3343. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 112–116.
Rome. 43. Bocca di Leone.
Feb. 19 [1854] [1]
My ever dear friend, It is strange to have a letter from you which gives no pleasure .. strange & sad. I write directly to tell you how deeply & warmly our sympathies are with you. My heart grew very mournful over the words you sent me. Dear little Marcia! May God bless & comfort you by raising her up into this sun again & placing her in your arms with all her dimples & rose-tints replaced & repainted– Children are such flowers .. as the Italians are fond of saying .. they droop & recover themselves in a day sometimes—and Marcia looked such a sturdy little creature, with vitality enough for six! There’s no bad tendency about her lungs, that the evil once passed should not be over. Keep up heart, dear friend, even in the face of those terrifying celestial aptitudes .. which have so often frightened me in my own child. I remember being thrilled through & through by something he said to Wilson before he was three years old—“Dont tell Papa & Mama, .. but I love God more than anybody”– That was like your Marcia, was it not?– Swedenborg says that the “celestial angels” (the highest order) minister to children very young [2] .. & with some children the influence shines through visibly– How wonderful & beautiful, that great-hearted patience in a little child!– The account you give is very touching– Dear darling! Kiss the precious pale cheeks for me– May God put back the roses there!
What has changed your plans about the book after all, when it was apparently finished & ready for the press? Thank you much for ‘Charon’. [3] It’s a pleasure to have a stroke on the head of the modern bigots from the end of his black oar. For the rest I hear with unaffected wonder of anyone’s being able to write verses, with brain & heart torn to pieces as your’s must have been lately, dearest Mrs Ogilvy, & I really think you should be crowned for it. For my part, the first effect of grief upon me is the striking of me dumb—& it’s the same with Robert– We, both of us, wait for calms before we do anything with Art– Perhaps melancholy calms—but the state of calm is necessary to most artists, I think– Even the disturbance by mere sympathy has been unfavorable to me here, & I am behind hand with my poem [4] —thrown out of the habit of work for a whole month at the beginning, which was unfortunate. Robert swears he shall have his book [5] ready in spite of everything for printing in June when we shall be in London for the purpose, but, as for mine, it must wait for the next spring I begin to see clearly. Also it may be better not to bring out the two works together. If mine were ready I might not say so perhaps. Mine wont be ready—what is left undone in Rome, cant be done in London where we are regularly put into a mill & ground, body & soul– I wonder if we shall meet you in London– Surely we shall brush garments with you somewhere as you come south & we go north. Next winter we are to spend in Paris at all events,—but I doubt whether, for a succession of years, any place except Italy will answer for me. Italy, Florence, is our home in thought– God keep it in the sun for us. By the lengthening out of the negotiations, we have all got used to the idea of war .. & the oppressed part of Europe opens its mouth & shuts its eyes to see what the heavens will send it. Something good must come surely in the heap of evil. I triumph quietly (not too overbearingly) in the turn of men’s minds about Louis Napoleon. What I saw from the beginning, liberal politicians in England are forced to see now .. and it is quite amusing to mark the change of physiognomies throughout the English newspapers. The shuffling-round of the Examiner for instance must have been attended with a great cost of mental agony to the editor,—and I am inhuman enough to find a certain pleasure in the pain of “the meanest things that feel” [6] .. which writers of partial politics are very apt to be– The harm done by that stupid outcry of ..52 was not appreciable by the persons who made it—let that be their excuse. [7] It almost atones to me for the calamity of war that the English & French nations should stand together as they do—for, as long as they do, the world is saved, in a political & moral sense. That is my belief, at least.
Well—perhaps I never under any circumstances should have quite thrown myself back into the past in Rome, as you did, you say, and as I might have done when I was very much younger– My chariot wheels have caught fire with running fast on the modern roads! the present & the future are strong with me till I am all in a flame, & this old Tiber could not quench me—utterly, though it rose “with its yellow waves.” [8] You cant think how eager I am about every step we take upwards though in the midst of clamour & strife– What a view there will be from that hill-top we are getting to!– It’s worth while panting & losing breath for! Ruins are only good to stand among for a moment, in looking forward to new temples, just as we only use ‘Charon’ against our contemporaries. Art is eternal though–– And after all, if we were in Athens instead of Rome, I might be content to forget the great present a little—who knows? Those golden Greeks were worth so much more than the iron Romans ever were. If you go to Greece I shall envy you– The Greek professor from Boston, Mr Felton, has just brought me a paper-weight from the Athenean theatre with Greek inscriptions– Dr Braun, the German archæologist, (secretary of the archæological society) spent the evening here a few days since, & discoursed to my satisfaction on the mesmeric & spiritual-mysticism advance of the old Greek mind– That delighted me, you may suppose– And yet, as says Emerson,
‘When the half gods go
The whole gods arrive’– [9]
and we are waiting, in these Christian ages, for the whole gods.
