3103. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 207–208.
58 Welbeck street.
Friday– [Postmark: 3 September 1852]
My dearest Mrs Ogilvy you will have thought me (besides other chastising thoughts) unworthy of your verses. [1] Yet I was glad to have them as I ought .. & very, very glad to see your writing again .. very thankful that all the perils should be over for you & your friends .. of whom I am one, surely!– You must be delighted with your new little Walter—but he was not born upon “English ground” .. how do you make it out?– “British” .. is the most that can be said. If he is small, he must be unlike your other children– Do tell me if the wetnurse is satisfactory physically .. which is the chief thing—& if the baby resembles any of his predecessors in face. I want to be able to fancy him.
My dear friend, we have not made up our minds yet about Rome—that is, we have made up our minds, but the finances are not made up to the point of carrying out the wish. It’s a long journey, & it is’nt clear whether we can afford it– If we cant, we go to Paris again, & there are worse fates.
I have been rather worn out with the toils of London, which have been multitudinous in spite of the dead season of the year. How it would have happened to us, if “everybody had not gone out of town” as people say, I really cannot imagine. Scarcely a day passes without engagements—but now I have done. Wilson is gone to pay a fortnight’s visit to her mother, & I am bound to Wiedeman body & soul, washing, dressing, sleeping with him, giving him his meals .. I get me .. not to a nunnery [2] .. but the nursery .. which must be much the same thing. The child is so good & precious, that I would rather wait on him than on the grandeurs literary & otherwise of this world, & it really wont tire me much more. Perhaps, not as much. I am in spirits because Wilson stays with us. There was a misunderstanding or something like it—& now she says she never could leave the child or me—so we are all happy again. We shall probably remain in England till the end of the present month, or as long as the weather will let us– My chest has been better on the whole, & a great deal better, than last year, because of the comparative warmth—but there has been some east wind & much strangling heavy air.
Last saturday & last monday (on both days) we breakfasted with Rogers. He is subdued & gentle, & interested me much—all the bitterness seems turned into sweetness as he approaches the great Lights– He may live years yet, sitting in that armchair with that monumental face of his.
Tennyson’s child I have not seen, but it is said to be a nice baby. He was to have been present at Mr Milnes’s christening luncheon, & we were disappointed when people began to whisper that, as it was three minutes past the time, he would’nt come certainly. He is celebrated for the royal virtue, punctuality.
Do you really think of Dresden as a place of residence? The climate is perilous, from what I hear of its peculiarities–but the advantages of cheapness & artistic resource are of course undeniable. Tell me whether Marcia talks most English or Italian now. Wiedeman is wonderfully improved in matters of language, and keeps steadily to Italian for the groundwork– He has collected heaps of English words, & struggles to use them as much as possible in colloquies with the natives, but he twines his sentences by means of Italian—talking from morning till night—he ought to speak plainer, my sister says, after so much exercise. Oh—he uses verbs now, I assure you! he discourses eloquently– And do you know, he is really a better, sweeter child than ever, & quite as affectionate. Write soon to me, do. I have seen Mr Kingsley, “Christian socialist” & author of ‘Alton Locke’ &c—& was much struck by his originality & intenseness. Few men have pleased me more. With every tendency to wildness & exaggerated colouring, he never can speak or write otherwise than according to a noble nature, I am sure.
Our love to all of you– Thank dear Mr Ogilvy for his little note—& think of us sometimes both of you. My dear friend, I am most
affectionately yours
EBB.
Address: Mrs David Ogilvy / King’s Place / Perth / N.B.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 83–86.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. This may refer to a poem entitled “A Family Picture” that Mrs. Ogilvy later published in Poems of Ten Years (1856). This poem, included in the 1852 section of the book, contains brief word sketches of her four children and was evidently written not long after the birth of Walter. He is described as “The newly born, a tiny mite, / Whose soul, like lichens under snow, / grows unperceived by human sight.”
2. Cf. Hamlet, III, 1, 120.
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