3518. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 70–75.
Florence.
February 12th [1855] [1]
My beloved Henrietta, I am getting quite anxious lest you should be anxious, all of you, about this silence of mine. Arabel is sure to be fancying various kinds of black reasons for it—& unfortunately one of them is true, for I have been unwell—(am right again now .. so nobody need mind) but very unwell—with the worst attack on the chest I have suffered from in Italy. There was no use writing while it lasted, and now I am convalescent. It was the weather, of course– The frost & an unusual bitter wind with it, did for me,—in spite of every precaution, & my keeping steadily to these two rooms which open into one another. The cough came on, & particularly at night was most exhausting—& there was a good deal of fever. No spitting of blood—& only a threat of pain in the side,—& altogether, it’s wonderful that after a month I should be out of it as well as I am– Robert observed this evening at tea time that I was “beginning to look like myself again.” For more than a week it has been mild spring weather– I might go out if I were as strong as usual—but the happy influence comes to me through the doors & windows. Nights are good—appetite is recovered, & I have every intention of getting fat directly. Poor darling Robert! I am still more glad of this for him than for me. In the first place, his nights have been diversified by keeping up the fire, boiling the coffee, and listening to the horrible cough which made sleep out of the question for either of us. Nothing could exceed his tender patience—but of course it was miserable for him, .. to say nothing of his anxiety about me which was the worst of all, I am very sure. I thought at one time we were to set off at once to either Ægypt or the Sandwich islands– It’s lucky we are not too rich, or you would have missed us one way or the other– To speak seriously, I am past the evil now, & it will be an absurd throwing away of thought, if Arabel or you think uneasily about me now. I tell the truth always—& you wd hear it from somebody if I did’nt, I dare say—but I always do tell it, even when not forced by that consideration.
I do wish Arabel would write to me. I do wish you would write to me, Henrietta, as you said you would. When I’m silent everybody’s silent, & silence on your parts I cant bear. Oh—of course it was my turn to write. But now I write—& now somebody write quick again & let me hear all about Papa & Trippy & all of you–
What a wonderful change in dear Trippy. Robert kept preaching hope to me—but I was reasonably desponding about her at her age.!!
As to papa, .. oh Henrietta .. you adopted one of those “juste milieu” [2] contrivances which look wise, but miss the possible prosperities of an extreme measure. There was a chance (with danger) if you had suddenly appeared before him– But there was no chance (nor danger!) in applying for leave to appear– Oh– I did’nt feel the least fluttered even by the idea of what might happen. Arabel was to write the next day in that case,—and I was’nt even disturbed for a moment at post-time. I knew so certainly that he would give directions against your being let in. [3] Well—it may all be for the best. I would not myself venture on the risk of forcing an interview, & so I cant possibly complain of your not having done so– A great deal of irremediable bitterness might have passed—who knows? For my part .. I begin to despair– I begin to hate to write about it– I never could have thought such obduracy possible—such & so long!—no! not even in him.
Dearest dear Henrietta, how good of you to write that small slip engrafted on Arabel’s letter– Her’s was delightful in the picture it sent me of you & yours—of the darling children especially—whom I would give much to hold in my arms & to my heart– When shall I? Where are you going, Henrietta? Surely you will write as you promised, & then I shall hear about these dreadful-militia plans which set my thoughts swimming the mediterranean drearily about you– [4] Oh—I would rather you were not sent abroad with the militia– I do distrust the military arrangements of my beloved country to the last degree just now, & would not willingly see you & your darlings exposed to her tender mercies– [5] Well—not to talk of circumstances beyond one’s power to change .. let me say something instead of Altham. Do you know, from what Arabel writes to me, Altham must surely be very handsome. The combination of light hair & brown eyes is beautiful– And then how very forward the child must be. But dearest dearest Henrietta, take care—take care. Over-working of the brain at his age is perilous– You will say he is not overworked—but what seems mere play to you develops the brain notwithstanding .. & makes it susceptible to fever– The danger is a subtle one & silent. In my own case .. observe, I never gave Penini a lesson until he was beyond four .. the age of your child .. & then, for months, ten minutes a day covered the whole time of instruction. Now when he is nearly six, I never keep him more than an hour at his writing & reading—(Robert sometimes nearly as much at his music—) and yet there are people who tell me I am wrong, & that he is over worked. Mr Powers for instance wont allow a child of his to be taught anything till after the seventh year!