3338. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 99–104.
Rome. Via Bocca di Leone 43–
Feb. 12– [1854] [1]
My dearest Fanny– “Did I never receive your letter at Florence”? “Did I never receive your letter at Rome,” you are beginning perhaps to think– I am nearly as guilty as possible .. that’s certain .. only not guilty of forgetting you nor of being indifferent to you nor of wishing you to be indifferent to me. Therefore it’s a wrong to myself this foolishness of not writing .. an instance of the grand inconsequence of men in general against which I am always inveighing. Only let me whisper to you gently .. it was not my fault that I did not write to you from Florence. In that letter to Florence you said .. ‘Dont count this as a letter .. I shall write again’ .. so I simply waited for you to write again. The letter to Rome should have been answered before now. I believe I waited, for the most part, in the hope of having something more to tell you about the spiritual world. If you give me up for it in the natural world, you will act hardly—& it will be hardly fair besides–
So the fashion is turning—and moving tables are rococo in May Fair. Well—I should scarcely have supposed it from the number of advertisements of books or semi-books on the subject by clergymen, [2] & from the notice of lectures at the Hanover Square rooms. [3] Still, it may very well be so. Fashions pass—truths remain .. the wave goes over the rock .. which is nothing to the rock. Also, of the people who talked in society of these things, some have their own experiences & would rather not talk of them openly, .. some believe, & shun the subject, (having the church at their back) .. some having resolved to disbelieve the facts find it safer not to discuss them, & some again, of course, having used them up as conversation, go back to the “musical glasses” [4] & the Eastern question. [5] That’s all perfectly natural. There’s nothing in it to surprise us. Even if Mr Spicer should give us up I shall not for that give up spiritualism– Mr Spicer was flippant in his way of taking hold of the subject .. and if he should let it fall as lightly, it will only be characteristic on his part. [6] Mind you dont tell him that I say so unless he should let it fall, in which case I shant care what you tell him. The misfortune is that earnest serious men dont take up this subject earnestly & persistently & religiously. If they did, unserious men would be less apt to throw it down. As to the “triviality” & “vulgarity” of turning tables, I have been twice present during experiments. [7] A trivial woman will find the Coliseum trivial. A vulgar man will make St Peters vulgar. I never was more deeply impressed, to speak for myself, than by the quivering & heaving of that dead, dumb wood, & the human emotion & emphasis of expression thrown out, under my own hands & eyes, by it. If such things are not “poetical” .. not good enough for May Fair imaginations .. it is simply because conventional men are absolutely obtuse to everything on the outside of their conventions. I can imagine no other reason.
What has interested me chiefly lately has been the class of facts generalized under the name of “involuntary writing.” There is a lady here .. a contributor by the way to the Athenæum .. a Mrs Brotherton, a very cultivated & interesting woman, who writes Greek, without any knowledge of the language & without knowing or having ever known a single letter of the character– She writes beautiful Greek .. I mean the writing of the character is beautiful .. the words generally correct .. no grammatical construction .. but a certain significant grouping of the words, as if a decided meaning were struggling within. I have seen five or six papers by her, & the longer she writes the clearer grows the purpose .. as if it had its face to the light & was groping slowly out. Now you have your choice .. it is either a swindle .. a copying of words out of a lexicon .. or .... Choose. For my part I have chosen. She is an intimate friend of friends of mine, & of unspotted reputation as to veracity. Another instance we have in our own house. Do you remember our good dear Wilson .. who has lived with me nine years, & took Penini when he wanted a nurse? She has been writing too, but in English .. communications purporting to be from her mother & brother. [8] I answer for her truth, straightforwardness & simplicity– She is not clever but eminently conscientious. She writes lines & pages in absolute unconsciousness of what is being written. When she writes for me (sitting opposite to me) the pencil turns & writes backwards & upside down, so that the words are presented to me as I sit. Touching things have been said to me thus, but nothing of any general interest. I am always bidden to write .. to write. I take up the pencil, & the movement comes .. a peculiar, undeniable spiral movement .. the fingers are numb & the pencil rolls of itself .. but the force is not sufficient with me to write words or letters .. which is very vexatious to me. When I tell these things to my own family, they answer, .. “it’s all my ardent imagination.”! That is, .. it’s my ardent imagination which sets Wilson writing, though it cant set me writing! A most curiously indirect effect of an ardent imagination!–
Mrs Shipton’s [9] experience is interesting,—but there are thousands of experiences like it—it is nothing exceptional. Have you tried to write .. taking regular hours in the day for it? Take half an hour at a time twice a day, using a fixed hour. A little persistence is said to be generally successful. With some persons the influence is instantaneous—as in Wilson’s case. She had always laughed at the manifestations. She took Penini to the house of a friend of mine here, [10] while there were attempts being made by some persons accidentally present to write, & she said laughingly ‘Let me try.’ The pencil quite leapt in her hand & she wrote directly to her ineffable astonishment & emotion. I must tell you that she is very shy about it & entreats me not to talk of it to strangers .. “because of course people think I cheat, just as I used to think of others, & that is so very disagreeable.”
