3231. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 182–185.
Casa Tolomei– Alla Villa– Bagni di Lucca–
July 21– [1853] [1]
Though wishing to hear from you, my dear friend, I do wish that your coming letter may not cross this as happened last time. That is so uncomfortable. See where we are! At the Baths of Lucca without you! I scarcely know how we got here. We meant not to come indeed, but the temptations of facility & convenience conquered us. First, hearing through the Cottrells that Mrs Sunderland wanted to get rid of a house here for nothing we wrote to enquire– She answered by denying the report but by speaking of another house close by .. which brought us to the Villa in spite of our prejudices in favour of the Bagni Caldi. It’s a large house with a second sittingroom & a spare bedroom, besides the dressingroom for Robert—a house withdrawn from the village & curtained in by a row of seven planetrees in which the cicale sing all day. For above thirteen weeks we pay fifty francesconi– Also it is very cool, & our Penini is as happy as the fairy-king he looks, in the garden, from the moment his blue eyes are open. Mrs Sunderland has overpowered us with kind attentions– She has been ill, but is better & able to get on with her paintings & make long excursions on her poney. Florence was beginning to blaze when we left it, yet I was sorry to go, as usual—sorry to break the thread & let the beads run away on the floor—not to be strung again, perhaps– Who knows? We had an agreeable sort of bachelor society .. which made no trouble .. only required tea & coffee .. & in which there was a great deal of sympathetical talk, & permitted smoking! I am gracious you know, in such things. Now, Mr Tennyson, our favorite friend, is on the point of going to England for three months. The evening before our last in Florence, Mr Lytton had a ‘reception’ on the terrace of his Bellosguardo villa where I made tea .. being the only tea-making animal present, .. & Mr Villari (an accomplished Sicilian), Mr Powers, Mr Tennyson & our host discoursed upon Spiritualism, & concluded on the “arrogance & insolence” of Faraday’s inconclusive letter. Between the fire flies & the stars, & with that purple wonder of a vision at our foot .. city & mountains dissolving gloriously together .. it was almost easier to believe in spirits than in men. Tales that would have been incredible two years ago were swallowed with our strawberries & cream like last week’s easiest gossip! We stood up for our “new truths” .. side by side with Galileo, .. said somebody modestly .. looking at his villa. [2] Seldom have I had a pleasanter evening, foolish or wise, modest or arrogant, right or wrong!
Faraday’s letter does not meet the facts, but I was wrong in calling it inconclusive. It is conclusive in two respects– First .. that the simplest phenomena of the subject in question are not accountable by the known laws of nature. Second .. that the humility of our Bacons & Newtons do not mark the men of science of our age.
Among the numerous Americans whom we have seen this winter, is Mr Kinney the minister at the court of Turin who arrived a few days before we left Florence—& he & his wife spent our last evening at Casa Guidi with us– He is an intelligent, highminded, interesting man, & made our souls burn in us by talking cheerfully of Piedmont .. of the rapid progress of the people, and the invincible honesty of the King. There is hope still for Italy, thank God. The body is not dead while the heart beats beneath the hand!– Mrs Kinney is not very refined for an “Excellence,” but she is excessively goodnatured & rather a pretty woman– Also, she dabbles a little in literature. They promised that we should see them here before long for at least a week, & as I much like Mr Kinney, I hope we shall– The bishop of Maryland sent a message to Robert through them, that he had read “Christmas Eve twice through one night”– There’s an exemplary bishop for you! If there were more of such it would be better for the church!– Mr Stuart has taken his family down to Leghorn for a fortnight’s bathing, after which he talked of coming here, probably alone, to see his friend Sir William Miller. [3] How happy I should be if any prospect were opening on him! but I hear of nothing specific. He seems to think it probable that he will have a situation in England,—& if influential friends can do anything, he thinks right—only a situation of two hundred a year there would not be worth one hundred here—there is much to consider. By the way he desired me to ask if you received the box of books which he duly sent? Dont forget to tell me. Robert made immediate enquiries about the picture. Nothing to be heard of it! Mr Harding [4] is at Venice, and Mr Costigan [5] quietly wonders at your simplicity in expecting to get a picture from his hands, with or without eyes– The circumstance of its being paid for, appears to enhance the difficulty. Dr Harding spoke quite pathetically to Robert the other day about this son, observing that it was as clear a case of monomania as he had known of. He had provided him with everything & sent him to Venice at his desire– The other day the father had a letter from an hotel keeper, with a bill for the son’s six months expenses– “He has his room hung with his own pictures,” said the letter, “& if he would give me one picture I would desire no money—but he refuses any sort of compensation to me.” I am afraid it is a very bad case.
