3183. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 32–36.
Florence.
April 4– [1853] [1]
I begin to write this letter .. “What! another letter to Arabel!” .. while Robert is proceeding with his last criticisms on my first volume. [2] Our friend Mr Cassells, of Leghorn, goes to England he says, on the sixth, & if we give him our commissions in time he will execute them duly. So I cant help sending you a few more scratches. I have written a note to Miss Haworth, which will you throw into the post? I have been wanting to her altogether. This note I enclose in a sheet to you, & that, I shall bid Mr Chapman to forward to you. The much or little of what I shall be able to write, I cant answer for now.
Arabel, dearest. I wrote to you the day before yesterday—& since then, nothing has happened to us—nothing ‘historical,’ I mean. I was out at Mr Stuart’s lecture today– I told you, I think, that he was redelivering his lectures on Shakespeare. Mr Tennyson called for Robert & me, as he always does for Robert, & we went together. Such a day. A spring day, do you call it? A hot summer day rather! a July day in England … when it does’nt snow! We had to creep round the shadiest streets to avoid a coup de soleil. Penini & Wilson at the Boboli gardens, were lolling in the shade, under the trees, sitting on the grass. Penini came in with his frock full of flowers, daisies, & dandelions which he thought beautiful. “I saw a soldier watching me. I dot away in sush a hully.” The soldiers are supposed to object to the felony of picking flowers. It is divine weather—and we, not able to go to Rome! Is’nt it vexatious, Arabel?
Robert’s play will probably be played at the Haymarket in a few days, [3] & I am growing rather anxious about it. In one sense it’s no affair of ours. A work which has been in print above ten years, nobody can be foolish enough to suppose to be offered to the theatre now. So that if there’s failure, it is’nt our fault—we are not responsible for the speculation. Helen Faucit thinks to make a success for herself in Colombe—and if she does, so much the better for us! if she does’nt, so much the worse for her. In case of success the pay will be a welcome thing just now.
Oh, Arabel! here is my letter broken into! Mr Lytton comes in while Robert & I are least wishing for anybody, & so busy that our business is likely to suffer from the interruption. My letter above all things will. I like Mr Lytton. So does Robert. He is interesting, & has good & pure aspirations. But I wish he had’nt come tonight. By the way I ought to have told you that Sir Edward’s mischance was not strictly speaking an ‘accident.’ It is an abscess on the hand, necessitating an operation, & of a very painful kind. [4] Still it comes to much the same thing. He saw, himself, at Knebworth I understand, the table lifted by the so called spirits. It was done by his desire. He desired that the table with a lamp on it shd be moved—then, that the lamp should be moved without moving the table. Done. Then that a decanter of water on another table should be moved without moving the table. Done. Then, that the water in the decanter shd be moved without moving the decanter. Done. This last manifestation is of so striking a character that Robert admits, “If I saw that done I should believe.” Mr Lytton said to me last night .. “What is your opinion of these things, Mrs Browning.” “Why, Mr Lytton, my husband says that I am no authority upon any subject of the kind, because I have a trick of believing everything.” “But is it possible to resist all this evidence?” “I [5] think not, I confess to you.” You ought to hear Mr Tennyson talk on the subject– He cant imagine how Robert can doubt .. how anybody can doubt for a moment. Only, he & I split on the point of devilism. He will have it that it’s purely develish [sic] .. (if you permit me such an expression as purely develish ..) & prefatory to the second coming & personal reign. I think there’s a mixture of good & evil, truth & falsehood in it, .. that it’s simply an influx from the spiritual world– We shall see further. Any way, depend upon it, Arabel, you have’nt heard the last of it. It is increasing & to increase, and the thinkers of the age will have to consider more deeply than a [sic, for they] have done, an abnormal class of phenomena.
Such pains Robert & I have taken with my new edition. The poems are worth a nugget or two more for the labour. Of that I am sure. Now I am going back to my new poem. [6] I should like to have this winter over again, it has been so pleasant. The little Leys were here yesterday, poor Louisa’s children, [7] & I hated to hear little Luti speak of Mrs Gordon as ‘Mama’. Think of my teaching my child, if he had lost his father, to call somebody else .. ‘Papa’!! On no principle, is it comprehensible to me. They are nice children—& Mr Ley left them to play with Penini for an hour or two—and tomorrow they are coming to dine with him—though nothing consoles him for Alice Tassinari’s absence in the country. He wrote a letter to her the other day, & we had a sobbing fit because Robert thought it unnecessary to send it to the post—but the sobs persuaded him, & the letter was sent away as it ought to have been. Penini has related to us a pathetic story of a danger to which Flush was exposed at the Cascine. Two boys began to throw stones at him– “Lily said, Teto tane (questo cane) non fa male, [8] and Flush tome to me and I put mine arms tight lound his net. Velly naughty boys! I sint dirls (girls) never beat dods. Only boys.” “You have found that out already,” said I, “have you?”—[“]Les! boys not know better, I sint. Poor, litty tiney babies!” .. shaking his head with a pitiful air of superiority. “But I sure God not lite it.”— Oh poor Flush. He is worse than ever, from the usual effects of climate. What will happen when it grows warmer I fear to think of. He is fat, has a good appetite, but looks very bad indeed from the state of the skin & hair. I think we must have a dog doctor’s opinion of him—and yet nothing will avail in this climate. Italy is to him what England is to me–
Let me tell you something of Penini– I had your testament in my hand the other day, & he came & said, “Lead me somesing out of Dod’s boot.” I read where the page was open, about Jesus receiving & blessing little children. [9] When I had done, he stooped down & kissed the leaf. “Why do you do that,” I asked. “I tiss what you lead about gentle Jesus.”
