3228. EBB & RB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 172-177.
| [In EBB’s hand] | [Bagni di Lucca] |
[16 July 1853] [1]
My dearest Sarianna, I ask Robert what he has told you? This? that?. “No, no.” I cant think how he has made his letter up then. “Of simple materialities.” Now if this is true I set it down as a shame, because we have really been in a course of adventure lately .. for us– We were suffocated & scalded in Florence by the heat, yet, in spite of it, to go away made us both a little sad & sentimental. There are two or three people there .. chiefly in love Mr Tennyson .. who made a band of friends. There was a prodigious consumption of coffee & hot milk night after night .. adding considerably to the weekly expenses & altogether it was pleasant & quiet, not dull. Yet Robert had the face to exclaim a few days since .. “Oh, that romantic time at Paris! How bright & stirring, to look back on, in spite of all my vexations!” I ventured to suggest that really a life in Florence might properly be called more “romantic” … if the word were to be used .. of the two! But no indeed! The Parisian charm works still– He is steady to Paris. I tell you, that you may feel sure of him– By the way, Sarianna, it is strange .. but both he & I had come to very different conclusions about the Gallican feeling for horses &c. to yours .. & you know how susceptible he is on such subjects, & what an observant eye & sympathy he has, & also how in the travelling by diligence & in the almost daily use of fiacres in Paris he has had opportunities of observation. You must not confound the cracking of whips with flagellation .. there is a knack & a noise in it, & that’s nearly all– Of course exceptional cases of cruelty may be quoted—but that there is general cruelty, I cannot believe. Even M. Milsand, who is so hard upon his country on all occasions, said to us one day that there was no call in France for our law against cruelty to animals because of the tendency of the people to be gentle to them. He considered our “English brutality” (which there’s no denying, dear Sarianna, indeed) an incidental expression of our glorious energy of character—!– Also you must not imagine that there is anything like the cruelty of an English race .. or steeple chase above all, .. in the Florence race Robert told you of– There is always cruelty in such things .. but the pricks do not put the creatures to the torture, as you would see by their inanimate way of running. Nothing could be tamer than the whole spectacle .. except the sight of the excited people. I hate & detest all such spectacles for my part, & protest against them in the name of human as well as animal nature—and Penini said, when he heard that there were “pricks,” “it was velly tluel,” (cruel) and he would’nt go “no more .. oh no!–” But the Florentines are very gentle to the lower creatures, and I would not have you exaggerate the character of even the exhibition in question. Poor Florentines who are gentle & courteous even to their enemies! Gentleness & courtesy however are habits & manners with them—by no means excluding hatred in the mind–
Now I am as bad as Robert .. or worse .. for I am telling you nothing at all. The evening before our last evening at Florence we spent at Mr Lytton’s villa, close to Galileo’s at Bellosguardo, and had tea on the terrace, & ate strawberries & cream between the fireflies & the stars, surrounded by such an exquisite sweep of purple hills & woods, Florence lying in the bottom of the basin half dissolved in divine lights, that one had to think a little before one could be quite sure of being still on the earth. I dont know when I have enjoyed anything so much– Then all our friends were there. It was a bachelor’s party, & I made tea like a bachelor. Mr Powers was there, & Mr Tennyson, & Signor Villeri [sic], one of the most accomplished men in Florence .. & we all agreed in calling Faraday’s letter “arrogant & insolent,” & Robert did not take his part—and I quoted you, & Robert & I dwelt on your particularly rational idiosyncrasy. What you saw was nothing beside the miracles we hear of everyday, but your having seen it, is the point—observe. Then one thing was told more wonderful than another—& M. Villeri observed to me that he thought it was time to illuminate the Italian mind on the subject by writing a book– I left him meditating a great work on the new philosophy.
Dearest Sarianna, there is no imposture to find out. There is a new development of Law. If I rejected the accumulation of testimony which presses on us here, I should not believe in Julius Cæsar or in Washington even. We have had lately several visits from a Mr Coale, a man of Boston, an underwriter to a great Insurance Office, intelligent & apparently conscientious,—a friend of Mr Powers who brought him to us. He said that he had investigated the subject dispassionately & with the application of all his faculties, quickened by long business-habits, and it is an incontestable point with him now, that a communication is established between the natural & spiritual worlds. At the same time, he thinks there is a great mixture of good & evil, with frequent personations—there cannot be too much caution used. He knows a young lady in Paris who is a medium & has constant intercourse with her mother’s spirit. One day she asked if evil spirits could have communication with her. The answer was, “not only they can, but they have had it.” Since then, she will converse with no spirit till she has used the test of the apostle John .. “Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the One God”? [2] Mr Coale told us with a smile at Faraday’s letter, that he had seen tables lifted into the air, or moved violently across the room without the touch of a finger. He tried once to prevent a table’s moving under those circumstances. viz .. untouched by any medium or other person. The medium sate some yards away with her hands on her lap. He held with all his strength by the leg of the table. It was wrenched away violently from him, &, at a desire of the medium, made the figure of S (as when a man skates it) on the floor.
