3490. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 13–16.
Florence.
Novr 25– [1854] [1]
My dearest Mrs Martin you make me wait and I make you wait for letters– It is bad of us both—and remember, worse of you,—seeing that you left two long letters of mine unanswered for months. I felt as if I had fallen down an oubliette, and I was about to utter the loud shrieks befitting the occasion, when you wrote at last. Dont treat me so another time– I want to know your plans for the winter, since the winter is upon us– Next summer, if it pleases God, we shall certainly meet somewhere—say Paris, say London. We shall have money for it, which we had not this year—& now the disappointment’s over, I dont care– The heat at Florence was very bearable, and our child grew into his roses lost at Rome, and we have lived a very tranquil & happy six months on our own sofas & chairs, among our own nightingales & fireflies. There’s an inclination in me to turn round with my Penini & say “I’m an Italian”. Certainly both life & love seem stronger with me at Florence than elsewhere–
I can scarcely speak about the accident at Wimpole Street. You will understand what deep pain it gave me, & how lamentable I still think it. Dearest Mrs Martin, nothing can persuade him to go out in a carriage, because he “never went out in a carriage for pleasure in his whole life” .. therefore, he wont, for profit & health, now. Now if he refuses in this way the only means of getting air & exercise, he who has been habituated to both, his general health & spirits will fail—they must fail. I am seriously uncomfortable about it, notwithstanding the good accounts which they have hitherto sent me from Wimpole Street. Then Arabel seems to me to be out of spirits—she calls it “out of humour,” dear thing, but I know what that means, with her– There is a shade more gloom in the house, & she feels it– I shall like to be in London & see for myself. As to Henrietta, .. she’s in the Illustrated news [2] .. I shall write to offer her my congratulations on the occasion .. in all the glory of an officer’s wife, & the giver of colours. I heard of her last at picnics and balls, and I find her “in a stand.” Of course she despises us all properly .. dont you think so. I only hope & trust (not that I would put such a thought into her dear head for the world) that the want of reinforcements in the east may not throw us on the militia for help– My blood ran cold the other day at a suggestion in the Times– [3] Well—I agree with Penini (again) who says—“I sint, dear mama, I should lite to be” … (naming a friend of ours here) [4] “betause he’s a taptain, and yet he does’nt fight.” I was only afraid, & desperately afraid I was, that the child wd offer his personal compliments to our friend, on this advantage of being a captain without fighting. It would have been awkward, would’nt it?–
I must tell you when talking of Penini, .. oh, I cant miss the opportunity of telling you, that he is the sweetest, darlingest little creature of five years old ever seen or dreamed of. I know you will all be “at” me to cut his hair when we get to England, but I warn you, I shall call you barbarians if you do, & you’ll never “convince me” even “against my will,” [5] leaving me of the same opinion. In spite of his golden ringlets he reads very well, & writes præternaturally .. I, who was a “prodigy” (God help me) did’nt write as well at seven. I teach him only half an hour in the morning, so he is’nt ‘crammed’ by any manner of means, .. and, what I care for more a thousand times than any poor quickness of understanding, he has a fastness & tenderness in loving which is rare in so small a child. When he calls me his “best, precious Ba”, & says to me & his father, “My two pets”,! I fall into a state of ecstasy & lose all matronly moderation. There’s nothing for it but to spoil such a child—is there, do you think?