He said to Wilson yesterday– “Lily, I want to peat to you a minute. I too large to be talled Baby any more. I not lite you to say Baby. You muss say Penini–” In which I quite agree with him. At four years old it is time to abdicate one’s babyhood—more’s the pity. I grudge the years going away with the simplicities .. how I grudge them! Yet the child grows sweeter & sweeter, dearer & dearer– God keep him, .. blessed little spirit that he is! It is only Wilson who persists in saying Baby. Robert & I left it off long since. Tell Minny, that he professed an intention yesterday of writing her a letter soon.
At the fair we have bought him a green silk frock, very pretty, & gave 5s 5d English, for a superfluity of stuff. There may be enough, over, to make a jacket. Things are given away at the fair. Then I have embroidered a frock of the undressed silk .. in black braid. This washes, & will be useful for the summer. He asked me the other day to buy him a red frock & embroider it with yellow. “I sint lis so velly pretty.” You know he has a weakness for pretty frocks. Your green merino is still in the ascendant. He saw a “dleen flock” in Boboli gardens yesterday, he says .. “but no buttons! not one button.” There was the difference!– What a charm!——
Tell me of Henrietta & the babies—all you know. And Arabel, I do beseech you to write to me oftener. Its really wrong that I should’nt hear oftener. I am anxious about you altogether. Mind, when you write, to mention Trippy, whom I have not heard of satisfactorily [for] much too long. Has Papa kept in the house much this winter? and does it affect his spirits & appetite. Tell me about Papa. I would give a great deal of wishing for a little direct tiding of you all this moment. How are you, Arabel? Be truthful. Have you been imprudent in going out in the cold? Oh, I do hope & trust you have not, but there are fears of you beside. Tell me of the Refuge. [10] Do the means prove adequate? And how did the ‘dinner’ go off? and have you seen the Strattens since? I want you to give me information concerning Mary Hunter & her father. Has she gone to the Owens, & are they likely to agree? I have apprehensions, relating to her want of accomplishments, which at the age of Angela’s girls [11] must be a telling defect, unless they have masters. You ought to write to poor Mr Hunter, Arabel, if he does’nt write or if he does, it seems to me.
Here, has Mr Stuart come in, .. this monday morning .. to shatter my letter to pieces, for the rest of it. He sits down in the chair opposite, takes off his great coat, .. is going to stay .. regularly. So I propose to finish what I am writing while he sits there. It cant, you see, be for long. How I have to scud for it with this pen of mine!– Vexatious, indeed– Do you hear of Mrs Orme? Tell me.
We have letters from the Brownings. Sarianna never complains, except of the cold—but I am penetrated with the conviction that she dislikes Paris– I was sure she would—& I am sure she does. The penal association is too strong—& then, Sarianna is not mobile, flexible—she has no enthusiasm in her, & likes chiefly I think what she has been used to, & chiefly because she has been used to it. Her sense of duty, & her excellent sense are so strong, that she will bear up & say nothing about it—but she enjoys evidently nothing at all, she appreciates none of her new advantages; she is not alive enough to receive the influences of life. Observe—I could entirely understand a woman’s regret, violently removed from a happy situation in her own country– But what there can be to regret in her case, I cant understand. Well—perhaps it does’nt amount to regret. It is only that she does’nt take root & live & flourish where she is– Still, it comes to much the same thing. Oh—if she had married <…>! [12] That’s my last sigh. Poor, dear, good Sarianna!
God bless you, dearest, dearest– Robert says I must end—he comes in to say that, after having gone out to enquire about hours. [13] As to Mr Stuart, I have touched the climax of rudeness with him in going on to write all this time.
And I cant read it over– Love, best love to everybody.
Your own Ba–
Robert’s very best love–
Address: Miss Barrett / 50. Wimpole Street.
Publication: EBB-AB, I, 555–559.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the opening at the Haymarket of Colombe’s Birthday; see note 3.
2. Of Poems (1853). EBB had corrected and revised the second volume first; see the beginning of letter 3172.
3. Colombe’s Birthday, with Helena Faucit Martin in the title role, opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 25 April 1853 and closed on 11 May after seven performances.
4. In February, it had been reported in the press that Edward Bulwer-Lytton had injured one of his arms; see letter 3173, note 2.
5. Underscored twice.
6. Aurora Leigh.
7. Louisa (“Luti”) Susanna Ley (1845–92) and James Verchild Ley (1846–1919). Their mother Louisa Susanna Ley (née Tulk) died in 1848. Their father James Peard Ley married in 1856 his sister-in-law Caroline Gordon (née Tulk), widow of John Gordon, who died in 1849.
8. “This dog isn’t doing anything bad.”
9. Matthew 19:13–15. “Your testament” refers to The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which Arabella, years before, presented to EBB and inscribed: “For my beloved Ba from her affectionately attached Arabel. London Feby. 5th. 1842.” See Reconstruction, A232.
10. The Industrial Training Refuge for Destitute Girls; see letter 2960, note 13.
11. Angela Owen (née Bayford) and her husband Henry John Owen had two daughters: Angela Frances (1840–84) and Frances Mary (1843–1905).
12. A name has been obliterated after receipt, probably by Arabella.
13. Perhaps a reference to train times to Leghorn; see the following letter.
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