3207. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 106–110.
Florence.
June 2. [1853] [1]
My dearest Mrs Ogilvy you will think me worse in Italy than anywhere else in the matter of letter-writing. One takes as you know in Italy, to lotus-eating instead,—confining ourselves, on epistolary points to expecting other people to write to us with the ‘reciprocity which is all on one side.’ I have a sort of excuse however for my omissions in having waited for a letter from Gigia’s [2] family. Just as I begin to feel it impossible to wait a moment longer—just as I snatch up my pen .. while it is in my fingers literally & truly .. the letter comes. Tanto meglio. [3] Now I do want to hear from you, my dear friend. Be kind & generous, & dont pay me off “tooth for tooth” [4] and worry me. Send a long, large sheet, rather, full to the verge, of every sort of detail about you all. Tell me of the darlings. Tell me of yourselves. Tell me of you personally. What are you reading, & writing, & thinking most of? Turning tables, like the rest of the world, & me in particular? Nobody here does anything else. The revolutionary ‘circoli’ [5] are revolutionized into magnetic circles:—and the pope & the cardinals “serve tables” [6] like the laity. There’s an engraving at the shop windows of an animated four legged pine, with the inscription .. “E pur si muove.” [7] “Having one’s feet under the mahogany” has attained to a spiritual significance. And the new Knights of the round table have taken ladies into their company & shamed the miraculous days of the sangrael [sic] with a modern anachronism. Ah—one laughs. But one is laughed at besides. I am up to the throat in all manner of superstitions, so called, .. swimming in spiritualisms. There has been a continued stream of Americans through the Casa Guidi this winter—and if you could hear us talking in this room, Mr Powers, Mr Tennyson, Mr Lytton, & me, .. while poor Robert overwhelmed (in his sense of courtesy at least) by the majority against him, declares with his last breath that until he sees & hears with his own eyes & ears, he will give credence to nothing, .. you would set us down as mad. You know my tendency to visionariness—though alas, I never saw a vision.
Now I am ashamed of having to tell you that we have not yet been to Rome (the spirit of the sun, who prophecied to us out of Lord Stanhope’s chrystal ball, was so far wrong!) [8] and on this second of June we cant of course think of going. We have put it off till next winter:—so farewell Paris & London for a year to come. It is a vexation to us—a despair to my sister, a despondency to Robert’s sister, .. but we could’nt help ourselves & cant. A small “digging” found in a flower pot, [9] would have facilitated matters,—in absence of which, a proper degree of resignation & philosophy is exceedingly desireable. For my own part, you know how I love Florence & Italy. It’s like being kept prisoner, on a diet of ambrosia, in paradise. We have been particularly happy this winter—I have .. to speak for myself. Plenty of books, plenty of thoughts, health enough, love enough!. Plenty to thank God for .. is it not? .. without room for finding fault.
And you? Shall you come southwards, really? Ah, you never can live in England or Scotland after life on the continent– While you are in the cramp of orthodoxy, I am in the delirium of heresy .. but I may be even orthodox where I am, without being persecuted for it by the meek eyes of my next door neighbour, which must be counted as an advantage. I could not bear, I think, the state of things you describe. Well, but let me admit frankly .. that on the day I had your letter, one arrived from Mrs Jameson blowing the trumpets for the state of liberty to which English society had attained .. freedom of religious opinion & expression to the last degree!– But she is peculiarly situated——in the most intellectual society in London, to which “I believe” or “I disbelieve” is, unfortunately, an indifferent formula– Either in London or Paris, you may say what you please among thinking people——but in Paris, still more than in London .. Shall you return to Florence this year? I dont know what to wish. Because next year we shall be in Paris, I think. Then, rents are raised in Paris just now, through the abolition for the nonce of so many streets: [10] it will be cheaper presently. But nothing is as cheap as Florence, notwithstanding that through our .. my .. want of management, we dont live very cheaply:—only there is an undeniable difference in the prices, taken per se. Mrs Tennyson who is an Italian & learned in housekeeping, says we ought to live for a scudo a day. We have a servant, engaged in the twilight which accounts for his outside, regular & attentive, but not excellent otherwise. Alessandro is out of place, having just left the Costigans, [11] by whom his ‘amour propre’ was cruelly offended, & they had better have cut his throat. The vital principle with Alessandro is in the vanity, you know. Giovanni [12] is in a place somewhere.
