3198. EBB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 83–85.
Florence.
May 2 [sic, for 3]. [1853] [1]
My dearest George,
I thank you again & again for your very kind letter about Colombe, & so does Robert. [2] I insisted on going down with him yesterday morning early to get the letters & afterwards examine the newspapers at Vieussieux’s before anybody else arrived– So frightened I was. Robert was calling on me to admire this bright light across the mountains .. that black shadow on an old wall .. but I could’nt look at anything for my part—my heart beat so I could hear it with my ears. Well! on the whole, I am satisfied. Your letter was a great relief– Then, the ‘Morning Post’ was very satisfactory & flattering .. we are only in advance of our age, that’s all .. Daily News favorable too– Times ill-natured in its usual snarling way, but admitting a success. [3] Oh—as you think, there wont be a run probably—but it’s a ‘succes d’estime’ & something more—& favorable to the position in literature, .. calculated to give a push to the poems. In the meantime Chapman & Hall dont use the opportunity of advertising– They are worse than Moxon himself, to my mind. For instance, .. how do you make out that from the sale of a large edition of my two volumes (above a thousand copies) at sixteen shillings, .. my share of the “half profits” should be only about a hundred pounds? Do you really imagine that booksellers pay themselves after the same fashion, & buy villas at Wimbledon out of such pay? I believe more easily in Rapping spirits.
Mr & Mrs Twistleton have just come back from Rome, & are to spend this evening with us to meet Mr Tennyson & young Lytton. He is a brother of Lord Say[e] & Sele, & has married an American, .. a rather pretty woman. An intelligent man, & said to be a scholar, besides modern accomplishment.
Mr Lytton was here last night too. He came chiefly to announce that a table had been moved at Florence at the house of acquaintances of his. There was a great crackling, & then it spun round. They had tried before & failed .. sitting in the circle for an hour & forty minutes. When they succeeded they were standing—the standing position being said to be most effective. In that case I give up the glory of helping to move a table. Standing for an hour & forty minutes would be of itself supernatural work with me, to be possible work. So Humbolt speaks contemptuously of these things! [4] So be it. Even Humbolt has not seen the end of all wisdom.
Have you heard a volume of poems by Dr Arnold’s son, (‘by A’) spoken of in London? [5] There is a great deal of thought in them & considerable beauty. Mr Lytton lent them to us the other day.
Yesterday being the last day of the races, Penini & Wilson went to see. He was enchanted, & told us all about it & how the “green man” was “the prettiest,” & “kept behind all the others,” .. which he seemed to consider an advantage. He liked it better on the whole, he thought, than the Boboli gardens, & in fact set it down as “velly funny indeed.”
My dearest George, I heard of your being named in the House of Commons, [6] & I do earnestly hope that after all this uphill work, this walking in bogs (called the law) you will get soon upon smoother ground. You have done well & uprightly in life, .. which is certain good, let what will, come of it. Social life is difficult in our days, & the struggle is necessary to everybody, let us try for what we may—even poetical prizes!—— Oh, the poor <Hedleys> [7] how sorry I am for them. What will be done with <Johnny>? <Robin> will be very much vexed of course.
We are still uncertain in our plans—have not made up our minds. Robert seems to think we are not qualified for Rome in the present state of our finances—& as Colombe is not likely to run into a gold mine, … why, I dont know what to say. It is not decided one way or another you are to understand.
Robert bids me say, with his love, that he thanks you deeply for your kindness about the play– Your letter was the first we opened, & there were few beside–
God bless you, dearest George! Do write to me sometimes, & love me always—as truly & most tenderly I love you.
Your Ba.
Address: George G. Moulton Barrett Esqre
Publication: B-GB, pp. 183–186.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Year provided by EBB’s references to reviews of Colombe’s Birthday. Corrected day derived from EBB’s mention of “yesterday morning” at Vieusseux’s and Lytton’s report on table-moving, both of which subjects are discussed in letter 3199.
2. Apparently George attended one of the seven performances of Colombe’s Birthday, which opened on 25 April 1853. The opening night playbill, which sold as part of lot 183 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1866), is reproduced facing p. 80.
3. These reviews all appeared on 26 April 1853. The Times declared that “there is scarcely a poem less fitted for stage representation than Colombe’s Birthday” but admitted that “there were all the usual appearances of success” (p. 6). The Morning Post felt that “to fully grasp the meaning, and feel the merit of such a work, imagination must transport us beyond the ‘ignorant present,’ we must be a little in advance of our age” (p. 6). Although the reviewer for The Daily News called the play “very deficient in … essential elements of stage effect,—plot and incident,” and thought “it moved slowly and heavily,” he reported that its “principal points were much applauded, and there was a warm demonstration of favour at the fall of the curtain. It had, in short, a succes d’estime” (p. 6). For the full text of these reviews, see pp. 379–382.
4. In the same issue of The Daily News that carried a review of Colombe’s Birthday (see note 3 above), the following item appeared: “Humboldt on Table-moving.—The Silesian Gazette publishes a letter addressed by Alexander von Humboldt to a friend who had applied for his opinion upon the supposed magnetical phenomena of table-moving, which has lately been described in several journals. The veteran physicist remarks that it is always easier to destroy a false theory than an inaccurately apprehended fact. He then adverts to a long series of pseudo-scientific discoveries which have been made and exploded in the course of his 84 years’ experience, and advises the table-movers ‘to try their chaff upon some younger bird’” (p. 5).
5. Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852) by A.; i.e., Matthew Arnold (1822–88), son of Thomas Arnold (1795–1842), famous headmaster of Rugby.
7. Obliterated after receipt, as are the two following names, presumably by George or Arabella.
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