3321. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 67–71.
[Rome]
[10 January 1854] [1]
My dearest Sarianna I quite agree with you that Penini’s writing may rank with other wonders of the times. Nobody would easily believe that on the fifteenth of last December the child could not write a letter of the alphabet .. except in the print-character– And now, many children of ten do not write as well .. as you may see by the enclosed production in which he was perfectly unassisted of course, except in the spelling. Then, you know it is not our way to over-work him– He writes under surveillance just four lines a day and no more—practising otherwise by voluntary effort & chiefly on the tablecloths & curtains. We find beautiful “Penini’s” and “Romes” .. (two words he can spell himself, ..) invoking us from “les tables parlantes” [2] on all sides. I wish his reading were as fluent! The reading does’nt get on as well because he does’nt give his mind to it as joyfully. There’s a good deal of dry unamusing work in learning to read. Still he has read through twice “Little Annie’s first book” & is reading “Little Annie’s second book” .. both simply written. [3]
He is beginning to embellish his discourses with very long words. Yesterday, objecting to put on his gloves & observing that the holes in them “twite shot” (quite shocked) him, he added, as another reason against gloves, .. “the air is so lefweshing”—(refreshing). On his return from walking, the remark was .. “nobody ’tempted (attempted) to play wiz me today”. An hour after he hurt his finger .. “you tant memagine what a pain!” (immagine [sic]). And this morning, because I found fault with him at lessons, he was “twite fefended” .. “quite offended” .. said he. He is very popular here in Rome. The duke of Wellington called him a “very fine boy,” to Wilson’s extreme satisfaction——and Mr Thackeray, who was walking with him yesterday .. (he is very kind to Penini) presented him to the Duke & Duchess of Northumberland [4] who graciously shook hands with him. The child has lost so much of shyness that he is ready to accept any invitation from friend or stranger—& I heard him praised the other day for that “graceful air of selfpossession which distinguishes him from other children” .. I am quoting you must observe … not simply doting. Today he goes to Annie & Minnie Thackeray, who overwhelm him with attention & kindness. It is not only for that, I like them so much. Very clever they both are—and Annie whom I naturally have talked most to has a frankness & rightmindedness which are better & rarer qualities in these times than mere talent & quickness.
By the way Mrs Carmichael Smyth bids me beware of the spiritual theory connected with the new phenomena. It is dangerous to believe in spirits– Here’s an instance– A young lady in Paris has been forbidden by the spirits to eat. She eats nothing accordingly and is near dying of inanition!– Well—one tacks one’s own morals to facts: & my moral to the above history is .. not that it is dangerous to believe in spirits .. but that it is dangerous to be a fool, whether in or out of the body. [5] The abdication of one’s understanding does’nt seem to me the consequence of believing in spirits—far from it. I believe in no infallible human spirit whether in or out of the body. A popedom in Rome or a popedom in the spiritual world is much the same thing as far as peril and anti-christianism go. There is one authority .. one Christ .. & the conscience to witness in us. For the rest I scarcely understand the acceptance of the “manifestations” as phenomena without an admission of the spiritual agency.
That Alexis [6] sees (in the spirit) I have no more doubt than that I see in the body now. It does not follow that he should always & without exception see right. In respect to Robert, I am inclined rather to trust Alexis’s vision than Robert’s memory, for he is plainly quite confused in his recollections of what he was doing at a particular hour ten days ago– Still he seems certain that he never walked with two men—in which case, Alexis mistook—or Robert might have apparently walked with two men—that is, near them—or Alexis may have quite mistook. Still he did not mistake the general fact of Robert’s being at Rome—& at that hour he is always walking out. Your account of Miss Kemp is very striking, & deeply interesting to me. Why, not go again, & extend your experience? I should like you very much to arrive at clear conclusions on this class of subjects associated with the profoundest parts of our nature—to say the least.
I scarcely know whether to tell you or not to tell you that Wilson, taking up a pencil two days ago at Miss Blagden’s house, found she could write the involuntary writing. A person of more scrupulous veracity than Wilson is, there cannot be—but apart from that, the physical phenomena .. the marble coldness & stiffness of the hand & arm .. & the living movement which I see in the pencil .. for it is the pencil which moves & she barely supports it .. would be absolutely conclusive to my mind, if they stood alone. She had a communication from her mother alluding to family affairs, & giving advice .. “O mind”—& under the first emotion & surprise, she was saved from fainting only by copious tears. The day before yesterday I sate by her, & asked aloud “if any spirit present would write it’s name” .. Instantly the pencil turned & wrote backwards & upside down, so as to present the letters to me, a name very dear to me. Wilson cried out .. “I can see nothing– It’s nonsense that is written, is it not?” I answered .. “I can read.” It was the Christian name of my own beloved mother. I said .. “A Christian name is not enough– Will you write the other?” ‘Barrett’ was then written. “But,” I said .. “there are two of this name related to me– Will you write, in what relation you are?” The pencil crept down & wrote .. still backwards & upside down so that the word shd be presented to me & not to Wilson .. Mama. —Oh Sarianna. You will understand how that dearest familiar word from the use of which I had been orphaned for above twenty years, struck to the roots of my heart. There now. I have told you. You will not laugh at me, at least. For my part I dont talk about these things very much now—but that there is access & the possibility of intercourse between the natural & spiritual worlds, is my belief & joy. Wilson herself who had always laughed at these things is deeply impressed—not painfully, understand, it was only the first shock of conviction that moved her so,—Now she is in calm enjoyment of the sense of presence, which love makes so precious.
