3160. RB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 313–316.
Florence,
Jan. 16. ’53
My dear Mr Kenyon,
A courier leaves for London to-morrow or next day—& I have leave to send a letter by him [1] —what can I do better than write to you? I fear we must not hope for you at Florence now—with that mild winter in London which would seem to be phenomenal with its fruits, almonds in blossom, and the like—as the papers tell us duly. Here there has been no winter—instead of a mild one. I have just come in from an afternoon walk round the garden-walls from S. Miniato to Poggio Imple and felt as if May were set in– A letter from Rome (from Miss Blagden—you remember her?) speaks of the ruin of the wood-sellers, nobody having as yet needed a fire. Yet you might reach us, after all, might you not? Having other objects in travelling than simply to escape the bad weather only, be where you are best & happiest, now and ever. Well, I must tell you our news, where Ba left off. We thought it best to rest here for the cold months and go on to Rome, say in March—and so we hope & mean to do. This dear old place made itself more agreeable to us than ever—and Ba, who had suffered from the journey, is got quite well,—well, to heart’s content,—the cough entirely gone. Thank you! The letting our house was a good speculation—for though, thro’ various blunders of our agent, it was not turned to the greatest advantage, yet on the whole we gain decidedly. Another time we should manage better. We found most of our old friends here. Kirkup wonderfully well, and Powers moving into a larger house, [2] which he has earned—like the brave fellow he is. He is finishing a fine simple & heroic “Washington”—and a charming conceit of a thing—“California”—with an arch dubiety of mouth, significant of the trick she will play you if she can—having a rod of thorns which you don’t see, as well as the golden one she tempts you with. [3] You know poor Greenough’s end, no doubt—most melancholy. I did not know that he had been actually deranged once before—and restored by the sea-voyage, for they had sent him home. And here is his “Group” [4] —(which he left Florence to see placed properly)—here at Leghorn, two years after his departure, just where he saw it last. We have made an interesting acquaintance in Tennyson’s elder brother, Frederic[k], settled here with an Italian (Contadina) wife & family: he is very shy, and very full of qualities which make that all the greater shame. He seems to like us, too. We have also seen a little,—and liked it too,—of Mr Lytton-Bulwer’s son. We don’t go out, however, but live our old life. The boy gets the best little fellow in the world,—he draws, reads and so on,—but his loving little heart is worth all that and much more. He was a little unwell some time ago—caught the chicken-pox,—but is quite well now.
I ought to tell you something of my Father’s news—you bade me do so, indeed. Everything has gone on without a hitch since we left England. Those people applied—She, [5] to the Principal of the office,—the attorneys to the governor of the Bank—&c more than once: they were answered briefly that the Bank knew nothing of my father’s private business. Seeing the failure there, they have actually written to our own lawyer, [6] —who sends the letter to me and here it is,—to say that if we will pay their costs we need not pay the plaintiff’s damages, she never having had any intention of claiming them! They have her in their power, of course. They add, that my father may return to his home forthwith, they having no intention whatever to molest him. “Springes to catch woodcocks!” [7] My London informant who sends this precious letter (which begins with “It is our pleasing duty to become the medium of conveying a proposal”) adds “I do not consider you are bound to make any sacrifice in favour of what really appears to me a shameful speculation, so it is useless to dwell upon the different points of the letter.” I think so too, and shall not even answer it. They will just take their last revenge in an outlawry, which we must put up with, as with much worse. And meantime, to guard against any ill chance, I shall advise my father to send in his resignation—which, it has been communicated to him, the Bank will accept—and allow him to retain two thirds of his salary “with which they hope he may live comfortably abroad”—very kind & handsome of them, certainly. And thus far ends, if God please, this strange & calamitous visitation which has grieved me as few things could. Sarianna writes cheerfully enough, however, of the Paris life. Ba & I had made some dear friends of Mr & Mrs Corkran—they were lovers of Ba’s verses and admirably kind people—and now, all their kindness and comfort have gone where it is most needed—to my Father & Sarianna. Nothing could be desired better. In a month or two we shall all see our way clearer, and the worst is past now. I should add that my Father is well as ever,—of all his old spirits—strange, in one sense,—not in another. He reads at the Library & draws at the Louvre, having got leave for both,—goes book-hunting as of old, “shaping his old course in a country new,” [8] like Lear’s Kent. My child sends him real letters,—all his own, conception and execution alike,—which gladden his heart—and so, “This, all!” as the last letter sensibly ended. Mine ought to end, too. I know of no London news– I was fearing Forster might be ill again, but his name opportunely reappears in the papers at Dickens’ Dinner [9] —so all’s well. Will you give my kindest remembrances to him?—with forgiveness for not noticing a bit of a goodbye letter I wrote at going away. Miss Bayley does not write to Ba, I shall observe—our most affectionate regards to her. We had a not very comfortable letter from Mrs Jameson,—after the one you forwarded; she seemed annoyed and overworked as usual. The Procters, too,—you will kindly take care that they don’t forget us. I felt all those spark-like hours in London struck out of the black element I was beset with—all the brighter for it. But I need not say that, or more. I have tired you, dear Mr Kenyon, but you will put up with it for the love’s sake. Ba’s truest love to you (with some impertinence muttered to effect, “ask if he calls that last, a letter,” and about your sending her the “very parings of your nails”—which, in Chinese, would not be so unpoetical a thought[)]. I, on the contrary,—had rather you did not write, so long as you walk instead. I shall not let you off from taking that Bust, [10] remember, which you will not like,—Ba says. But she cannot know– I shall find some way of sending it, or Powers will help me. God bless you, dear Mr Kenyon. Yours wholly
RB.
Address, on integral page: John Kenyon Esq. / 39. Devonshire Place. / Regent’s Park.
Publication: LRB, pp. 37–40.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. i.e., via the British legation’s diplomatic pouch, along with letter 3159.
3. Powers had started work on “California” in 1850. He described it in April 1852: “An Indian woman holding in the left hand a divining rod with which she points to a block of quartz which stands at her right … which contains gold. … She looks to the left … the expression of her face is vague. … Behind her right hand she conceals a twig of thorns. Thus, as it were, she has gold in one hand and thorns in the other” (Richard P. Wunder, Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor, 1805–1873, Newark, Delaware, 1991, II, 125). The statue “Washington” had been commissioned in 1848 by the state of Louisiana for the capitol at Baton Rouge, where it was placed in 1856. It was destroyed by fire while on exhibition in 1871 (II, 206).
4. Probably “The Rescue,” a work commissioned by the United States government in 1837 that depicts an oversized frontiersman easily preventing a smallish, tomahawk-wielding American Indian from murdering a woman and her child. The sculpture arrived in America after Greenough’s death and not long afterwards was placed in front of the east façade of the U.S Capitol. It remained there until 1958 when protests, after many years of being ignored, forced its removal. The work now lies in pieces in a Smithsonian storage facility, having been dropped in transit.
5. Martha von Müller.
6. Presumably RB, Sr.’s solicitor, whom we have been unable to identify. The barrister who represented RB, Sr. in court was James Shaw Willes; see letter 3060, note 2.
7. Hamlet, I, 3, 115.
8. Cf. King Lear, I, 1, 187.
9. The Times of 8 January 1853 (p. 5) reported that a “banquet in connexion with the Literary and Artistic Institutions of Birmingham” took place on 6 January 1853. Although it was not held specifically in honour of Dickens, he was the principal literary celebrity there and was presented “with a diamond ring and salver, both articles of Birmingham manufacture.” Forster responded to the toast to “The Periodical Press of England.”
10. As indicated by RB in a letter to Kenyon dated 17 March 1853 (ms at Wellesley), this bust was a gift from the Brownings, who thought that it resembled their friend. The bust is inscribed “Eustachius Venusinus,” possibly Eustace of Matera (fl. ca. 1270), who was a judge at Venosa.
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