Since we wrote to you last the American minister at the court of Turin, Mr Kinney, with his wife, has arrived in Florence. They came to us directly & passed two evenings with us. Such protestations of affection & more than affection! Oh, as we come to the Baths of Lucca, they must too, if it’s only for a week– She is rather literary, & wrote once a review of Robert’s poems [3] which she presented to him the other day—rather pretty too, with what Alexander Smith wd call cataracts of auburn ringlets [4] .. and rather .. rather .. (oh, I would not be ungrateful in saying so) .. rather unrefined for an ambassador’s wife .. only so very natural & cordial that one must like her, as I do, & as Robert does. He is a melancholy thoughtful-looking man, with something noble in all his ways of thinking– I appreciate him much– Also he delighted us both, by his hopes for Italy through Piedmont, by his testimony to the honesty of the King, & his account of the rapid progress of the people. I take breath for my poor Italy after that!–
He told us he had just had a letter from Baron Humbol[d]t, which said, among other things, that “the mind like the body is subject to epidemics, & that the present epidemic is concerning spiritual influences.” “But,” said Mr Kinney, with his grave smile, “if indeed it be an epidemic, it must be reaching a crisis just now.” He then went on to tell us that within the last few days he had had news from America of some of the first men there, public men, jurists & statesmen, who had committed themselves with the public as believers in the new spiritualism, .. and declared publicly that they themselves had had communications with Calhoun, Webster, & Clay specifically– Mr Kinney said he would send me some papers on the subject .. but it was the evening before we left Florence, & I could not receive them, I was sorry to admit. He observed that he himself had first disbelieved, & then kept his opinions in suspense for some time, “but,” continued he .. “I am not prepared to sit still in this chair, and to say of the noblest of my friends, of men whom I have always regarded with reverence, (after an intercourse of fifteen years with some of them) .. these men are insane .. I only am sane, I alone.” It appears that Mr Tallmadge, a member of congress, distinguished as an economist, is one of these. I saw one of his late letters in which he speaks of having been instructed by the “raps” (from Calhoun’s spirit) to place a guitar under a table, .. when the most exquisite music was produced from the instrument by an unseen hand, .... then to place there a pencil with paper– He heard the act of writing .. he found the paper written over by these words .. “I’m with you still”– Calhoun’s son, with various of his friends, testifying to the exactness of the autograph– The particulars are astounding,—but I have no room for more of them.
Is your Miss Kemp English, or an American? Does Mrs Corkran know her well? and what is her personal character? The mediums in general seem to have little that is otherwise peculiar about them—and Mr Coale told us that, out of every six persons, there is a medium of more or less faculty.
I assure you I have not been instructing Penini in any of these mysteries, but he hears us talking, .. and the other day he greeted me with .. “Mama, you knocked at mine door just now.” No—not I. “Well then,” (looking up with a radiant face of joy) “then I sint it muss be pinnets.” He told Robert a long story about this, (which ought to be in the thick of M. Villeri’s book, for the beauty of the diction of it) ending with, .. “I sint the knots on mine door the same sing as lose laps on the table.”– Not that Penini considers the supposed phenomenon by any means extraordinary or awful .. “oh no!” as he says!– The only thing he is frightened of is the “thunder shooting” .. and he confided to me the other day that, on the occasion of the next storm, he meant to try Vincenzio’s remedy of shutting his eyes & crossing himself. I answered that the Italians were apt sometimes to cross themselves when they thought of God, but it seemed to me very easy to think of God without crossing oneself, and better, as the crossing did no good.
He has taken Ferdinando, our new servant, into great favour. You cant think how prettily the child talks Italian. Never mixing up the two languages as he used to do. So delighted he was with the picture & the Legend– Tell the dear Nonno with a heap of loves how we all thank him. Mind you dont forget Fontain[e]bleau .. now you must not really– We mean to enjoy our situation here extremely, & work hard so as to deserve it. Robert is delighted with his sittingroom “all to himself” .. nobody is to enter even the room next to it .. I expect a great deal of work from him under such brilliant circumstances. Before our windows is a row of seven planetrees .. & then a field of green hemp, a playground with fire-flies, with a garden & an arbour & a statue, with the mountains beyond, & around. It is beautiful .. but I regret the more fantastic vision of mountain-peaks, which we saw when lifted up into the air at the Bagni Caldi, four years ago. Our present situation is rather low .. & then we are horribly within reach of the watering-place society. Still we mean to be <sulky> [5] & defend our rights of solitude.
While I write, come in Mr & Mrs Story from Rome. Do you remember their names among those of our American friends? We are very glad to see them. They are at the Bagni Caldi & ran down the mountain to us– You will not have forgotten Mrs Lowell whom we saw in London? Well—the return to America has proved, I fear, fatal to her– [6] She has not left her room for five months—& the fear is that nothing will save her now, though her husband talks of bringing her back to Italy. So Mrs Story told me.
Give our love to Mr & Mrs Corkran—& do mention particularly little Alice– So very sorry I am, that dear Mrs Corkran should have such an anxiety. [7] Tell her that I send her affectionate thoughts–
Oh yes, we have floods of gossip about plots &c in the English papers [8] .. but Robert never believes in a plot .. he would sooner believe in a rapping spirit, yes, & much sooner just now, I think.
