3265. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 279–282.
Casa Tolomei. Alla Villa– Bagni di Lucca–
[ca. 8] September [1853] [1]
Having a letter for the signorina cherubina .. quella fanciulla ornatissima [2] .. just sent to me from Florence, I dont like keeping it a post, my dearest Mrs Ogilvy. Otherwise I might have waited a day or two longer .. but no more .. in order to write to you. Ever since you wrote last I have been going round & round you like a dog meaning to settle himself at last, in a restless wishing to know more of you, seeing that, whether you knew it or not, you wrote in bad spirits .. decidedly bad spirits .. which your friends cant be expected to put up with quietly– Do be kind, & write again soon. We want much .. oh, much .. to hear of you in detail & how you have wound up your plans for the winter .. whether you stay in Scotland or England (I hope not) or whether you go to Paris or Brussels .. we have heard of Brussels in relation to you but the “trump of fame” [3] plays false sometimes.
You see we are still at the Baths. We mean to stay as long as the weather will let us, the place having been extremely enjoyable hitherto– Penini & I have had our part with the donkeys,—& there has been a great deal of mutual strawberries & cream at friends’ houses, the Storys coming & going in both generations, the children visiting Penini as the elders did ourselves– I forget whether you knew them at all, but I think not. He is a sort of universal man, sculptor, painter, lawyer, biographer, musician & poet, & very vivid & characteristic in conversation .. & she is sympathetical & charming. Also, we have been twice or thrice with the Royalty of Villa Broderick [4] —and once Mr Green in a fit of absence & hospitality drew us in to a regular rout .. if the word were not rococo .. a soirée of some forty or fifty persons ‘in grande toilette,’ [5] at which we with poetical simplicity appeared in foulard & alpaca somewhat abashed. He has two children [6] .. did you know? Mrs Sunderland has gone to Leghorn to look out for a winter-house, but returns here for a while. She has been extremely unwell, I am sorry to say, & was feeble when she went away. The indisposition was not the chest this time. She & we talk of you whenever we meet, & if she had not been ill you would have heard from her some time since. Mr Stuart told us that we should certainly see him at Lucca, and we expected him … & Shakespeare .. but he has not appeared. I should like to ascertain what has happened since we parted, for his situation seemed perilous & scarcely hopeful. I know too well the difficulty of getting remunerative occupation in England, notwithstanding the offices of his tribe of ‘friends,’ to have much confidence in his English prospects.
Just now we have a visitor, Mr Lytton, who is occupying our spare bedroom .. (for you are to understand that we have the glory of a spare bedroom.) He is a great favorite of ours, as I think I have told you, and will do something excellent one day, even if the book of poems [7] which he is printing at present should fail to impress the public. I should have wished him to wait—he is immature,—& susceptible to influences of course, .. but nobody likes “waiting,” except in advising other people .. (I least of all) and the poems will have signs of a true faculty, in whatever stage of development. You ask our thoughts about Alexander Smith. Somebody told us the other day that Alfred Tennyson said of him .. “Fancy, but no imagination”!—which, word for word, Robert had been saying some six weeks .. so you may accept it as a double opinion. It is hard however to come to conclusions on so young writer– What I see is that he has a veritable faculty, & that it may develop into anything .. but he has not proved yet that he can think & feel, as well as make images– Petals without a calyx .. no force of reality to hold the undeniable beauties together. I must tell you that we have seen only extracts .. but even they are dislocated & without natural relation. It is as if the gods threw him down flowers of all the seasons, which he cant stop to sort or tie into nosegays– Still, we have not such a multitude of poets that we can doubt whether to call him a true poet. Much music, I dont hear in him, but perhaps it is the fault of my partial reading. His system of blank verse is one which I have “odds against.” So young a man! Not more than one & twenty I believe, & with every disadvantage in respect to education– Some obtuse patrons .. (we patronize poets in England .. when we attempt it .. as men nurse babies, by breaking their backs) propose sending him to Oxford, we understand. Sending him to Oxford! [8]
I have, within these few days, had a very interesting letter from the author of ‘Ruth,’ Mrs Gaskell. She appears a simple, earnest, affectionate woman .. was married very early & has a daughter eighteen, & another six, with something intermediate. [9] ‘Ruth’ has considerable power & beauty, & deals in a bold true christian spirit with a detestable state of christian society– I would rather have written that book than two ‘Uncle Toms’ inclusive of the flourish of trumpets. Yet the popularity of ‘uncle Tom’ was really a grand thing & meant much that was good, .. except as a literary opinion– Oh– I know it is dangerous, & looks horribly envious or covetous or vicious somehow, to hint at such a thing—also the words may not represent me fairly, for I was glad & gratified in various ways at that unparallelled triumph in letters– ‘Queechy’ is another American novel by a woman, very clever & characteristic.
