3327. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 80–83.
Rome. 43. Via Bocca di Leone– 3o piano.
Jany 24. [1854] [1]
My dear friend I feel as if I had belied myself in not writing long ago– I have two letters from you unanswered, and here is one arrived from Florence for your Cherubina– [2] See how it is!– First there’s a good reason for delays in writing, & then there’s a bad reason, as a matter of course! I meant to send you a letter with our address immediately on our arrival at Rome—an excellent motive for not sending you one from Florence. Arriving at Rome we fell into the pit .. tumbled down headlong, & were for weeks & weeks overwhelmed with other people’s miseries made our own by sympathy. Do you remember my telling you of Mr & Mrs Story & their two children, a boy & girl .. the boy six years old, the girl, nine .. and how they helped us to spend the happy summer at the Baths of Lucca–? Well .. before breakfast on the morning we opened our eyes first in Rome, Mr Story’s servant brought Edith to us, with the news that little Joe was in convulsions .. in great danger. Gastric fever tending to the brain. All that first day we spent beside that deathbed, for before evening the child was dead. Edith meantime had sickened of the same fever at our house & it was pronounced impossible to move her. She was received into the apartment below us by Mr Page the artist, (we had no bed) & the poor father & mother left the yet unburied body of her brother to come to nurse her, the danger being extreme. A few days afterwards Emma Page the artist’s youngest daughter was ill besides—and the Storys’ English nurse [3] lay on her bed delirious, apparently past help. For my part, I acknowledge to you that after the first burst of sympathy I fell into a selfish unreasoning panic in spite of the oaths of the physicians to the effect that the fever was not contagious. I “lost my head” as Robert remarked, & wished for wings like a dove .. or like any unclean bird .. so they were wings .. to fly away [4] with my child to the ends of the earth, from this pestilent city. But I could’nt fly, or run even .. I had to stay. Thank God, he is well, & has dropped not a rose leaf from his cheeks .. not a leaf of the dear Tuscan roses. Still, nothing should induce me to remain here two winters together—and, for the rest, the feeling of Rome is lost to me .. the mountains & great campagna slurred over by ghastly death-fingers smelling of fresh mould .. not Cæsarean dust. Think! My first drive was with that desolated mother to the gate of the cemetery– There’s the Coliseum! that’s the temple of Vesta!—and that’s little Joe’s grave!– Ancient gods, renowned emperors, tumbled into the new grave & forgotten!! He’s buried close by the heart of Shelley & away from his mother’s .. poor, good, dear, little Joe!– It was a month before Edith could be moved home from our house—for the Roman fever followed the gastric, & till within the last few days she has been ill with it, looking the ghost of herself– But now the “times” seem broken, & the settling of the weather gives promise of satisfactory & stable improvement– The other invalids too are convalescent! The light breaks through the clouds– But see why I have’nt written to you. First for a good reason, then for another good reason, (I had’nt the heart to write) and then for a bad reason, as I said before, because one falls into the habit of silence unawares. Write to me & say you understand, & are not vexed with me, dearest Mrs Ogilvy, for indeed I have sent many thoughts after you, though not one letter!– Also, I have been hunting in vain the Athenæum columns (we see the Athenæum here sometimes)—for the advertisement of your book [5] .. the book with the “taking title” which you forgot to tell me. Remember to tell it when you write again .. for I do not see your name anywhere. Even the Ladies’ companion [6] is dumb of you—and why?
