3214. RB to Joseph Milsand
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 126–129.
Florence,
June 16, ’53.
Another foolish delay, my dear Milsand, in answering your letter—leading (as is just) to a delay in getting such another true delight. But there were a few things which I could not decide on at once. For instance,—the weak point in my play which you remarked on so kindly: [1] I have no copy here to correct,—with the best will in the world. But, I suppose, that by searching I might have procured one, or even received it from England—the crowning obstacle, however, to any effort of the kind, was in my uneradicable disbelief in the intelligence & sympathy of the actors generally—who, with us, care for nothing but coarse “effects,” as they call them,—hate “poetry” in a play, and as little love “niceties,” as, in truth, their auditory can appreciate them. Had I been on the spot to explain & enforce, or perhaps, entreat—I might have done something: but under present circumstances, the best way seemed to throw oneself frankly on the goodnature of people who had one so entirely in their hands. So the thing was carried with effect without another word on either side—and I know of the result from the newspapers only, and a letter or two—whence I conjecture that the actors were poor enough, with the exception of Miss Faucit who seems to have played con amore—and that the success, though moderate enough, was more than I should have expected. Miss Faucit is now playing it, to much the same result in the provinces—(at Manchester, a fortnight ago) and if it does her any good I shall be glad enough. The journals that I have seen, say all the more complimentary things to the poem, that they are not forced to extend them to the stage-play [2] —and thus, or thus far, ends the adventure. Nothing can equal the wretchedness of the Theatre in England just now. No one permanent company—nor indeed half-a-dozen individual actors, in all the companies put together, able to represent a serious work with decency: some single Miss Faucit, as in this case, comes suddenly as if from the skies “for ten nights only”—and, to meet her requirements, and as if the affair were an improvised amateur-performance at a country-house, the troop who happen to be on the spot do what they can—the premier comique does his best as a père-noble,—ingenues, soubrettes, duègnes [3] —all come alike to the actresses,—and the end is, that all these manage sufficiently to “donner la replique” [4] to the one real talent present, so as to put it in evidence, and give the audience into the bargain a kind of idea what the whole play is about. Dii meliora piis! [5]
In your letter you bid me tell you something about the way of life of our literary men—we have none in your sense of the word. Ours are not your ways: it is the worse for us in many respects, if perhaps the better in some few. We have no analogies, in any of our characters that I know, with A. de Musset, George Sand, A. Dumas—and the rest. The whole life is led differently,—you all tend to influence politically, I think—with us, it would be absurd for the man who writes articles in the “Times” which are condensed into telegraphic messages from Kingdom to Kingdom, to try & obtain, on the strength of them, the secretaryship to the poorest embassy there. So a man learns his decreed place and curbs his desires accordingly—if he does not, nobody sympathises with him. So with us, those who are without a real vocation for literature as its own reward, keep very clear of it—the others take their love & labour into the quietest corner and live there as they like—and when people live so,—that is, not as others like & prescribe,—they generally lead praiseworthy lives. You mention Tennyson’s Brother here—how you would like him! I should try, were you here, if we could agree in what is wanting in all the fine, rare combination of qualities,—why it is, that nothing comes, or comes proportionately, out of so much. He is the eldest brother—very like Alfred, in face & expression, but on a larger scale—and it seems as if just that diffusion and suffusion of the faculties rendered them inefficient—for I meet every where in him the component parts of Alfred’s genius, but never in concentration—his poetry, of which I have read a quantity—is all about to become the very thing, and never quite is. He wants the dramatic power of his brother entirely—writes wholly subjectively: that purely veracious, earnest and simple mind of his cannot be other than itself for a moment. But, as I say, how you would like the entire truthfulness, and faith!—which I don’t remember having ever seen so prominent and so characteristic of a man to the exclusion of other qualities. He is of great & various culture, deep sympathies, and the regular English temperament that is provided to neutralise all such good things,—the extreme sensitiveness & shyness which are the island soul’s disease, as consumption is the body’s. He will stand aside all his life and see others act—yet he could not himself act, even as well, without an effort of which he is quite incapable. Now, would you be glad at seeing such an one, sufficient to himself under such restrictions, by reason of his true deep passion for nature—or vexed that such a solace prevents his necessity for working? Ought a man to rest here if he can?