My Penini grows fat & rosy .. comparatively of course .. & is wild with joy from morning to night. Think of a child who sings in his sleep! Literally that’s what he does! As to the arts, otherwise, they are thrown over. Not a stroke has he drawn since he came here—not a line has he written! and I, for my part, & Robert, for his, are rejoicing in this extinct civilization, it is so good to see him quite wild & rosy! Still, I keep up his ‘reading’ for five minutes every morning, that we may not have to go over the sheep-paths again in the steep places—& he reads the little lessons of one syllable very nicely .. too well, sometimes I think—for I hold to the non-education theory– Does Alexander read at all? Tell me about him & the rest. Penini talks English & Italian with equal fluency & bad grammar & articulation .. but with the sweetest little murmuring voice!– Once since he came here .. that is, once in his life .. he has been punished. Robert punished him, much to my disapprobation, for I disapprove of hard-hearted people .. only I had the comfort of knowing that Robert suffered for it in his soul. The punishment was .. to have no pears all day!– The victim could’nt believe at first that anything so cruel was seriously intended, but, on becoming alive to the full horror of the situation, he burst into sobs of anguish & exclaimed with the tears raining down his cheeks .. “Oh naughty Papa! What I do, if the peaches too sour!” You know the peaches are apt to be sour at Lucca! What a dreadful contingency!–
I must say he is a good & darling child, & that if we had a genius for punishment it would be difficult to apply it.
We keep to our scheme about Rome. In this house we stay if we can till the fifteenth of October & then go to Florence where we shall pause for a time greater or less–
When you tell me that you are ‘not interested’ in the “table-turnings” & the phenomena which go with them, you make us two, for I can scarcely conceive of not being interested. It is the subject with me just now & I hear of it literally from all the ends of the world. Also I expect from it sooner or later, the solution of some of the deeper mysteries of our double nature. Do you despise me, Mr Ogilvy?—
How I shall <lik>e to see your little book? [10] and I shall, some day, shall I not? Robert & I are doing work [11] in a sort of lazy way, & mean to have finished in time for England next summer– Do write soon & in detail. Our best love to Mr Ogilvy– Now will you come to Paris I wonder!– Dear friend, dearest Mrs Ogilvy, let me ever be your most
affectionate EBB.
Will you give our love to Mrs Ogilvy .. & kisses from me to the darlings. Penini & I talk of them together.
Will you be startled to know that Penini never heard the word “hell” in his life? Marcia is in advance on him in orthodoxy. I am schismatic in some opinions & believe little in arbitrary punishment & less still in physical brimstone as generally received. By the way, Mr Hanna is in Ireland, stronger I am glad to hear. Now do write. Say how Marcia is– Grieved I am that you shd have such anxieties!–
Address: Angleterre viâ France– / Mrs David Ogilvy / King’s Place / Perth. / N.B.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 104–109.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address: 1853 was the only year the Brownings resided at Casa Tolomei. Day suggested by EBB’s mention of Robert Lytton’s visit. He stayed with the Brownings from 5 to 17 September. We place this letter during the first week of his stay.
2. “Miss cherub .. That most adorned lass”; that is, the Ogilvys’ nurse, Gigia.
3. Cf. Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595), “Sonnet XXIX,” line 12.
4. EBB refers to Clotilda and Henry Stisted, who resided at Villa Brodrick, Alla Villa, Bagni di Lucca.
5. “In formal dress.”
6. Henry Greene (see letter 3250, note 15) and his wife Isabella Ellen (née Reynolds, 1819–1902) had two children at this time: William Henry (1851–1903) and George Arthur (1853–1921).
7. Clytemnestra … and Other Poems, which was not published until March 1855.
9. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (née Stevenson, 1810–65) was married at the age of 21 to William Gaskell (1805–84), a Unitarian minister in Manchester. The Gaskells had four surviving children, all daughters: Marianne (1834–1920), Margaret Emily (1837–1913), Florence Elizabeth (1842–81), and Julia Bradford (1846–1908).
10. Probably a reference to what would become Poems of Ten Years, 1846–1855 (1856). However, at over 300 pages it was not a “little book.” Mrs. Ogilvy may have considered publishing a book of fewer poems at this time.
11. EBB on her Aurora Leigh (1857) and RB on his Men and Women (1856).
___________________