– Another extreme perhaps,—but a safe extreme, after all– Well—I would not teaze– What I mean to say is, dear, be satisfied with Altham’s remarkable forwardness, & dont push him .. dont exercise him in numbers, or in difficult verses– At twelve years old he will be none the cleverer for what he knows now—of that, be sure. Therefore it is wise to let the brain expand itself healthily without being stimulated. So much I have heard on this subject from thinkers who have considered it deeply, that I am nervous about forwardness in a child—& have been very cautious about my own. Penini has remarkable quickness—& we might, by a little pushing, make him do anything—but we wont push, be certain! Robert says if he pushed him in music for instance, he would make an “infant wonder” of him in two years– We want instead, an intellectual man, of healthy development. Tell me if Altham has high animal spirits. Penini’s are inextinguishable. He writes four lines in his copy book every morning, & reads from five to six pages. What we effect is effected by excessive regularity– A morning is never missed. Neither sunday nor birthday! The only difference on sunday is, that he does not play on the piano. Regularity seems to me the great secret of progress. He plays all the “stales” as he calls them now, except one, in keys sharp & flat .. first with one hand, then with the other, & then with both hands together, & with quite a remarkable steadiness & force– Those tiny hands, like the hands of a baby three years old! Then he has written (to Robert’s dictation—not copied, observe!) several tunes, & played them afterwards– Robert teaches him beautifully. I confess I thought the system rather dry for so young a child .. all those scales! But Robert insisting that I should interfere as little with his music as he did in my departments, I was silent, & now I confess him to have been right & justified in his resolution of well-grounding his pupil. I hear Penini answering questions I should be a little puzzled at myself. He is very vif [6] & ardent about his music,—anxious to get on—& of course the advantage is great of having such a teacher as Robert, who is learned in music & teaches nothing superficially. The child sits by the fire with a music-book, & reads the notes aloud, quite fast– It’s funny to hear him—“e, totchet, [7] sharp” .. &c. By the way, Altham speaks plainer than he does, I dare say. I like the infantine way of talking so much that I never correct it. He told me the other morning, “Isa had been showing him how to say Lobert .. ” (Robert) “though I said to her that mama did’nt lite me to learn how to speat.”– I could’nt help laughing. After all the lesson had’nt done much harm. I confess it—it does give me a pang to hear the sweet babyish mispronunciations dropped one by one. Now he says “yesterday” for instance, instead of “yesteryay” as he said it last week. Tell me what books you found in London for Altham, & what he is reading now.
Of course we have been shut out lately from the living world– The only chance for me was quiet & not talking, & Robert excluded everybody, even to Isa Blagden, who quite cried about it one day, she was so vexed. To prove myself well now, she came the day before yesterday & had tea with us—but I have seen nobody else up to this time. The weather is rainy & sunshiney today—real April weather, & of a delightful temperature. Still, Florence has behaved ill to me this year. It has been an exception among winters .. even at Pisa—and Mrs Martin writes to me as bad a story almost of Pau itself. I am afraid that a succession of winters in Paris is a thing out of the question for me– I have not stuff in me to bear it– By the way dear Mrs Martin sent me a few days since, by a friend of hers who came to Florence, a beautiful shawl made of the fine wool of the Basses Pyrenées .. so fine that it is a summer shawl—the ground white, with a deep blue border. How kind of her!– Did you see a great many people in London, & whom? Little Mary too must be a sweet little thing, & forward, very. But why do you let her learn such bad poetry, & such incomprehensible verses for a child as the too celebrated “Pity the sorrows of a poor old man”.? [8] The first line is the only one to be understood by a child—and, for the rest, .. pity the sorrows of such detestable poetical phraseology!– Better things are written now both for babies and men, I am glad to say. Now, some of Mary Howitt’s verses for young children, are very pretty, & have touches of nature in them which go deep into their tender fancies. [9]
Mr Kirkup (artist & archæologist .. a rather famous person of whom you have heard through us) came in to us about a month ago .. just before I was ill. “I have come to tell you something. Though I have not called myself exactly an atheist, my creed was the next thing to atheism. I have denied the existence of a spiritual world, & of a future state for the soul. Always I have said that unless a special revelation should come to myself, I would not believe. The revelation has come however– It is certainly true. There is a spiritual world—there is a future state. I confess it. I am convinced at last.” The fact is, his clairvoyante, [10] it appears, is visited by the rapping-spirits—he himself had heard three raps so loud that they made him leap—& intelligent communications were conveyed so .. & articulate voices. There was “involuntary writing” too. Well– I was rather cold about it, you will be surprised to hear perhaps. To my mind, the man was somewhat hasty, after having heard in vain the mystical knockings at all the doors & windows of the universe his whole life long, to come round suddenly through a rap on a door by means of a clairvoyante. Robert insists that she’s a “humbug”– I am not sure of this by any means, but I wont swear to the contrary—and I think that these things, wherever they occur, should be scrupulously tested before they are received. I know that they do occur—but about this particular instance, I dont know. Mr Kirkup is deaf, & though a man of great intelligence, he is not philosophical in his modes of carrying on experiment. We shall know in time. The rapping spirits when they once get admission, increase in power– A few solitary rappings will not satisfy me. The whispering voices are not common in America even. I suspend my opinion therefore about the Kirkup manifestations. Tell Arabel that Peter Parley [11] is not a believer .. except I suppose in the facts. I understand that he believes in neither God nor spirit. As to his daughter’s experience, that’s resolvable (as in the opinion of many materialists) into “unconscious vibrations of the brain.”!!! [12] —— Unbelieving men will step over this trench too! [13] —— Mrs Martin says that the Hedleys intend for the future to pass the winters in Paris, & the summers at their residence in Somersetshire– [14] Will you tell me what this means? I did’nt know they had a “residence” in Somersetshire.