In the midst of disaster & anxiety the Roman climate has agreed with me personally– I have passed a winter like a summer—the weather having been only cold enough during one fortnight to confine me to the house—a miraculous sort of winter for me– Letters come to us sitting in the sun, full of the exasperation of the northern frost & snow, from London & even Paris– To have escaped such a tremendous winter is a wonderful gain for me of course, & I shall be the stronger for it the whole year, I dare say– Our house at Florence we have taken on till May 1855 .. but it is not let I am sorry to add– Our apartment here is comfortable & dear .. the Roman prices generally being tremendous, .. and we shall stay in it up to the latter half of next may & then travel northwards, .. through Paris to London, where Robert at least will have business with the printers. [7] For my part I believe I shall not be ready so soon with my book, [8] which lags from various causes, and I shall like to make it as good as I can .. or (as good as I cant, for that matter.!) Think of my having been in Rome all this time & never yet entered the Vatican. People have talked so of the cold of it that I wait for the settled spring. For the rest, I have ventured out on several evenings .. for instance to Mrs Kemble’s, & to her sister Mrs Sartoris’s musical parties which are open to us twice a week. By the way, I met there the other evening that terror of poets, the snow-man, Lockhart! He looks as if just dug out of a snow-drift, and as if the snow-powder clave to him, .. hair, eyes, skin, .. manners & voice!—— If I made as agreeable an impression on him as he did on me, I shall be quartered in one of the Quarterlies certainly– I never saw so uninteresting [a] man, I think, .. for a man alive, or a man who had been alive– Then Thackeray & his daughters are here .. he getting on with his Newcomes, & tolerating Rome chiefly, it seems to me, through constant relays of dinners. He cant write, he says, in the mornings, without a dinner & two parties over night, and his Newcomes have suffered from the still life of Rome in spite of Roman hospitalities. “Dine out in Rome”? said Lockhart to me—“why nobody can do it. For my part I have’nt dined since I came. There’s nothing to eat, and the wines are poison.”
Tell me when you write, a great deal about the children. My Penini is much “the fashion” on the Pincio [9] and elsewhere, & I am complimented on all sides on his beauty & grace– I have an especial laurel as “Penini’s mama” which gives me immense personal distinction. “Are you the mother of that pretty child with the long curls?——” or .. “I have seen your lovely little girl!!” or rather, .. “I have heard of your boy”—for we keep the compliments to the “lovely little girl” as much as possible in the background. He has a less delicate look than he had, with a bright colour & white round full arms & neck, & is dressed in his old way .. only the waists still longer & the skirts shorter .. all alive with intelligence, & fragrant with goodness & sensibility. I never saw such an habitually good child, .. joyous, vivacious, spoilt as far as want of discipline can spoil, and yet sweet, affectionate, moderate in his desires, uncapricious in his moods of mind .. full of natural piety– For weeks after little Story’s death which set him crying bitterly, he used to pray at nights, & mornings, .. “Take care of Joe and put him wiz y angels”– The other day he had the toothache .. “Oh” said Wilson, hugging him up .. “What shall we do with this pain?”– “Play to Dod,” said he quietly.
Within these six weeks he has been learning to write ms (before he used to print) and really his copybook is extraordinary. I shall make him write a word to show you– And he has produced various sketches of St Peters which I cant send so easily!–
Tell me of your plans—of yourselves—of the children– Hold us in your kind thoughts, both of us .. & your ever affectionate EBB
[Continued by Penini]
Penini’s best love.
[Continued by EBB]
Such an exquisite eight days journey we had through Perugia—oh, we fell into this gulf of grief with heads bound in roses!–
We shall winter in Paris next year– Deo volente [10] —and you? You are hearing the cannons from Constantinople, [11] & resolving on staying at home—there’s my clairvoyance concerning you!—
Address: Angleterre. / Mrs David Ogilvy / King’s Place / Perth / Scotland. Redirected: Ainslie Place / Edinburgh.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 109–113.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. “Miss Cherub”; that is, Gigia, the Ogilvys’ Florentine nurse. Her family sent letters to her through EBB (see letter 3207).
3. Jane Cartwright.
4. Psalm 55:6.
5. We have been unable to trace any book published by Mrs. Ogilvy between her Traditions of Tuscany in Verse (1851) and Poems of Ten Years, 1846–1855 (1856).
6. A periodical to which Mrs. Ogilvy had contributed in the past; see, for example, letter 3111, note 2.
7. Men and Women (1855), though the Brownings did not travel to England until the following summer.
8. Aurora Leigh (1857).
9. A large public garden in the northeast quarter of Rome, a short walking distance from the Brownings’ apartment. A promenade on the garden’s west side near the Piazza del Popolo was a fashionable place to drive in the evening and to pay and receive visits in carriages. With open grassy areas, the Pincio was a popular destination for children as well.
10. “God willing.”
11. A reference to the ongoing war between Russia and Turkey, declared by the latter on 4 October 1853, which would expand to include England and France and become known as the Crimean War.
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