Yes, I know Sir Edward Lytton believes in the facts, as everybody does who has examined them at all—but I am not sure that he accepts the spiritual theory & that he does not attribute them to a mesmeric reflex of the mind. Some months ago I know he doubted still. Mesmerism, like electricity, answers for a great deal that is indefinite in this universe– Tell me if Dr Elliotson, from the beginning to the end set down the turning tables & rapping manifestations as bosh. [11] I have an idea that he did so, and yet I have read a letter from Mr Hayden (the husband of the medium) [12] who speaks both of Elliotson & Ashburner as at least half believers .. persons inclined to believe & interested in the phenomena. He mentions the failure in the presence of Dickens’s friends in the same letter. A gentleman now in Rome went to Mrs Hayden’s with Sir David Brewster & he represents himself & Brewster to have been absolutely confounded by the results of the séance. We dont know Mr Wilson– [13]
We fell into misery, coming to Rome .. passed our first day by the deathbed of a friend’s child—it was a dash of cold water in the face of one’s zeal about Rome, & I cared little afterwards for all the tombs of all the Cæsars– I shall never love Rome as I love Florence—that’s certain .. yet it is much more brilliant with it’s leaping fountains & grandiose piazzas, .. oh much less melancholy than the Rome I had imagined. You will see us in London in the summer, & next winter we give to Paris. Keep warm thoughts ready for us. We have a good deal of intercourse here with Fanny Kemble, who is a noble creature & draws me much—also, I like Mrs Sartoris– In the house with us is Mr Page the American artist whose portraits exceed everything of the kind produced by this age .. Titian’s portraits over again .. and the artist is very interesting as a man. By the way he is a spiritualist, & can write himself. And, by the way again,—he spent an evening with us a week ago when we made him meet Dr Emil Braun the archæologist– One believes in Swedenborg & the other in Jacob Behmen, [14] & in the discussion which followed the collision of opinions, Robert who sets up a modest claim to a reputation for scepticism, (but has’nt his claim allowed by me who know him) sank into a chair exhausted between the disputants. He had fancied that Dr Braun was following his lead against Swedenborg when he suddenly became aware that he himself (Robert the sceptic) was being carried off his feet to the bosom of Jacob Behmen! As for me, I laughed & triumphed– I have an absolute love, you know, for Swedenborg, and what may be called a constructive love for Behmen .. that is, I am prepared to like him when I shall have properly read him– By the way (a third time) .. see what Samaritan tendencies I have today—for ever on the wayside! [15] .. the next time Mr Chorley calls me “credulous” and you are listening, tell him I believe by an involuntary muscular action. [16] That will be satisfactory to him of course.
I shall like to know what impression you receive from Frederick Tennyson’s poems. [17] Haydon’s Life [18] I have not read. His diary I read in m∙s. He was a friend of mine by correspondence, & I have heaps of letters from him though I never saw his face. A few days before his death he asked me to take charge of certain boxes with sketches & papers, .. “& there an end.” [19] The next horrible word that came to me was the news that he had blown out his brains. It was one of the lesser tragical shocks in my life. A man who was an artist in his mind at least .. full of conception .. great in thought & aspiration. His letters are most vivid & characteristic. He had everything of genius except its patience.
You “suppose we get new books & periodicals almost like London”—you suppose we are in paradise, that is—and indeed, my dear Fanny, you are as wrong as possible. It is in fact by a mere accident that we ever see a new book or periodical, though such accidents occur, and, (through Mrs Brotherton) we get sight of the Athenæum for instance every week. The extracts from ‘Balder’ [20] seemed to me fine, some of them .. the imagery nobler than Alexander Smith’s– Have you read the poem? As to Comte & his translator, a thinker who will not receive the notion of God as a probability, throws me off at once– I have no sympathy with him or his. [21] Landor’s book has not reached us. [22] For the “contentment with old age,” does’nt it depend on what old age is taken to be? If the “old tree” looks forward to being burnt up as firewood & “there an end,” I believe in no sort of contentment—but if it looks forward to a new spring .. a shooting of new wood .. what then?
“Then is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious–” [23]
The faculty of youth belongs to the soul & should make us glad for ever. That’s my ‘doxy’– Read Swedenborg– Dont you read Swedenborg.
Miss Lynch [24] missed us & went to America unseen. I am sorry, as she was a friend of yours. Do write of yourself—I seem to grope out towards a meaning– Am I “hot” or “cold”? God bless you & keep you, however it be—& whoever!–
I adjure you by the postage of this letter to send me one directly without base considerations for Robert’s pocket. We <like> paying for letters (& particularly for yours!)—it’s our eccentricity– Now, I shall like, besides, to show you my Penini– He is a radiant darling, really! & so good, so loving .. such a pure spirit of a child. Think of his saying to me the other day in a fit of love: “Mine own Ba”. Once more, God bless you—
your own affectionate EBB.
