3089. EBB to Sarah Jane Cust
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 192–195.
58 Welbeck Street
Saturday.—— [14 August 1852] [1]
(interrupted & not finished till monday.)
My dearest Mrs Cust, .. no, the new name wont come as near as the old yet, however one may squeeze & try to fit it. One must have time for the growth of associations– They will not spring up like mustard & cress in a (wedding) day.
Thank you much, much, for your letter. It was most welcome to both of us. How kind of you to think of me in the midst of those early days, .. before the foam was off the water—how kind! I did not expect it, & stared at the direction like one confounded .. like Mrs Mon[c]kton Milnes’s relation the other day, who looked into Lord Stanhope’s chrystal ball & saw something .. even the vision of a golden lion with a lady’s head! Beyond hope, that was, for a practical matronly woman who had had twelve children [2] & never thought of having visions!–
Mrs Cuthbert reached us duly & performed her mission, telling us all about the marriage, the marriage-vestments & bride’s bearing, [3] .. &, what was better, brought us a little bit of you in her looks & ways & tones of voice. You two are like as well as unlike, [4] I always maintain. It was very kind of her to come, (say to her that I say so) & we were pleased to see her for her own sake & yours.
Oh– I do so wish that you may be very, very happy. May God grant it.
The outward position seems good, & you will tame the wild Irish down to some kind of reasonable society, one may hope. By the way we shall not forget to send you the letter to the archbishop. [5] Meanwhile, about the books. Robert can’t remember what he recommended to you in Paris– You have read everything of Balzac’s have’nt you? “Le grand homme de province à Paris” & all. “Les pauvres parens” besides? [6] And, as to new books, you will not condescend perhaps to Dumas, who pours out volume after volume, unabated by coup d’etat. I have been reading since I came to London, “La comtesse de Charny” which continues “Ange Pitou” which continues ‘Les memoires d’un medecin’ & “Le Collier de la reine” .. that whole series. [7] “Dieu Dispose” is another story of Dumas’s. [8] I like Dumas—he is a prince of story tellers to my mind, & that’s a principality as good as many are. I dare say his memoirs are amusing, but those I have not read. [9] Mr Kingsley’s ‘Alton Locke’ would be worth your looking into—and Hawthorne’s “Blythesdale Romance”.. you know the ‘Scarlet Letter’ of course. [10] In another department, .. we are interested in Dr Ashburner’s translation of Reichenbachs chrystalline philosophy. [11] Very striking & suggestive, it is–
I see advertised as new books Olympe de Clèves by Alexander Dumas, and “Fernand Duplessis, ou memoires d’un mari” by Eugene Sue. [12]
The English poets seem engaged chiefly just now among babies. Mon[c]kton Milnes has had a little girl whom he calls a little red Indian, .. disavowing every sort of paternal prejudice—and we are invited to the christening in a few days. [13] Then we were on the point of fulfilling our engagement of spending a half day at Twickenham with the Tennysons, when suddenly I have two notes, following fast on one another, from the Laureate, .. (his wife is taken ill sooner than was expected .. she was to have been confined in town ..) the last written in such a glow of honest unconstrained delight, that it will make me think better & higher of the man for ever after. He has a “fine boy”. I am cordially glad, & so will you be– You will remember how the first child he had, died immediately, & how Mrs Tennyson has never ceased to suffer from weak health.
Carlyle is in the country. [14] Mrs Carlyle delights me with her power of thinking & feeling. She is quite a remarkable woman, & is not flashed out even by the great torch at her side. Every wednesday evening we go, in a rational Paris fashion, to Mr Procter’s house .. (Barry Cornwall .. ) & there, last wednesday (when I did not go, by the way, through being unwell) were to be seen Mr Kinglake (Eothen)[,] Mr Milnes, R Doyle, & other small lions .. Miss Martineau’s Atkinson, for instance. [15]
As to plans, we have dreams—they are not shaped into plans yet—and our dreams are still of Rome for the winter. If we dont go there (which may be possible, I am sorry to hint to myself & you) we shall go to Paris—and how will Paris look & feel without you?– We shall remain here till the middle of september perhaps .. that is, as long as the weather will let us. Mazzini came to see us the other day & “hoped to meet us at Rome this winter”, .. an agreeable prospect for our anxious friends & tender relations. He has a pure spiritual face, & talked with conviction—but alas! the cloud of his illusions is thick upon him; & while he talked I had the second sight, & saw him lying somewhere, with a bullet through his heart, or a knife through his back .. I cant be clear which. Poor Italy!– <***>
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection.
1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to the birth of Hallam Tennyson, which occurred on 11 August, a Wednesday.
3. The Times of 7 August 1852 announced the marriage of “Captain Henry Francis Cust, of the 8th Hussars, to Sara Jane, widow of Major Sidney Streatfield [sic], and daughter of I. Cookson, Esq.,” on 5 August at Cockayne Hatley, Bedfordshire.
4. A reference to their being twins.
5. Richard Whately (1787–1863), author of works on logic, theology and economics, had been the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin since 1832. The letter was one of introduction to Whately which was to be provided by Anna Jameson (see the beginning of letter 3115). She had met him on a visit to Dublin in 1848.
6. Les parents pauvres (1846–47) and Un grand homme de province à Paris (1839). “& all” refers to La Comédie Humaine (1842–46).
8. Dieu dispose (1850–51).
9. Mes Mémoires (Brussels, 1852), the first of nineteen volumes in the Cadot edition of Dumas’s memoirs up to 1832, which were published serially in La Presse between 1851 and 1855.
10. The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The Blithedale Romance (1852) were both by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64). Charles Kingsley’s Alton Locke was published in 1850.
11. Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach’s Physikalisch-physiologische Untersuchungen über die Dynamide des Magnetismus, der Elektrizität, der Wärme und des Lichtes (2nd ed., 1848) was translated by John Ashburner (1793–1878) and published as Physico-Physiological Researches on the Dynamics of Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Light, Chrystallization, and Chemism, in Their Relations to Vital Force (1850).
12. The first part of Eugene Sue’s Fernand Duplessis, ou, Mémoires d’un mari was published in 1851; Olympe de Clèves (1851–52).
13. It took place on 19 August.
14. During the summer and into the autumn of 1852, significant renovations were taking place in the Carlyles’ home at 5 Cheyne Row. “To escape those horrors of heat and dust,” Carlyle later wrote, “I fled (or indeed was dismissed) to Linlathen [near Dundee], to my excellent T. Erskine’s” (Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, ed. James Anthony Froude, 1883, II, 157). Mrs. Carlyle remained in London to supervise the work. Carlyle left for Scotland on 21 July, and from there he sailed to Germany on 31 August. He did not return to London until 12 October, the day the Brownings left for Paris (see Carlyle, 27, xxvii).
15. Henry George Atkinson (1812–90?) was a mesmerist and friend of Harriet Martineau. Their correspondence had been published the year before in Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development (1851). Richard Doyle (1824–83), son of the famous caricaturist and painter John Doyle (1797–1868), was an illustrator and watercolour painter. He contributed to Punch (including its cover design) from 1843 to 1850 and provided illustrations for many children’s books.
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