3058. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 161–163.
138. Avenue des Champs Elysées.
Wednesday. [Postmark: 30 June 1852]
Beloved Arabel, close with the proposition about the rooms you speak of– We cant possibly do better. But you must write me one line by return of post to say what the precise address is. Welbeck street, .. is it not? And what number? [1] We shall leave Paris on saturday & arrive to breakfast on sunday morning .. do take the house from sunday, July the fourth. Certainly we would have much liked to have had another week’s tether, but, as it is, there is’nt place for a doubt, inasmuch as I could’nt give up Henrietta even if I asked myself to do so, and, Robert is so perfectly good & dear that he hesitates as little as I do. After all, if I had stayed, I might have just made myself ill by rushing from Fontainbleau to Versailles & from Versailles to Meudon & from Meudon to Montmorency, [2] .. and you wont pity me for not having been to the opera once, Arabel,—under that tremendous misfortune, I must suffer alone. Upon the whole, I throw off my woes & think chiefly of seeing you again. Not that I do not hate England .. (except for this, & this, & this ..) no, not hate England, but the idea of going there, .. of setting foot into that circle of mesmeric influences which turn me cold to think of– Make a great fire in your large, generous heart, that I may say .. “Ha, ha, I am warm, I have seen the fire”. [3] I love Papa too deeply, not to feel bitterly his indifference—& to be at once near & far, is a very sad thing for love.
All you tell me makes me sorrowful & hopeless. It seems to me only comprehensible as a sort of madness. But persuade dear Occy to take patience & consider, & not throw away anything .. much less his professional advantages. Australia is worth little to him, I should fancy, except for the gold-picking [4] —& there are great risks even there. I sympathize deeply with him .. & with you .. my poor darling Arabel, who have your lot cast in with others too darkly .. as we see with our weak eyes– God bless you, darling Arabel! I should like to make a bundle of you when I come, & carry you off & have you all to myself & keep you in some corner where you should’nt be vexed at all. When I talk about England, I think about certain things, you know– You make it all up to me, .. & the sight of your dear faces will, of itself, be better to me than the sun & trees of Paris– So never fancy that I am going to you as an ungrateful grumbler—oh no. I shut, in the middle, Swedenborg on the Apocalypse, [5] and leave Lady Elgin’s Rapping spirits uninvoked, quite willingly. Who knows but, in England, I may find a “chrystal ball” in compensation .. besides you. Delighted I shall be to see George & everyone of them– Dearest George I shall have more of than I had last time. As to Peninni, he remembers you he protests. We took him the other day to St Cloud to see the waterworks [6] .. but as soon as he caught sight of the railroad, he drew back– “No! Peninni no Italia oggi. Italia pas assez bella. Peninni home giardino.” [7] (Can you make out that?) The fact is he is so happy in the garden here that he does’nt quite like the idea of going away. He always says, yes, he will go, but not today––“oggi, no.” The child is radiant with health & happiness, & I do really rather shrink from taking him away from this out of door life, where, from nine in the morning till eight at night, he is playing under the trees, into the black streets of London—but we must send him to the parks & take courage– I dare say he will do very well. He has faith too, particularly, in Minny, who, he says, is to buy him a “bello home” in London—because in the celebrated letter she wrote to Wilson, she said something about our chance of getting better rooms than Mrs Thompson’s. [8] (I told you that he insisted on that letter’s being read over & over to him). I am sorry to say that he is’nt as religious as he was, since he has had the hooping cough. The hooping cough took off a good deal of the religiousness, & all the nervous symptoms. He is quite well, & we have sometimes a difficulty about his prayers—he puts off his prayers .. sometimes to after breakfast, & sometimes to after dinner– And I dont like to make it a matter of habit & formalism. That spontaneous devotion was so lovely & sweet–
Shall we be near dearest Trippy in Welbeck street, or will she have gone, I wonder, to Quebec street. [9] How sorry I am that she should be so vexed & teazed.
No—Arabel, indeed– I did not set down your inch of note by Mr Kenyon, as a “letter”. I am astonished at your audacity in thinking I could.
I dare say you will think me looking quite well. I am quite well—there is scarcely a trace left of the cough, & I have recovered my strength to admiration. You put me into spirits a little, by talking of your change of weather– Oh, I do hope England will hold her breath & be good to me & not blow away mine this summer– It is so disagreeable to be unwell just when one has business for one’s body to do, .. & I shall want my body to walk about with you, besides all our talkings .. ah, Arabel .. how pleasant it will be, if God lets it all go happily & quietly on!——
Henrietta, poor dearest, will only stay a week with us—more’s the pity. Such a pity that they should have to go back to that dull Taunton, which neither of them likes, for the sake of that stupid & immoral militia bill, which I dare say wont bring them any compensating advantage. Altham will be shy to me, & Wiedeman will be shy to her .. there will be no time for familiarization. But it will be delightful to see her, dear thing, even by such a flash of lightning.
You are aware, perhaps, that aunt Jane had arranged to go to London on the eighth of July—an arrangement which probably is disarranged, for I heard last night that uncle James had suddenly arrived & intended to remain a fortnight. She received the letter which announced his arrival, only on the morning of yesterday, & he followed it at three in the afternoon. I dare say she is a little “put out” in consequence. She has been very kind of late in calling to take me out to drive– I have been out with her several times.
Now I shall write no more. God bless you, & bless us, till we meet. Perhaps you shall have one other line to mention the hour of our arrival, & to order breakfast– Tell us, on our part, where we are to go.
Your own Ba.
Robert’s best love– He is writing to Sarianna– Will you put it into an envelope & despatch it by post?
Address: Angleterre. / Miss Barrett / 50. Wimpole street / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, I, 498–500.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Arabella had taken rooms for the Brownings at 58 Welbeck Street.
2. Popular destinations on the outskirts of Paris: Fontainebleau, to the southeast of Paris, and Versailles, to the southwest, are both famous palaces with beautiful grounds. Meudon, also to the southwest, is known for extensive gardens and a seventeenth-century chateau. Montmorency, to the north of Paris, was the home of Rousseau.
3. Cf. Isaiah 44:16.
4. Gold had been discovered in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, in 1851.
6. St. Cloud, a suburb on the west side of Paris just across the Seine, features an elaborate water park that includes upper and lower cascades and water jets. “The Basse [Lower] Cascade … is remarkable for the abundance and rapid descent of its waters, which fall in sheets from one basin to another into a canal 261 feet in length … along which are 12 jets d’eau. The architecture of the cascade is ornamented with rock and shell-work, dolphins, and other appropriate emblems, and nothing can be more beautiful than its effect when in full play. The grand jet d’eau, known by the name of the Jet Géant, is to the left of the cascades … it rises with immense force to the height of 140 feet” (Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1852, p. 541).
7. “No! Peninni no Italy today. Italy not beautiful enough. Peninni home garden.”
8. At 26 Devonshire Street, where the Brownings had stayed the previous summer.
9. Miss Trepsack resided at 26 Welbeck Street. She relocated to Greater Quebec Street (now Upper Montagu Street) at a later date.
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