Poor Mr Stuart has been in trouble & wrath lately about the embassy which he has left, & is in great difficulty I fear. He is making application among influential friends to get some sort of occupation in England or elsewhere– I am very sorry for him. His state of debts seems to be tremendous. Then he has not been very well, though this is not serious. We have seen a good deal of him this winter, but much more of Mr Tennyson & Mr Lytton who have grown to be our familiar spirits,—& Mr Powers too has often come. Robert quite loves Mr Tennyson—he is very loveable. There’s a believing man for you, by the way! Though he & I are much in sympathy, I feel myself almost a sceptic by comparison with him. He’s a man to believe in a muffin’s turning crumpet because of a Devil on the left hand side, .. & to think it nothing surprising. He has just printed two great volumes of poems [13] (not published, understand) in which there is much fancy & sweetness .. much elemental poetry. Young Lytton too is preparing poems. [14] He has made me think more highly of his father from the degree of his filial reverence. A young man full of the noblest aspirations—religious, & not ashamed nor afraid. I like him very much.
Suppose you come at once, & we all go into the mountains together to pass the heats? Would’nt that be delightful? We have no plans yet. At the end of June we shall have to go somewhere, I suppose .. though the weather now is wonderfully exceptional– It has rained for three days, and I can bear to wear a sort of poplin-gown. This, in June!– Penini was found guilty of saying yesterday as he looked out of the window .. “What weazer! Santo Dio mio!” [15] I suppose it was a plagiarism from some tragical Italian. He is well & a darling in every way. A few weeks ago it was agreed that he should learn to read—so he gives me about five minutes a day to that purpose, & can make his way already among little sentences of one syllable. But he does’nt like reading as much as writing– I suppose nobody likes learning to read. It’s more for his pleasure than profit than [sic, for that] I wanted to teach him, & that he might be able to amuse himself among the fairies & witches & Jack the giant killers presently,—otherwise the time for lessons is’nt come. When he does’nt attend I simply refuse to hear him any more. The other day he came back to me after half an hour, with a most insinuating smile … “You dood now, Mama”? [“]Yes,” I said, I was tolerably good. “Well, den, I say mine lesson aden.” He talks very badly still—only he does’nt mix the languages as he used to do. Oh—you would be sure to think him improved,—& what joy he would have with your children!
Robert’s play succeeded as you would see by the papers. Miss Faucit acted it seven nights out of the ten of her engagement. How does Alessandro’s reading get on? Among Penini[’]s accomplishments, is dancing—& he really dances with grace, playing the tamb[o]urine & keeping accurate time to the music. There’s a great deal of girl-nature in the child. Tell me that dear Mr Ogilvy is better. Old age does’nt explain his malady as well as the British climate does, happily. In the decline of faculties (at any rate) I hope he remembers still the friends of his youth, such as Robert & I. God bless you both. Love to Mrs Ogilvy– Write to me, do.
Your ever affectionate friend, EBB.
Mrs Trollope has a little girl– [16] She cant nurse.
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs David Ogilvy / King’s Place / Perth / N.B.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 95–100.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Gigia was evidently an Italian nurse whom the Ogilvys engaged while living in Italy. She accompanied them to England in June 1852 and remained in their service until 1860.
3. “So much the better.”
4. Exodus 21:4.
5. “Circles.”
6. Acts 6:2.
8. The previous July, the Brownings had taken part in a spiritualist gathering at Fanny Haworth’s house in London. Also in attendance was the 4th Earl Stanhope, who had brought his crystal ball. See letter 3074.
10. The current public works construction in Paris (see letter 3204, note 5) had decreased the amount of available housing.
11. Alessandro Barsotti, the Brownings’ former manservant, had been in service with the Costigan family, which included Elizabeth Costigan, her brother John, and their mother Catherine (see letter 2849, note 9). They lived in Palazzo Guidi in 1852 and 1853.
12. Probably a former Ogilvy servant.
13. A copy of this work is listed in the holdings of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as follows: “[Poems, by F. Tennyson. 2 pt., the 2nd pt. having the poems pr. on one side of the leaf only, and with the titles of the poems given in ms. Wanting the title-leaf.]” According to Charles Tennyson in his introduction to The Shorter Poems of Frederick Tennyson (1913), Tennyson’s Days and Hours, published at London in April 1854, consisted of “selections” from the privately printed work (see pp. xii–xiii).
14. Clytemnestra, The Earl’s Return, The Artist, and Other Poems (1855), published under the pseudonym of Owen Meredith.
15. “My Holy God!”
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