3049. EBB to Sarah Jane Streatfeild
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 141–144.
138 Avenue des Champs Elysées.
[9 June 1852] [1]
I dont like writing to you without having seen your darling, [2] my dear Mrs Streatfield, and I cant see her before the return of post, because it has taken to pouring with rain on purpose. But Robert has seen her twice already, & Mrs Butler [3] was here yesterday with the best of good news of her. Now he has gone to visit your concierge about the letters & to visit the Baby afterwards, and as he is almost as learned in Babylonish matters as I am, we may both trust to his report, I assure you. Next time I write to you, I shall have one of my own to give. I cant miss the return post, and, your letter having come late, there’s little time for me to reply to it anyhow.
Delighted we both are that everything should have gone so sunnily with you in England, in spite of the physical want of fires. Yes indeed. I felt with you & for you about the visit to Windsor—but that the whole house should be enchanted to receive you, was quite an obvious thing (notwithstanding) to your friends, if not to you. May God bless you & make you very happy. [4] In the case of your giving up Paris for the summer, we shall be rather gainers .. shall we not? We shall have more chances of seeing you on the English side of the channel—for our plans remain much the same: we go to England at the end of the month or at the beginning of next month, and stay there two months at least. Oh certainly we shall be gainers by your staying in England.
Last friday we met Lady Elgin at Madame Mohl’s, and I communicated the great news. She expressed much gratification, and the deepest interest in you, and was ‘a little lower than the angels’ [5] (or even the rapping spirits) in her anxious enquiry about financial suitabilities. I left her with her good kind heart quite at ease on the whole subject. On her monday, [6] the marriage contract of the Baroness Thiébault’s daughter to Captain Inglefield [7] was signed in full assembly. Robert & I have had letters “de faire part” [8] since then, together with an invitation to be present at the “nuptial benediction”, and really I feel a curiosity to go. All the more, perhaps, that Madame Thiébault (who is a Swedenborgian & most extraordinary) informed me with the utmost gravity, ten minutes after we had been introduced, that she expected a dead friend on the occasion, .. he having intimated as much at Versailles the other day. She & her daughter are to receive a special sign of the supernatural presence during the marriage ceremony.
I wish I had some news to send you– Miss Fitton brought a ‘homage’ of a beautiful duck in blue water & green reeds, to Robert, the other evening, in recognition of his attentions medical & otherwise. He swears that it’s a delicate symbolism of “quack, quack,” referring to the powder he administered. Perhaps so. But it was pathetic to hear how she was up till two in the morning, again & again, counting the stitches. Mrs Hedley is still in Paris, .. only meaning to go to England some day soon. Ibbit is gone. I hear from my people in Wimpole Street that George [9] boasts of “having made his father a man of the world” .. “he flatters himself he has.” You see how the conscience works–
Robert comes back. Your darling is a live rose—the nurse says she never remembers her to have been so well “at all points”. Robert swears that she has “grown” since you went away, and as he has a most wonderful insight into growth in general & makes out clearly that our Wiedeman grows half an inch a fortnight, you must lay the right emphasis on this opinion. The little creature received him with hereditary grace & graciousness, and he is proud of adding that she even offered at parting, to accompany him down stairs– He found her in an ecstatic state at Punch’s walking round the room on his hind legs for his great prize of ‘foie gras’, yet she permitted herself to be distracted into various amiabilities. Robert is critical though, and objects to the curled hair, which the aid of art & the Bonne seems to have been fostering. He does’nt think it quite as becoming, he says—which means, upon an analysis of the opinion, not quite as like you.
Here’s an end of my letter. Do let us hear from you again & soon, & do be as happy as possible in every sort of way. We were all at the jardin des plantes [10] yesterday,—but, in spite of elephant & rhinoceros, we miss you very much & long for you back again. Robert’s best love goes with mine—& dont let me forget to say that Mrs Butler desires to send her love.
Ever your very affectionate
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Robert bids me say as follows. Having paid for your piano, he is convinced (& hereby sends you the satisfactory assurance) that you are cheated in that matter, .. the receipt professing to be a receipt up to July, as he found upon after [sic] examination. You desired him to pay, & of course he paid,—and it was only afterwards that he came to this happy conclusion–
He encloses four letters to you, & will be glad to receive other commands when you feel inclined to send them.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection.
1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to Lady Elgin’s “monday” and to visiting the “jardin des plantes yesterday.” In letter 3051, dated 10 June [1852], EBB indicates that the “monday” was 7 June, and she mentions that the Jardin des Plantes excursion occurred “the other day.”
2. Sara Marie Streatfeild, called “Baba” in later letters and “Barley” as she grew older.
3. Mrs. Streatfeild’s cousin, Matilda Butler, was taking care of the baby.
4. EBB refers to Mrs. Streatfeild’s impending marriage to Henry Francis Cust (1819–84), eldest son of Henry Cockayne Cust (1780–1861), Canon of Windsor since 1813, whose residence was situated in the inner cloisters, part of the lower ward of Windsor Castle. Evidently, Mrs. Streatfeild had visited the Cust family there.
5. Psalm 8:5.
6. i.e., at one of Lady Elgin’s regular Monday evening soirées.
7. Valentine Otway Inglefield (1824–1900), commander in the Royal Navy, was the son of Rear-Admiral Samuel Hood Inglefield (1783–1848). On 10 June in Paris, he married Henriette Melvina Thiébault (b. 1823), only daughter of Baron Paul Adolphe Thiébault (1797–1877), former cavalry major in the Royal Guard of France, and his English wife Harriet (née Thayer, 1791–1860), probably the natural daughter of Edward Loveden Loveden of Buscot Park, Faringdon, Berkshire, who left her a £400 annuity in his will. A portrait of her by Thomas Lawrence entitled “Miss Thayer” was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1813.
8. “Of announcement.”
9. i.e., George Hedley. In letter 3053 EBB indicates that George had run up debts.
10. Founded in 1635 by Louis XIII, the Jardin des Plantes “consists of, 1st, a botanical garden, with spacious hot-houses and green-houses; 2d, several galleries, in which zoological, botanical, and mineralogical collections are scientifically arranged; 3d, a menagerie of living animals; 4th, a library of natural history; and 5th, an amphitheatre … for public lectures” (Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1852, p. 470). In the area the Brownings visited, a “polygonal building, surrounded by railings,” there were “two elephants, three camels, a cabiaï or capybara from Brazil, and a young rhinoceros” (p. 472).
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