Robert has been frantic about the Crimea– The accounts turn one sick—and yet out of all this turning up of the fetid ground, will result I hope, a better system of drainage– A little humiliation will teach us that we are not perfect, & that our administration is one of the most corrupt in Europe. How well & magnanimously the French have behaved! Their newspapers touch most delicately & forbearingly on our errors in organization, covering us with admiration upon other points– So different from the bearing of the Americans—who have been most insolent, both in public documents & private conversation. They are as jealous as possible of the alliance with France .. which is in fact an inconvenient thing for them, & excludes them from a great deal of piratical annexation.
Sophia Cottrell expects her confinement. Her boy Hal is a fine, noble little fellow—nearly as tall as Penini (& much wider) though two years younger, with light curly hair & blue eyes. I am very busy with my poem, but have got on slowly lately of course. I shall feel nervous about it, I believe.
Many military men stationed at Malta send their families to the Baths of Lucca for the summer—but this wd be hard <for you to do,> [15] I fear—& Mal<ta is very hot in> the summer. So <anxious I shall be to> hear of you. Write—& <bid Arabel write. En>treat her not to overwork herself, <as I see she does. W>hat a time since I heard of dear Trip<py. One misfortune I> have heard of—yes, about my dear kind friend Miss <Mitford.> But it is gain to her. [16] May God bless you dearest dear Henrietta! Best love to Surtees from us both—& kisses to the treasures.
I say to Penini sometimes—I wonder if Altham has for breakfast .. now fried eggs .. now a turkey leg .. now a cutlet! (Ferdinando always providing luxuries for Penini!) I dare say you wd be shocked at such an idea!
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs Surtees Cook / Barracks / Plymouth.
Publication: Huxley, pp. 209–213 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. “Happy medium.”
3. Henrietta’s attempt to see her father occurred during her and her family’s recent stay in London (see letter 3508, note 2).
5. Cf. Psalm 25:6.
6. “Lively.”
7. Pen’s pronunciation of “crotchet,” a quarter note.
8. Thomas Moss (1740–1808), “The Beggar” (Poems on Several Occasions, 1769), line 1.
9. EBB may have in mind Birds and Flowers and Other Country Things (1838), which Mary Howitt dedicated to her nephews.
10. Regina Ronti (1837–56), the daughter of Seymour Kirkup’s housekeeper, who he believed was a spiritual medium. In 1854 she bore a daughter, Imogene, and two years later on her deathbed told Kirkup that he was the child’s father. According to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who met the artist in 1858, “the poor old man seems to have had doubts respecting this paternity; indeed, if I interpret the story right, he did not quite know that he had done anything to bring the matter about. Nevertheless … he received the poor baby into his heart … and enjoys all the bliss of fatherhood” (Hawthorne, 14, 393).
11. i.e., Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793–1860), originator of the Peter Parley series of children’s books.
12. An expression associated with materialist psychology; for example, see the description of the philosophy of David Hartley (1705–57) in James Gillman, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1838), p. 318.
13. Cf. Jeremy Taylor, Eniautos. A Course of Sermons for All the Sundaies of the Year (1653), Sermon X, “The Flesh and the Spirit,” p. 135: “A resolution (such as we usually make) is nothing but a little trench which every childe can step over.”
14. Sidbrook House, 2½ miles N.E. of Taunton, near West Monkton. The Brownings would call there during their stay with Henrietta in September 1856.
15. The text in angle brackets, here and below, is taken from Huxley. It was written on the flap of the envelope, half of which is now missing.
16. Cf. Philippians 1:21.
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