3215. EBB to Joseph Milsand
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 129–131.
[Florence]
[16 June 1853] [1]
My Dear M. Milsand:
It is the more vexatious to us that we find it impossible to see England this summer, when we look at your letter and remember that we might have seen it in your company. Will you wait till next year and take the chance of us? True that you may calculate on the comets and not on us. But we, too, come round in time—and, come when we may, we shall come with the same mind and heart toward you. You may rely on us at least for that.
We could not get to Rome last winter, and so we must wait through another winter, that we may secure Rome. Afterward we shall belong to you in the north. What vexes me the most, I do believe, in this delay, is that my child will be growing out of his babyhood, and that some of the pretty dimpling grace of the very young child may have ’scaped from him before my friends can say “How pretty.” Can you understand anything so foolish? Whenever he pronounces a word more rightly than usual, I do not like it. In every gain seems something lost. I am “conservative” in the matter of my child. If he said “Paris” instead of “Palis,” I should feel inclined to look pensive like a Tory under pressure of the “age’s” activities.
You will have heard, and gladly, through your kindness, of the success of “Colombe’s Birthday.” At the same time, we cannot expect it to be what is called a “drawing play” with our English audiences, who require broader and coarser outline and color than you do in France. That it should have been understood and appreciated at all, surprised me, I confess. Then the acting, except Helen Faucit’s, seems to have been bad. Your poetry is interpreted into prose, under all such circumstances. I would rather keep mine, … and therefore still more my husband’s (which is better worth caring about) from the enunciation of such a “gross mouth.” I want him to write dramatic poems for the world, and not dramas for the players.
We are so glad that you go to see Lady Elgin. You will like her more as you know her more—for her simplicity and truth—which, you know, are intellectual as well as moral qualities. You see our sister and father, too, sometimes– Ah—we hear of you, M. Milsand, and it is always with pleasure.
I wish you would come to Italy this summer, and go with us presently up into the mountains to hide from the sun! That is, if the sun means to be strong enough to make it worth while for us to hide from him this year—for it is an anomalous season—un cielo coperto [2] —clouds, rain—the Italians uncover the picture of the Madonna at the “Santissima Anunziata,” [3] all in vain—the almanachs and the prophets talk of earthquakes—indeed we have had some precursive shocks, [4] … and the oldest inhabitants are thrown back on their youngest recollections for “qualche cosa di simile.” [5] It seems to be exceptional weather throughout Europe, so we ought not particularly to complain.
What of war? Will the Czar venture it against us all? I am glad that France and England should stand together on such high ground. [6] Tell us more about France. You seem satisfied—and there is a development of better food, [7] wider freedom, [8] to be looked for—is there not? That potentiality of the future should be considered a part of the present. What of Wordsworth? [9] You are writing, I do hope. Remember us with the affectionate thoughts we bear you.
E.B.B.
Text: Scribner’s Magazine, July 1896, p. 113.
1. This letter accompanied RB’s of the same date.
2. “An overcast sky.”
3. EBB is referring to a fresco, attributed to Pietro Cavallini by Vasari, in the Chapel of the Annunziata in the church of La Santissima Annunziata. “Painted by angels, according to popular belief. … it is exposed only on extraordinary occasions, and on the Feast of the Annunciation” (Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy, 1852, p. 499).
5. “Anything similar,” or “anything quite like it.”
6. The lead editorial in The Daily News of 30 May 1853 contained the following statement about French-English relations concerning Russia and Turkey: “The answer given by Lord J. Russell on last Friday night to the questions put to him by Mr. Disraeli, regarding the affairs of Turkey, leave no room for question but France and England are acting in concert, and that the two Governments have already intimated to that of Russia that they will not tolerate any wanton outrage against the Porte, or any attempt to upset, by a coup de main, the balance of power in Europe” (p. 4). The British fleet at the mouth of the Dardanelles was joined by a French fleet on 13 June.
7. Jasper Ridley comments on the situation in France during the summer of 1853: “The weather was cold and wet—the first of a series of bad summers in the 1850s which followed the long hot summers of the 1840s. The harvest failed and food prices rose steeply” (Napoleon III and Eugénie, 1979, p. 347). Louis Napoleon dealt with the high prices and shortage by asking “the directors of the railway companies, as a favour to himself, to carry food-stuffs on the railways at a nominal freight … although this would involve carrying them at a loss” (p. 354).
8. Presumably, EBB refers to an easing of the French government’s restrictions on the press (see letter 3006, note 7). But there was no indication at this time that such an easing took place.
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