7th Earl of Elgin and his second wife, the current Lady Elgin, was lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, and later to the Queen herself. In December 1863 she married Arthur Penrhyn Stanley who, in January 1864, became Dean of Westminster.
12. Thomas Buchanan Read, who visited London in August 1851; see the first paragraph of letter 2937.
13. The “Our Weekly Gossip” column in The Athenæum of 10 May 1851 contained a disdainful account of America’s eagerness to exploit a growing interest in spiritualism for profit: “In New York there are said to be thousands of persons willing, at some cost, to draw on their spiritual friends for information. The trick is as old as the hills:—the only novelty about it in America is, its grossness” (no. 1228, p. 503).
14. The Spirit Messenger, a semi-monthly magazine, first issued on 10 August 1850 in Springfield, Mass., though it ceased publishing in 1852 or 1853. Another periodical devoted to spiritualism, The Spiritual Telegraph, was launched as a weekly newspaper on 8 May 1852 in New York. It survived until 1860.
15. Automatic writing was one of the more common methods used by mediums to convey messages from the departed to the living. “The communicating spirit might be that of Benjamin Franklin, Plato, the archangel Gabriel, or the sitter’s Aunt Nellie. The possibilities were limitless” (Janet Oppenheim, The other world: Spiritualism and psychical research in England, 1850–1914, Cambridge, 1985, p. 8).
16. An article in The United Presbyterian Magazine for September 1851 lists two other ministers attached to the Chapelle Taitbout: Jean Jöel Audebez (1790–1881) and Edmond de Hault de Pressensé (1824–91). Audebez is reported to be “a powerful and impressive preacher; his discourses have invariably a holy and tender unction” (p. 415). The writer of the article had not heard Pressensé preach but considered him the more intellectual of the three.
17. We have been unable to identify Bridel’s wife or daughter.
18. In letter 3031 EBB had referred to the “delightful scamps of feuilletonistes & artists in Paris.”
19. EBB, “A Lay of the Early Rose,” lines 139–140, slightly misquoted.
20. Colossians 2:21.
21. Cf. I Thessalonians 5:21.
22. An elaborate military ceremony, recalling the days of the empire under Napoleon I, was held on 10 May 1852 in the Champ de Mars. Louis Napoleon distributed flags and standards, each topped by a gilded eagle, to the commanders of his army regiments. EBB did attend. She describes the experience in letter 3041.
23. Michael Faraday (1791–1867), English scientist who made numerous discoveries relating to gases and electromagnetism, was a Sandemanian, not a Swedenborgian. The Sandemanians were a small religious sect (never numbering more than 1,000) who originated in Dundee, Scotland, in the eighteenth century. Richard Owen (1804–92), a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and Conservator of the Hunterian Museum, was appointed in 1856 the first superintendent of the natural history collections in the British Museum. Owen was “a genuinely religious man and a committed Christian theist” (Nicolaas Rupke, Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist, New Haven, Connecticut, 1994, p. 340).
24. Jean Paul Marat (1743–93), a French journalist and revolutionary leader, who was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday. Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (1758–94), another leader in the revolution, was executed when his opponents took power.
25. “God and the people,” or “Dio e popolo,” was the motto that Giuseppe Mazzini had created for the unification of Italy. It was written on a banner that was raised during the Roman Republic in 1849.
26. Jadin married a Mlle. Hamel in 1842. We have been unable to further identify her or determine the year she died. We have identified one of the children: Emmanuel (1845–1922), who, like his father, became an artist.
27. In letter 3040, EBB explains that he was “sent off to St Germain” by the government.
28. Henriette Ledru (née Lévêque), wife of well-known trial lawyer Charles Ledru (1801–77), who was disbarred in 1846.
29. Le Misanthrope (1666) by Molière and Phèdre (1677) by Jean Racine.
30. Sosthènes de La Rochefoucauld, duc de Doudeauville (1785–1864), aide-de-camp to Charles X and director of beaux-arts during his reign, was a commander of the Legion of Honor.
31. “As for the past, do not speak of it.”
32. “No … I would cause you too much grief if I did.”
33. “Extremely good.”
34. “Spotless and blameless.”
35. Angélique Herminie de la Brousse de Verteillac (1797–1881), widow of Felix de Bourbon-Conti, was the Duc de Doudeauville’s second wife; the first, Elisabeth de Montmorency, died in 1834.
___________________