Robert has never seen Wilson write, & I wont let him till he has smoothed down some of his sceptical bristles. He went last night to see writing which did not satisfy him– Mr Story wrote—— Mr Story who has no more of the faculty than I have!! I wonder how he can pretend to do a false thing (which his writing is) & then deny the true thing which he lies against– Certainly I never believed in Mr Story’s writing, though I saw him try it again & again at Lucca. He acknowledged to me that he knew every letter as he wrote it, & could’nt pretend to say that the writing was involuntary– Now it appears that he writes as medium!!!—— I am angry .. because such disingenuousness throws discredit upon the pure truth itself. I like Mr Story—but his fault is an undue selfreliance & assertion .. & he could’nt submit to fact .. even in a thing like this .. you see!! Miss Hays & Miss Hosmer who also wrote last night, I never saw write—they very likely have the faculty– But (probably by asking numbers of frivolous & foolish questions) they are plainly in connection with lying spirits—plainly, they have not reverenced the gift they used,—that is my way of explaining the quantity of lies which have been told them, lie upon lie– The fact of lies being told however, does not diminish the wonder, of the hand involuntarily writing those lies. Do you think so? Wilson is very shy about her writing, & begs me not to speak of it,—but I must tell you. She has one of the simplest & purest moral natures I ever met with, & is reliable in small things & great things. Even Robert is not sceptical about her truth.
They say that in London just now “the speaking tables are making a furore.” There has been a lecture against them in the Hanover Square rooms by a clergyman .. ending in a row .. because (an adversary getting up) the sensible audience demanded ‘experiments’ at the end. [7] Various clergymen have written books on the subject for & against—as you see by the Athenæum advertisements. [8]
Dearest Sarianna—you are to mind, if you please, that all the northern weather has been abnormal during the last year. In England it has exceeded all experience. The number of accidents to foot passengers on the frozen pavement, in the streets alone, amount says a leading article in the M Chronicle, to a great railway disaster. [9] Miss Bayley who cant bear to admit any charge against the English climate, says the yellow fog extended even to Richmond Hill & Wimbledon, &, on that account mainly, Mr Kenyon went to the Isle of Wight– Tell me Sarianna—have you had to light a candle in the day—say honestly– God bless you both– We love & think of you– Dearest nonno & Sarianna goodbye
Ba.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Dated by EBB’s references to an experiment in automatic writing that occurred “the day before yesterday.” She uses the same phrase in regard to the same incident in letter 3320.
2. “The talking tables.”
3. Little Annie’s First Book, Chiefly in Words of Three Letters (Philadelphia, 1849) and Little Annie’s Second Book, Chiefly in Words of One Syllable (Philadelphia, 1849). These titles were first published by G.S. Appleton, then by D. Appleton & Co. in New York. Later editions were issued under the imprint of Robert Carter & Brothers, New York.
4. Algernon Percy (1792–1865), 4th Duke of Northumberland, had succeeded to the dukedom on the death of his elder brother Hugh in 1847. He married in 1842 Eleanor Grosvenor (1820–1911), eldest daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Westminster.
5. Cf. II Corinthians 12:2.
6. Alexis Didier (1826–86), the clairvoyant. EBB knew of him as early as 1844; see letter 1701. He published Le Sommeil Magnetique explique par le somnambule Alexis en etat Somnambulism at Paris in 1856.
7. The Daily News of 16 December 1853 carried the following item: “The ‘Theology of Table Turning.’—Last night the Rev. N. T. [sic] Godfrey … delivered a lecture on this subject at the Hanover-square Rooms. The rev. gentleman stoutly contended that table turning, spirit rapping, and clairvoyance, were nothing less than a direct communication with the Evil One. The chairman, Mr. J. Bateman, suggested that the meeting should conclude by prayer, and a hymn was sung. … An extraordinary scene then took place. The chairman, lecturer, and a number of clergymen on the platform made a precipitate retreat amidst loud cries for the chairman to keep his seat. Several gentlemen attempted to address the meeting, and a Mr. E. Connor was called to take the chair, for the purpose of making experiments. He made several extraordinary statements. The officials connected with the hall attempted to extinguish the lights, but were prevented … by main force. The table having, however, been at last turned over by the same means, the meeting separated amidst great confusion” (p. 5). Nathaniel Stedman Godfrey (1817–83), an Anglican minister, published several pamphlets during this period that denounced spiritualism as the devil’s work.
8. The Athenæum of 17 December 1853 carried an advertisement under Thomas Bosworth’s new releases for A Review of the “Spiritual Manifestations,” by Rev. Charles Beecher, “in which it is attempted to prove that the Spirit Rappings, &c, are the Work of Evil Spiritual Agents” (no. 1364, p. 1523). The next issue contained an advertisement for The Testers Tested; or, Table Moving, Turning, and Talking, Not Diabolical, “being a Review of the Publications of the Rev. Messrs. Godfrey, Gillson, Vincent, and Dibdin. By the Rev. F. Close” (24 December 1853, no. 1365, p. 1538).
9. We have been unable to locate an article of this description in The Morning Chronicle. However, a report in The Examiner described the slippery condition of London pavements caused by the formation of slides—that is, icy patches: “What is the result? A list of accidents, of broken limbs and injuries, from falls … amounting to the mischief of a great railway disaster” (24 December 1853, p. 818).
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