3253. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 243–246.
Casa Tolomei– (Alla Villa) Bagni di Lucca.
Aug. 24 [1853] [1]
At last, my dearest Isa, thanks to Swedenborg or my good angel, I am called by my right name! [2] You have been a long time about it certainly, but as you recognize me at last I shall hope for liberty of friendship from henceforth .. our ‘spheres’ may mix properly– [3]
Well—I am delighted that you are reading Swedenborg & pleased with him, because there’s another sympathy! As we believe in Balzac together, so may we in the Swedish seer. I have not read the ‘Arcana’ & some other of his works, &, of what I have read, the Heaven & Hell [4] struck me most. He is wonderful, it seems to me—his scheme of the natural & spiritual worlds & natures appears to me, in an internal light of its own, divine & true .. I receive it as a self evident verity of which one wonders, “Why did I not think of that before?”– If he was not taught it, if we are to consider him a common man & no seer, then I maintain that .. of all makers of systems & dreamers of ideal philosophies, from Plato to Fourier, he stands first .. a man of genius beyond all their genius. I say this with regard to his general system .. I cant receive everything .. & there are points in his theology which dont in my mind, harmonize with the scriptures .. but really I hold him in such respect, that even where I cant receive or understand, I would speak very humbly of differences– I mean to read him more fully than I have yet done. In the meanwhile he is the only thinker who throws any light on the so-called spiritual manifestations which are increasing on all sides of us. So glad I am that you are interested. For my part I shall never rest in my soul till I know as much of the subject as is to be known. Sir Edward Lytton tells his son that what he has witnessed himself is “astounding”. He desired a certain spirit to prove its authenticity by telling him the “closest secret he had” .. and it was told directly– There was no possibility of any trick. Still, his son tells us that in his last letter (in reply to one of young Lytton’s talking about ‘a new æra’ &c) Sir Edward bids him not think of new dispensations, for that there is nothing beyond what was known to Cornelius Agrippa [5] & other middle-age necromancers. Now I cant agree to this. Whatever Cornelius Agrippa might do (granting that he could do everything) was confined to Cornelius Agrippa. That certain persons of receptive organizations have had spiritual relations I never doubted at all. But what is quite peculiar to the actual state of things is the universal receptivity .. the pouring out of spiritual influence “on all flesh.” [6] For my own part I conjecture confidently that Sir Edward is afraid of encouraging his son into a dangerous absorption into the subject– Young Lytton is very eager about it, & probably appeared so in his letter to England.– Who, do you think, is coming to Italy with introduction-letters to us? The Mr Spicer who wrote ‘Sights & Sounds,’ the famous historian (very veracious, I understand) of the whole spirit-movement. We shall hear a great deal from him. I hear from England that Mrs Westland Marston—the dramatist’s wife—do you know her? .. is a medium .. moves tables, is visited by the “raps,” & believes herself to be in constant communication with the spirit of her mother. [7] A friend of mine too, Miss Haworth, had a séance at her house, at which the raps were produced at the request of Lord Stanhope, who, after a table-turning, called on the spirits to manifest themselves– The raps sounded at first faintly, and then so distinctly that unbelievers “outside the circle” heard & were convinced. An interesting letter I have heard read from Paris, from Mr Appleton (said to be an able man) Longfellow’s brother in law. There had been séances for Lamartine .. “everybody convinced, & the poet in ecstasies.” Henry Clay came, among other spirits, & said “J’aime Lamartine”, [8] a delicate compliment from the spiritualities. Mr Appleton calls it “the sublimest conundrum ever offered to the world”. Louis Napoleon gets oracles from the spirits—and so does the Czar! (Pity he is not better advised) and the King of Holland is going mad on the subject. Meanwhile Mr Chorley & the Athenæum admit of no answers to Faraday’s letter. That’s the way you know controversies are carried on in this justest & most rational of possible worlds. [9] Did you see Mr Tallmadge’s letters .. the American senator, who heard the spiritual guitar-playing, & for whom writing was produced without hands? By the way, Mr Greenhough’s spirit has addressed his wife, I understand, in the same manner. She was in a dreadful state of depression after his death, & the consolation came by these means—the paper & pencil were laid on the table, or under the table, & the writing was projected of itself .. i.e. by the interposition of no medium’s hand! What are we to say? No more on this subject, you suggest– Well—we are enjoying the mountains, heart to heart—donkey-riding, view-discovering, eating strawberries & milk at open windows. We see a good deal of the Storys– Ah, dearest Isa! I am not converted “a bit” (as Penini says) to your “favorite aversion,” [10] and I have designs of converting you. We shall see, at Rome. We mean (really, this time,) to go to Rome, & we are tempted to follow your suggestion about the house .. only we wont .. it seems too like tempting fate. Suppose I were to ‘buy an ass’ [11] or catch the cholera, & “could not come” [12] after all!