Here is the letter growing to an end, and not a word proper to either of us said yet! My sister will have told you perhaps how the weather keeps us here even now—I count on living eventually in Paris—beginning such a life next year perhaps—and on nothing do I count more than on the continuance of the relation between us. Meantime,—are you engaged on the Revue—you spoke of two articles on Wordsworth—do they progress? [6] Tennyson receives the numbers, and I shall see them forthwith. We shall certainly go to Rome in the winter,—London in the spring. My wife will write a word, I know—but she may forget to say she is much better. Will you write soon, dear Milsand? I hear of your return from the country. [7]
Ever yours most affectionately,
Robert Browning.
I am glad Miss Shore [8] remembers me, or us, rather—we should like much to hear of her & her family. I hear constantly of the Corkrans. Did I not recognize Mr. Darley’s hand in a couple of articles in “Galignani” on the “Exposition”? [9] Tell us, above all, if your intention of going to England holds—I should like to give you a letter or two—but the best would be to go there in company. We have another scheme—which may come to nothing like its predecessors—of going to Camaldoli & La Vernia, [10] but the weather must be hotter first. We have amends for the rain, however, in the exquisite grass & foliage—which I never seem to have seen in equal perfection.
Address, on integral page: M. Milsand, / 33 Rue de l’Ouest, / Paris. [11]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.
1. In a letter to William Darley, Milsand declared that he did “not like the central idea nor the object” in Colombe’s Birthday (see SD1655).
2. The reviewer in The Spectator summed up the fairly unanimous opinion that Colombe’s Birthday was better read than seen on the stage: “Mr. Browning’s poem is essentially made for private study” (30 April 1853, p. 414). For the complete text of this review, see p. 389.
3. “Duennas.”
4. “Play opposite.”
5. “Heaven grant a happier lot to the good” (Vergil, Georgics, III, 513, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough).
6. As indicated in a letter to his brother Philibert, Milsand had probably begun working on a Wordsworth piece by the end of 1852. Apologizing for not having “written for a long time,” he explained: “It’s because I am possessed by an article, and because my head is too weak to pursue a task without letting itself get absorbed. … It’s on Wordsworth that I’m doing an article” (4 [February] 1853, ms at ABL/JMA). Drafts of two essays by Milsand, entitled “Wordsworth, 1er article,” about eighty pages, and “Wordsworth, 2e article,” about seventy-five pages, are at ABL/JMA. We have been unable to trace any published article by Milsand on Wordsworth.
7. Milsand had recently returned to Paris from Dijon, where he had been visiting his mother and brother since mid-April.
8. Louisa Catherine Shore; see letter 2982, note 11.
9. William Darley contributed a series of three articles on the Salon of 1853 to Galignani’s Messenger. These appeared in the issues of 20 May (pp. 2–3), 26 May (p. 3), and 2 June (pp. 2–3). At this time the Salon was the official art exhibition of the École des Beaux-Arts (equivalent to the British Royal Academy). The name “Salon” comes from its original location, the Salon Carré in the Louvre. According to Darley, the Salon had moved from the Louvre to the Tuileries in 1848, then to the Palais Royal. But in the current year it had “migrated to the terra incognita of the Menus-Plaisirs, in the Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière” (20 May 1853, p. 2).
10. Sic, for La Verna. Both it and Camaldoli are monasteries east of Vallombrosa. EBB had mentioned them in letter 2684.
11. In a letter to William Darley (14 June 1853, ms at ABL/JMA), Milsand indicates that he relocated upon his return to Paris. His new address was 11 Rue Servandoni.
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