And yet, oh yes indeed, I do sympathize with you wholly & particularly, dearest Mrs Ogilvy, in a detestation of the vulgar haggling & pushing & kicking, which is an under-part of the great struggle, & a condition of the progress of the masses– As to the bigotry of the churches it is hideous—I turn away my face from it. [10] I cant help thinking that all these church-walls, English, Scottish, Roman, equally, must all be swept away, before Christ can be seen standing in the midst– There is power & nobility of thought surrounded by a chrystalline atmosphere in Arnold’s poetry– He wants vital heat, passion & imagination, & these are great wants. I too had seen & admired the Merman poem long ago. [11] He is an admirable poet in one sense—an admirable poetical writer. But he must break up all his ice of meditation, & consent to feel like a child & attain to seeing like a seer, before we call him a poet in the absolute sense– There’s the author of Festus– Beat Bailey, swear at Bailey, call Bailey names if you like .. nobody can doubt he’s a poet, though he should sin a hundredfold more offensively than he does sin. Now, in Arnold, the thing is not so clear. Have you seen Sidney Yendys’s “Balder”? [12] The extracts in the Athenæum had some noble imagery– We have sight always of the Athenæum which is colder & duller than ever—& of the ‘Critic’ too, which is a better gossipping paper, though by no means excellent for criticism.
Louisa must be quite remarkably advanced for her age to enter into the Iliad. Does she care for poetry in general? I am sure that Wiedeman is much more a baby still than Alexander is. He’s a very quick, clever child, but is a baby, to all intents & purposes—looks like it, talks like it, has the ways of it altogether. His speech is anything but mature though he affects hard words– Yesterday after a silence he burst out laughing suddenly– “What are you laughing at,”—said I. “I sinting of somesing velly slordinally.” He was thinking of something very extraordinary!– There’s a way of talking for you!
Do write & tell me how your darling is & how you all are, & that you yourself are less worn out– God bless you & dear Mr Ogilvy– Our best love to him from Robert & your ever affectionately & sympathizing friend
EBB.
P.S. Pr Blackie is reactionary in poetical criticism—is’nt he? [13]
I forgot to tell you that Gigia’s letter was sent to us here, & that I was not guilty of keeping it all that time. Mind you write directly—& give my love to your sister. We have had very cold weather for a fortnight, & there was sleet this morning. Thackeray has left Rome. [14] I like his two frank intelligent girls—& I like besides his own goodnature & agreeableness. We see much of Mrs Kemble.
Address: Angleterre– / Mrs David Ogilvy– / 3. Maitland Street / Edinburgh.
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 114–118.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. In Heavenly Arcana (Boston, 1839), Swedenborg reports the conversation of angelic spirits: “They discoursed, moreover, concerning infants on earth, declaring, that immediately after their nativity there are angels with them from the heaven of innocence [that is, celestial angels]” (3, 96). Celestial angels, according to Swedenborg, “receive the divine Influx more deeply or interiorly” and “far excel the spiritual [angels] in wisdom and glory” (A Treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell (Baltimore, 1812, pp. 56–57).
3. Mrs. Ogilvy had sent EBB a clipping of her six-stanza poem “Charon’s Ferry,” which was published in Chambers’s Journal for 21 January 1854 (p. 48). This clipping is now at the Berg. The poem later appeared in Mrs. Ogilvy’s Poems of Ten Years, 1846–1855 (1856) in the section entitled “Poems—1853.”
4. Aurora Leigh (1857).
5. Men and Women (1855).
6. Cf. Wordsworth, “Hart-Leap Well” (1800), line 180.
7. Following the coup d’état of 2 December 1851, whereby Louis Napoleon seized control of France, the English press universally condemned him as a despot. One of the more vituperative of the periodicals was The Examiner, which led the way in fearmongering over a possible French invasion of England (see letter 3005, note 2). The abuse continued throughout 1852 and was further heightened when Louis Napoleon was proclaimed Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, exactly one year after the coup. However, in the late spring of 1853, with the growing probability of Russian aggression against Turkey and the consequent collaboration of France and England against the aggressor, The Examiner altered its tone, though unapologetically: “We have never disguised, we are not prepared to retract, our objection to the present regime in France. But our opposition has never implied any preference of particular dynasties in France or elsewhere. That is for the native populations to settle, and not for us to dictate. The union of France and England is indispensable to the preservation of the European balance of power. We do not see why we should shrink from grasping even the hand of a Bonaparte for so great a purpose” (11 June 1853, p. 370). The lead editorial in the issue of 14 January 1854, which condemned Bourbon intrigues against the French government, shows that the journal had become more conciliatory: “With our opinion unchanged as to Louis Napoleon’s overthrow of the constitution and liberties of the country and seizure of despotic power, we must yet in justice admit that his conduct towards this country has been, so far as it is known, marked with good feeling, good sense, and perfect loyalty. It cannot be denied, at least, that we have gained greatly by the change from a Louis Philippe to a Napoleon III” (p. 17).
8. Cf. Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818), IV, lxxix, 9.
9. Cf. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Give All to Love” (1846), lines 48–49.
10. EBB alludes to the last stanza in “Charon’s Ferry”:
Lo! fables these of ancient times—
They only live in poets’ rhymes;
Yet still, methinks, there are to-day
Who would the churlish Charon play,
And standing by Salvation’s shore,
Forbid the Outcast’s passage o’er,
Pressing the mockery of a claim
On some neglected child of shame,
And crying out: ‘The fee, the fee!’
While spirits wail in jeopardy:
‘Charon! Charon! we were slaves,
Tossed on Misery’s barren waves,
Want, despair, and crime our lot,
We can give but what we got—
Charon! Charon!’
11. “The Forsaken Merman” (1849) by Matthew Arnold. EBB had mentioned liking the poem in letter 2821.
12. See letter 3338, note 20. Sidney Yendys was the pseudonym of Sydney Thompson Dobell.
13. We have been unable to trace any example of the “reactionary” criticism that EBB attributes to John Stuart Blackie.
14. Thackeray left Rome for Naples on 8 February 1854.
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