It is the day of miracles– I find the Times praising the French government! [9] (for once–) Not that I praise the Times, which has behaved infamously on the war question– God bless you, dearest–
Your ever attached Ba–
P.S. I forgot to tell you one other thing– The bishop of Maryland, Bishop Whittingham, whom Mr Kinney spoke of as one of the ablest & best men they had in America, came with him to our door. The bishop is an invalid, & afraid of being made to talk (some affection of the throat) but he sent us both “his love,” & bade Mr Kinney tell Robert that, on receiving “Christmas Eve,” he “read it through twice before he slept.”
Bishops, in general, have not paid Robert so much homage. For the rest, reading “Christmas Eve” would do them all a great deal of good, it seems to me. This exemplary bishop belongs to the American episcopalian church .. identical, you know, with the Church of England.
Penini shall send his Nonno letters & pictures but we have no room for them today. He is overjoyed with the sights & sounds here– He has been in a fit of wrath against some woman who took the liberty of drawing water at a little fountain he has appropriated– “Tetta (questa) donna molto tattiva.” [10] (cattiva)– Ferdinando was complaining of a thieving cat who came in at the kitchen window .. He would get a stick, he said, & beat it the next time it came– “O no, Ferdinando, non fare tosì! (cosi) non fare male a tetto datto! (questo gatto)– A tella (quella) donna, si!” [11] —I ask him if he has a message– “I muss tell one sing at Nonno .. This garden very pretty.” Penini’s last poem–
“God sits on a throne–
He sees the little children all alone–
The sun is bright, the flowers are flown*–
God says, Sink of me, I sink of you.”
_________
Our author probably meant blown. (Commentator)
[Continued by RB]
Ba will have told you about Mr Kinney—not what he told us, however. He read passages of Casa Guidi to the K. of Sardinia—(those which related to his father, [12] in whose reputation he takes deep interest.) The K. was much moved & grateful, & Mr Kinney assured us of “the best reception should we go to Turin”– He said also that Azeglio quoted this part of it to the House of Representatives to show what was the feeling towards them. [13] —This is pleasant to know, is it not?
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Madlle Browning, / chez M. Byrne, / Avenue des Champs Elysées 138 / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. This letter is postmarked 17 July 1853, but EBB must have been writing it on the 16th, as indicated by her remark at the beginning of the eighth paragraph regarding the Storys’ calling. In letter 3234 RB tells Mrs. Kinney that the Storys called “the day after our arrival.”
2. Cf. 1 John 4: 1–3.
5. The word is reconstructed, the ink being very faint. EBB uses this word in the same context in the second paragraph of letter 3230.
6. Maria Lowell (née White, 1821–53), wife of James Russell Lowell, died in October.
7. Possibly concerning the health of her children; see letter 3177, note 14.
8. The Paris correspondent for The Times filed reports in June and July 1853 on plots to assassinate Napoleon III. In the 11 June issue he wrote: “For the last two or three days vague rumours have been afloat of the discovery of a plot against the Emperor’s life. A number of persons were arrested the day before yesterday [7 June], and 30 or 40 more yesterday at Neuilly. The majority belong to the working classes. … As is always the case, rumours of a conflicting kind are in circulation. Some say Orleanists and Legitimists are implicated in the plot—if plot there be; others the Republicans” (p. 6). Then in The Times of 8 July: “Another plot has been discovered in Paris, which was to have been put in execution last night [5 July]. It was known that the Emperor and Empress were to visit the Opera Comique … from the moment the [Imperial] carriages appeared near the Madeleine till they reached the doors of the Opera Comique the cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and ‘Vive l’Imperatrice!’ were most frequent and loud. … About a dozen or sixteen men … were near the entrance of the theatre. … One of these men, when waving his hat, exposed a part of his bosom by the opening of his coat, and the handle and point of a dagger were visible. The man was at once arrested, and as the police were removing him, some one cried out to arrest the group of which he was the centre. … The following is the circular memorandum sent to the papers by the Prefect of Police for insertion with respect to the plot:—‘Last night in the midst of the crowd at the doors of the Opera Comique … the police arrested from 10 to 12 persons belonging to the old secret societies. … The police authorities are engaged in an inquiry into the matter’” (p. 6).
9. In reviewing the diplomatic move made recently by the French foreign minister in response to statements circulated by the Russian government, concerning the protection of Christian holy places in the Ottoman Empire (see letter 3193, note 5), an editorial in The Times of 8 July 1853 contained the following remarks: “This answer of the French Government is creditable to them in every respect, and, as we have occasion to advert to the conduct they have recently pursued in these transactions, we feel bound to add that, as far as we are acquainted with it, it has been marked by great fairness, and a determination to uphold, in concert with this country, those principles of public law which are the strongest bond of national interests and of the general peace” (p. 5).
10. “That woman very bad.”
11. “Oh no, Ferdinando, don’t do so! don’t do harm to that cat! To that woman, yes!”
12. Casa Guidi Windows, II, 694–723.
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