3297. EBB to John Westland Marston
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 14–17.
Rome. 43. Bocca di Leone.
[14] Decr [1853] [1]
My dear Mr Marston,
You will have thought me more unworthy of your kindness perhaps than my gratitude makes me—for I have been long in thanking you for your deeply interesting letter– At the time of its reaching me we were in a state of transition at Florence, preparing for our journey to Rome & liable to be carried off our feet from every half hour’s standing-room by floods of people & things. So I waited to write till we should arrive in Rome—and our arrival here, after an eight days delightful journey, plunged us into such an abyss of misery .. I mean sympathetical misery .. the friends who welcomed us having lost a child a few hours afterwards .. that I have scarcely recovered the use of my own hands & heart ever since. As to Rome .. our first day was spent at a deathbed, our first drive was to a cemetery .. (& not to see Shelley’s grave) I doubt still whether really it is Rome. The new ruins shut out the old ruins, & the Cæsars come to mean nothing by the side of poor little Joe. Then our friends remaining child, a girl, has been in danger from the same fever .. also the children’s English nurse, [2] —and I who am not always reasonable .. no, indeed! .. “lost my head a little” said my husband, about my own darling, even though the physicians assured us that the malady was not contagious. Now at last we begin to breathe again. After all it must be Rome, by the sunshine—and life is not more gloomy & uncertain than a thousand years ago. What a compliment by the way, to our wonderful nineteenth century, which pants & reels under the great lights of the Future, recoiling from them sometimes because they are strange & new!——
So we come naturally to the late manifestations– I am deeply obliged to you, dear Mr Marston, I who have no claim to such a confidence, for this valuable & in many respects most moving history of your personal experiences, .. not peculiar (with certain exceptions perhaps) in themselves, not differing much from others which have reached me, but carrying peculiar weight as being yours, & from the manner in which you give the facts as facts, without using them as the confirmatory hem-stitch of a preconceived theory.
For theories .. we get over no difficulty, it seems to me, by escaping from the obvious inference of an external spiritual agency. When the phenomena are attributed, for instance, to a “second personality projected unconsciously, & attended by an unconscious exercise of volition & clairvoyance” [3] I see nothing clearly but a convulsive struggle on the part of the theorist to get out of a position he does not like, at whatever expense of kicks against the analogies of God’s universe. When all is said ‘Solve the solution’ we have a right to cry– And although, of course, sensible men in general would rather assert that two & three make four than that spirits have access to them, we women & poets cant be expected to admit that two & three make four without certain difficulties & hesitations on our side.
Even with respect to the theory which occurs to yourself, you say, sometimes, .. you cannot cleave to it I think as satisfactory, .. simply because we dont “live deeper” when we go to see Mrs Hayden– [4] Some of us have sate hour after hour in solitudes & silences God has made for us, listening to the inner life .. questioning the depths & heights .. yet the table did not tremble & tilt, & we had no “involuntary answers” from the deep of the soul in raps, or mystical sighs, or bell-like sounds against the window. It will have occurred to you too on further consideration, that the manifestations have not come, for the most part, through deep livers, .. and again, that if they came through deeper modes of living, they would be profound in proportion to the profundity of the life, .. they would scarcely ever be frivolous & commonplace– You escape from no difficulty by your theory.
In my mind the only light which has been thrown on the manifestations comes from Swedenborg’s philosophy quoad the spiritual world as to state & relations. This philosophy explains much that is incomprehensible under other systems .. to the apparent ignorance & infidelity, for instance, frivolity & stupidity of many of the spirits (so called) to the perplexing quantity of personation, .. & to the undeniable mixture of the Pure & Heavenly with all these– The church of Rome has never denied the possible occurrence of the facts, but she strains them (as indeed the old churches are apt generally to do) to her own conclusions– Do you know that she has an exorcism against a rapping spirit “spiritum percutientem”, & that her seven evidences of possession include nearly all the forms of mesmerism & of the present manifestations .. ‘speaking in unknown tongues,’ “penetration into thoughts,” “sight at a distance[’]’ “undue physical force,” “the lifting of the body into the air” &c &c– [5] In fact spiritual agency is confounded with Satanic agency—which is curious– More curious than reasonable, I think.