– We think we should like the via Gregoriana, on the sunny side—& I am sure we shall like being the nearest possible to you. Get as much love & kindness ready for me as you can, for I shall be inclined to draw largely on it. What was it you told me about Mrs Brotherton?—Why, I am told that she scorns all spiritual things. I shall like to know her nevertheless. Frederick Tennyson has gone to England for three months. Do you mean that Grace Greenwood is to marry Leander di Pignotti? [13] Why she was engaged to an American, a Mr Lippincot .. or some name as remarkable .. & carried about his full-length or half length, in a broach. — Oh—I like your ideas of bachelorship. They used to be mine once, but I put up at last with a theory … still better! (dont let me use prophane jests & talk of “putting up”)—and so will you, I prophecy. Lytton cant come to us yet because of being left alone with the interests of the British empire at Florence. Very inconsiderate of his colleagues—& he not well, I am sorry to say. He writes to us that he has palpitations & is nervous– It would do him great good to come to us, away from the heat, I think, and he will come when he can. I dare say I shall like Mr Page personally as well as his pictures—and, do you know, he is deep with the spirits. He, too, writes– [14] But that writing by hands is less satisfactory to me. .. more susceptible of abuse .. of unconscious will-influence .. than the other modes. Tell me anything you hear. Above all speak of yourself & your own interests. What joy it must be to you to see the progress of your interesting invalid. [15] Give her my love– Robert & I are doing a little work between the holidays. Penini is in paradise– He has a rabbit which he says prayers for—“God bless Flush and mine wabbit.” ‘The rose is’ in his cheeks & he is fatter. Such a darling indeed he is– Now, you will write soon to me, wont you, dearest Isa? That will be a sign to me for good. Robert’s love with that of your ever affecte
EBB.
[In Pen’s hand] penini’s good love.
Address: All’Illustrissima / Signorina Blagden / Via Gregoriana. 13– (piano secondo) / Roma.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 38–42.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. i.e., “Ba.”
3. Swedenborg used the term “spheres” to represent auras or emanations given off by all physical bodies, inanimate as well as animate, but most easily recognizable by spiritual beings.
4. Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell was published as De coelo et ejus mirabilibus, et de inferno in 1758. Arcana coelestia: The Heavenly Arcana contained in the Holy Scripture or the Word of the Lord, unfolded was published in eight volumes (1749–56).
5. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) wrote De Occulta Philosophia, a treatise on magic and necromancy.
6. Cf. Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17.
7. Elizabeth Potts (née Narney, d. 1839), mother of Eleanor Jane Marston (née Potts, d. 1870, aged 63). The latter was the eldest daughter of James David Potts (d. 1844), owner of Saunders’s News-Letter in Dublin. She and John Westland Marston were married in 1840.
8. “I love Lamartine.”
9. An allusion to Dr. Pangloss’s philosophy of optimism in Voltaire’s Candide: “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”
10. Emelyn Story.
11. From Æsop’s fable “The Ass and His Purchaser” which tells of a man who finds that the ass he recently bought likes to stand beside the greediest and most indolent ass he owns. He consequently returns the beast to the seller. The moral being: one is known by the company one keeps.
12. Possibly from Æsop’s fable “The Wolf and the Goat” in which a wolf tries to lure a goat down from a high rock by describing the fine grass to eat below. But the goat realizes that the wolf is intriguing for his own meal rather than the goat’s.
13. It seems likely that Isa, who had difficult handwriting, wrote “Leander Lippincott.” Sara Jane Clarke married Leander K. Lippincott (1829–96), a Philadelphia publisher, on 17 October 1853 at New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
14. i.e., practices automatic writing, another way spirits were said to communicate with the living. Page had studied for the ministry at Andover Theological Seminary (1828–30), but had, by this time, turned to Swedenborgianism.
15. Louisa Alexander.
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