Professor Aytoun has made himself talked of certainly, & he had a friend in the Times who praised him so absurdly as besides to make him laughed at [6] —but reputations are not made by such means, be certain. He is a clever rhymer & no more—not the cleverest even of rhymers– It was simply as a representative of the Blackwood interest that he “shared the triumph” and partook the political gale at Oxford—& nobody mistook motive or end. As a lecturer [7] he may have drawn fashionable listeners for one reason or another—but, for every reason, so bad a critic must take slight hold on any reasonable public– For the rest, my dearest Mrs Ogilvy, .. bad writers have had good & tender mothers from the beginning of time, & we ought not to mix good & bad things in the excess of our sympathy for the good?—now, ought we? And when bad writers are good sons, we may blame the writer while praising the son in all reverence. Otherwise, heaven & earth would be a blot & a confusion.
I have left no room to talk of my Wiedeman today! Make me amends by sending me full news of your darlings!– He looks paler through the heat– Oh yes—he speaks Italian—and English too. He does not mix or confound as he used—but the pronunciation & grammar of each language are still very infantine– My darling!—with the most musical of voices! Let me remember to tell you that Mrs Cox has another little girl. [8]
God bless you all! Our love to Mr Ogilvy & to Mrs Ogilvy .. ask her to remember us!–
Your ever affecte friend,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
We mean to work here, & print next year in England. [9] Do tell us what you are about.
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs David Ogilvy / King’s Place / Perth– / N.B.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 100–104.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Villa Segni, where he lived from 1617 to 1631.
3. William Miller (1815–61), 3rd Baronet, who is described by James Montgomery Stuart in Reminiscences and Essays (1884) as “my old schoolfellow” (p. 124).
4. Augustus James Harding, Dr. James Harding’s son; see letter 2875, note 6.
5. John Costigan (b. ca. 1808), son of Sylvester Costigan, of Dublin, and his wife Catherine (née FitzSimons, d. 1864, aged 87). A non-practicing barrister, he lived in Palazzo Guidi with his mother and younger sister Elizabeth; see letter 2849, note 9.
6. William Edmonstoune Aytoun (1813–65), barrister and poet, was appointed professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at the University of Edinburgh in 1845. A year earlier he had joined the staff of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. When Aytoun published one of his best-known works, Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (Edinburgh, 1849), a lengthy and glowing review appeared in The Times of 31 May 1849 (p. 6) which contained numerous effusions: “There are few things that come amiss to the learned and accomplished Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh. He would have made a rare walking dramatist for the actors at the Court of Denmark. ‘Tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited,’ it is all one to him. … Finer ballads than these we are bold to say are not to be found in the language. … They take up an inspiriting event, narrate it, and by the mere force of the narrative excite in you ennobling passion and a love of human greatness, together with deep sympathy in its sufferings.” The reviewer concluded: “We … heartily thank Professor Aytoun for his delightful volume, the prose, notes, and illustrations of which are as interesting as the verse is admirable.”
7. During the month of May 1853, Aytoun delivered a series of six lectures in London on poetry and dramatic literature. The Times covered all six with an enthusiastic notice on each of the following days and an overall assessment some two weeks after the last lecture, which was evidently written by the same person who reviewed Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers in 1849. Discussing Aytoun’s first lecture, given on 6 May, The Times referred to the attendance: “As might be expected from the known literary character of the lecturer, Willis’s Rooms received yesterday afternoon a large and brilliant audience, prepared to hear Professor Aytoun’s opening discourse” (7 May 1853, p. 6). EBB’s mention of Oxford refers to the honorary D.C.L. Aytoun received from that institution on 9 June 1853. Among other notables awarded degrees were Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Charles Eastlake. The degrees were presented by the chancellor of the university, Lord Derby, whose conservative government had fallen in December 1852. All five of the Members of Parliament who received degrees were aligned with the Conservative party, including Bulwer-Lytton, formerly an independent Radical. Aytoun, himself a Tory, was appointed Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland by the Derby administration in 1852.
8. Georgina Margaret Cox (1853–70), second daughter of Robert Cox (1824–83) and his wife Margaret Jackson Cox (née Ward, 1821–82), was born on 24 June in Florence.
9. EBB refers to her Aurora Leigh and RB’s Men and Women.
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