The war! The alliance is the consolation—the necessity is the justification. For the rest, one shuts ones eyes & ears—the rest is too horrible. What do you mean by fearing that the war itself may not be all the evil of the war. I expect on the contrary a freer political atmosphere after this thunder. Louis Napoleon is behaving very tolerably well, wont you admit, after all? And I dont look to a treason at the end as certain of his enemies do, who are reduced to a “wait, wait, & you’ll see.” There’s a friend of mine here, a traditional anti-Gallican, & very lively in his politics until the last few months. He cant speak now, or lift up his eyelids, and I am too magnanimously in opposition to talk of anything else in his presence except Verdi’s last opera .. which magnanimity he appreciates, though he has no ear. About a month ago he came suddenly to life again .. “Have you heard the news? L Napoleon is suspected of making a secret treaty with Russia.” The next morning he was as dead as ever—poor man! It’s a desperate case for him. [6]
Are you not happy .. you .. in this fast union between England & France? Some of our English friends, coming to Italy through France, say that the general feeling towards England, & the affectionate greetings & sympathies lavished upon them as Englishmen by the French everywhere, are quite strange & touching. “In two or three years” said a frenchman on a railroad, “French & English, we shall make only one nation”– Are you very curious about the subject of gossip just now between Lord Palmerston & Louis Napoleon[?] [7] We hear from somebody in Paris, whose metier it is to know everything, [8] that it refers to the readjustment of affairs in Italy. May God grant it. The Italians have been hanging their whole hope’s weight upon Louis Napoleon ever since he came to power, and if he does now what he can for them, I shall be proud of my protegé—oh, & so glad! Robert & I clapped our hands yesterday when we heard this—we could’nt refrain .. though our informant was re-actionary & in a deep state of conservative melancholy. “Awful things were to be expected about Italy,” quotha!–
Now do be good, & write & tell me what your plans are for the winter. We shall remain here till may, & then, if God pleases, go north, .. to Paris & London. Robert & I are at work on our books; I have taken to ass’s milk to counteract the tramontana, and he is in the twenty first & I in the twenty second volume of Alexandre Dumas’ memoirs. [9] The book is un peu hazardé [10] occasionally, as might be expected, but extremely interesting, & I really must recommend it to your attention for the winter if you dont know it already.
We have seen a good deal of Mrs Sartoris lately on her way to Rome—(Adelaide Kemble) eloquent in talk & song—a most brilliant woman & noble. She must be saddened since then—poor thing—by her father’s death. [11] Tell me if it is true that Harriet Martineau has seceded again from her atheism? [12] We heard so the other day. Dearest Mrs Martin, do write to me—& do both of you remember me, & think of both of us kindly. With Robert’s true regards I am your as ever
affectionate Ba.
Tell me dear Mr Martin’s mind upon politics—in the Austrian & Prussian question for instance. We have no fears, in spite of Dr Cumming & the prophets generally, of ultimate results. [13]
Address: Angleterre via France / Mrs Martin / Colwall / near Malvern / Worcestershire.
Publication: LEBB, II, 180–182 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. An article entitled “Presentation of Colours to the 1st Somerset Militia at Plymouth, by the Countess Poulett” appeared in the 11 November 1854 issue of The Illustrated London News. Among those present on the platform overlooking the parade ground were, besides the Countess Poulett, the Countess of Morley, the Countess of Mount Edgecumbe, and “the wives of a few officers of the 1st Somerset, namely, Mrs. Leckonby Phipps, Mrs. Quantock, Mrs. Surtees Cook [etc.]” (p. 711).
3. EBB may have in mind a letter to the editor in The Times of 15 November 1854 that spoke of the urgent need for reinforcements of British troops in the Crimea. It suggested that the several “militia regiments” that had volunteered for the war “should be sent out forthwith” (p. 7).
4. Probably Charles Hamilton Aidé (see letter 3369, note 2).
5. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811), last paragraph of chapter ten, “You are endeavouring to disarm me by reason, and to convince me against my will.”
6. We have been unable to identify this friend.
7. Palmerston, England’s home secretary at this time, had arrived in Paris on 17 November, accompanied by his wife—ostensibly, for something of a two-week holiday but in reality to discuss the future conduct of the war with Napoleon III. The British government sought French approval of and cooperation in the destruction of Sebastopol and the Russian fleet (see The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–56, 2nd. ed., Manchester, 2011).
8. The source of EBB’s information may have been John Frazer Corkran, correspondent for The Morning Herald, by way of his wife, Louisa. In the third paragraph of letter 3499 EBB writes that her news came from “somebody who professes to know everything” through “somebody … who professes to tell everything.” We speculate that the first “somebody” is Mr. Corkran and the second is Mrs. Corkran.
9. Mes mémoires (22 vols., 1852–54), a sometimes fanciful account of the first thirty years of the author’s life.
10. Sic, for un peu hasardé; “a little bold.”
11. Charles Kemble (1775–1854), actor and theatre manager, died at his home in London on 12 November.
12. Although Harriet Martineau followed a form of Unitarianism in the first half of her life, her experience with mesmerism led her to question her own religious beliefs and those of the time. Her rejection of all religion was demonstrated in her correspondence with Henry George Atkinson, published in Letters of the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development (1851). She confirmed this rejection in her Autobiography (1855).
13. EBB refers to John Cumming, who frequently preached on the Second Coming (see letter 3186, note 3). His most recent work, taken from his lectures, was Signs of the Times (1854).
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