Robert’s love as ever. I wrote at length to Mr Marston—what of him?–
Address: Angleterre. / Miss Haworth / 45 Onslow Square / Brompton / London.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by postmark.
4. In this context, EBB’s reference to “musical glasses”—a musical instrument made out of glasses filled with liquid of varying amounts—almost certainly recalls the description of ladies of fashion in chapter nine of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield (Salisbury, 1766): “They would talk of nothing but high life, and high lived company; with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespear, and the musical glasses.”
5. “The expression used in diplomacy from about the time of the congress of Verona (1822) to comprehend the international problems involved in the decay of the Turkish empire and its supposed impending dissolution” (EB).
6. EBB criticizes Henry Spicer’s two works on spiritualism: Sight and Sounds (1853) and its sequel Facts and Fancies (1853).
7. Conducted in Casa Guidi; see letter 3286.
8. James William Wilson (b. 1810). We have been unable to trace his death.
9. Possibly, Anna Shipton (née Savage, 1815–1901), writer of religious works, including Whispers in the Palms: Hymns and Meditations (1855).
10. i.e., Isa Blagden.
11. John Elliotson (1791–1868) earned medical degrees at Edinburgh and Cambridge and was highly regarded in the profession during the early part of his career. As a proponent of mesmerism, however, both as a means of healing and as an anesthetic, he came into conflict with the medical establishment. In 1843 he founded, and thereafter edited, The Zoist, a periodical that explored alternative medicine, including mesmerism and phrenology, the latter being another of his interests. Until it ceased publication in 1856, The Zoist generally attacked spiritualism, but in 1863 Elliotson became a believer in its manifestations through “his experiences with the medium D.D. Home” (ODNB).
12. William Richardson Hayden (1820–1903), an American physician practicing in Bedford, Mass., married in 1850 Maria Basheba Trenholm (1826–83), daughter of Matthew Trenholm and his wife Sarah (née Potter). Mrs. Hayden later studied medicine and became practicing physician herself. EBB had probably seen a copy of The Spiritual Telegraph, a New York periodical, that carried a letter from Hayden (dated 4 February 1853) concerning his wife’s spiritualist experiences in England. He reported that John Elliotson and John Ashburner were “greatly interested” in the spiritual manifestations and had “received extraordinary proofs” (“Mrs. Hayden’s Visit to England in 1852–3,” Psypioneer, 2, October 2006, 214). Commenting on his wife’s séances, Hayden declared that she had “met with a remarkable few failures. The worst was that of two of Dickens’ friends, who paid Mrs. H. a visit a few days after her arrival. They evidently came with the intention of having every thing wrong, and they nearly succeeded to their mind” (2, 214). Hayden went on to refer to the article in Household Words that gave the results of this encounter (see letter 3159, note 5).
13. Unidentified.
14. Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), German Christian mystic, known variously as Böhm, Boehme, Boehm, and Behmen, whose unorthodox writings included The Way to Christ (1623). RB refers to him in “‘Transcendentalism:’ A Poem in Twelve Books” (Men and Women, 1855).
15. Cf. Luke 10:31–33.
16. EBB makes light of Michael Faraday’s explanation for the phenomenon of table-turning; see letter 3224, note 5.
17. Days and Hours (1854) by Frederick Tennyson was in the press. The book’s publisher, John W. Parker & Sons, advertised in The Athenæum of 4 March 1854 (no. 1375, p. 286) that it would appear by the end of the month. It was published in early April (see “List of New Books” in The Athenæum of 8 April 1854, no. 1380, p. 437).
18. Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, from His Autobiography and Journals, ed. Tom Taylor (3 vols., 1853).
19. Cf. Macbeth, III, 4, 79.
20. Balder. Part the First, “by the Author of ‘The Roman’” (Sydney Thompson Dobell), was reviewed in The Athenæum of 14 January 1854 (no. 1368, pp. 49–50). The reviewer, given as William Hepworth Dixon in the marked file copy of The Athenæum at City University (London), called the work “a failure. Magnificent as are some of its passages … the poem … is repugnant in story, ponderous in style, false in philosophy” (p. 49). The focus of the poem, which ran to over 7,000 lines, was the megalomaniacal title character who ends up murdering his wife.
21. EBB refers to George Henry Lewes and his series of articles on Auguste Comte’s Positivist philosophy (see letter 3181, note 18), which he republished in Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences (1853). Having “no sympathy” for Lewes’s atheism, EBB was less inclined to consider his views on spiritualism, which he had expressed in “The Rappites Exposed” (see letter 3181, note 19).
22. The Last Fruit Off an Old Tree (1853).
23. Cf. Richard III, I, 1, 1–2.
24. Ann Charlotte Lynch (afterwards Botta, 1815–91); see letter 3277, note 2.
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