I myself have had scarcely any experience. The little I had was conclusive to myself, but as my husband doubted & denied through it all, I do not venture to dwell upon it to you. Some persons here, not remarkable except for pure intentions & a reverent spirit, had what they considered very satisfactory communications during six weeks of steady association last winter. I have seen a few of the papers—good, consistent, here & there beautiful, but apocalyptical in no respect– (It is doubtful to me on what principle we should look for apocalypses, by the way.) These persons had communications both by tilting tables & by the involuntary writing .. which last mode seems to me less satisfactory on the whole, because of the difficulty of discerning between the external suggestions & the echoes in the mind itself. I must tell you that after they had parted at the end of their six weeks association, two of the mediums had lying communications. They both concluded that their mediumship was too weak to be exercised apart from association, without danger from false spirits–
Do you not think that if an association of earnest thinkers were to meet regularly with unity of purpose & reverence of mood, they might attain to higher communications? Do you not think they might get at a test to secure them against personation which is the great evil. The apostle John gives a test when he has said ‘Try the spirits’ [6] —see the ‘general epistle.’ Should we not bear in mind (speaking of difficulties) that there is difficulty on both sides the Veil—& that if this is intercourse, .. it is not intercourse by miracle, in the proper meaning of miracle, but by development of Law, & that all development must be gradual. We must have patience then, & remember it is only the beginning. Pray do not throw up this subject by any possible movement of impatience. It is through men like you that it is to be kept from the desecration of charlatans & fanatics, & there must be much to be attained, I hope.
Will you write to me, dear Mr Marston, if you have further experiences & will trust them to me? Make me a little more grateful still– My husband calls himself sceptical. Your letter impressed him more than any testimony he has received. He bids me say that he hopes to undo next year the wrong we suffered on our last visit to England, of seeing you so little– It is very pleasant to both of us to read the kind things you say– Believe how we feel them back—will you? Give my regards to Mrs Marston, & accept for her & your children [7] the warmest of wishing-well! Our child is radiant with health & joy just now—but you will imagine how awful a thing it is to have all one’s riches in a single coin. Mr Thackeray & his daughters spent an evening with us two days ago– [8] They are to remain three months in Rome. Tell Miss Mulock that we remember her affectionately. Dear Mr Marston, believe me
most truly yours—
Elizabeth Barrett Browning–
Somebody told me the other day that his wife who is a delicate person, [9] had been much benefitted instead of injured in health by the exercise of her mediumship. There seem to be many instances of knowledge conveyed, as testimonies reach me—but we want a wider basis of facts of all kinds perhaps, before any satisfactory theory can be thrown up– The archbishop of Pisa [10] has forbidden scientific lectures on the subject even tho’ the lectures attempted a physical solution.
Address: Angleterre– / Westland Marston Esqre / 22. Rochester Road / Camden Road Villas. / London.
Publication: Fred C. Thomson, “Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Spiritualism,” The Victorian Newsletter, 31 (Spring 1967), 49–52.
Manuscript: Library of Congress.
1. Day and year provided by postmark.
3. EBB attributed this explanation to Thomas Gold Appleton in letter 3251.
4. Maria Hayden (née Trenholm, 1826–83).
5. Cf. “Exorcizandis Obsessis a Dæmonio” in the Rituale Romanum: “Exorcista ne vagetur in multiloquio, aut supervacaneis vel curiosis interrogationibus, præsertim de rebus futuris et occultis, ad suum munus non pertinentibus; sed jubeat immundum spiritum tacere, et ad interrogata tantum respondere; neque ei credatur, si dæmon simularet se esses animam alicujus Sancti, vel defuncti, vel Angelum bonum” (Rituale Romanum Pauli V. Pontificis Maximi, Mechlin, Belgium, 1850, p. 364).
6. I John 4:1.
7. Eleanor Kyme (1843–79), Cicely Narney (1845–78), and Philip Bourke (1850–87).
8. Anne Isabella Thackeray (1837–1919) and her sister Harriet Marian Thackeray (1840–75) were the daughters of William Makepeace Thackeray and his wife Isabella (née Shawe). Both Annie and Minnie, as they were known, were in Rome with their father from 3 December 1853 to 8 February 1854. Annie became a writer and a friend of RB’s. It was to her that he dedicated Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, and she was the author of the entry on EBB in the DNB. Years later, Annie recalled that “the two people we liked best in Rome were Mrs. Browning and Mrs. Sartoris” (Hester Thackeray Fuller and Violet Hammersley, Thackeray’s Daughter: Some Recollections of Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Dublin, 1951, p. 77).
9. i.e., Thackeray’s wife, who became deranged in 1840 after the birth of Harriet Marian. Various attempts were made to restore her sanity, but none was successful. We cannot confirm EBB’s remark about Mrs. Thackeray’s mediumship.
10. The Archbishopric of Pisa had been vacant since the death of Giovanni Battista Parretti (1778–1851). It was filled on 19 December 1853 by Cosimo Corsi (1798–1870). We have been unable to trace any such prohibition on his part.
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