3539. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 125–129.
[Florence]
[late March 1855] [1]
<***> a little bit mine too– Ten minutes a day on his reading wd be the most I should allow him, if he were quite mine– [2] So I speak. Of course you told me about Alfred, & of course I was much pleased—but you omitted his Marseilles address & I wait for it in order to write to him to try to get him to come here for at least a few days– As to his report upon Paris .. it is certainly a very superior climate to what you have—& anybody, with a chest, would feel the difference in a moment. We have just seen somebody, by the way, who after spending the winter hitherto at Nice, reports on it that she never felt the cold so intense in either Paris or London!! Ever so many people swore to me at Rome last winter that it was colder there than in Paris!—or England. The fact is, travellers are not reliable. They come from their homes to cold rooms perhaps—or else they expect a few degrees more heat, & suffer from the chill of disappointment besides the atmosphere—or else .. which happens sometimes .. the transition between continental sunshine & the subtle winds, affect them uncomfortably at first. Still .. Paris is less tenable for climate than Italy is—I know that well. In spite of which, I may weather a winter there, & I believe that, when it comes to the push southwards, it will be a matter of convenience or probably of necessity, for us to try. How inconvenient it is to be so brittle, & frightened of this & that. Yet when all’s said & suffered, it cant be as bad as it seems—for … I hope you observe … I dont die. Instead of which I get somewhat less boney under the influence of my two table spoonfuls of oil a day—oh, and Madme Biondi came yesterday to advise another remedy—tea made of a handful of Indian corn to two tea-cups with milk & sugar. She says that ever so many patients with lung-complaints have recovered & grown fat in an extremity– Now, though I am well & fed on cod’s liver oil, I prick up my ears always at the notion of growing fat– It’s my bodily ideal to grow fat, Arabel,—chiefly, I suppose, because it’s impossible– And Robert was earnest—so I began yesterday with my cupfull, & today I take two. At the end of two months I’m to be a “stalled ox” [3] —(prize.). Penini hearing the talk of it, thought he would grow fat too—and we caught at it—& he takes the Indian corn tea as well. Why wont you? Let us have tea together across the Alps. I know the cod’s liver oil wd do you just as much good as it does me—that is, if it agreed with you—if you were able to take it. It’s a specific for glandular affections—you are not aware perhaps of that. In any case it can operate only indirectly on the digestive organs & the health generally– With me it always corrects my detestable tendencies to relaxation which help to wear me away. I am particularly well just now– Everybody says I look so—& I am so, which is of more consequence. I dare say you are not as well—you with your dreadful headaches! Oh Arabel, what headaches you have! Two days of headaching past reading & writing. It’s a thing I never have. A head–?!! You may conclude so from this prettily involved writing. You may think .. if this is the style of the new poem, I shall improve my reputation. By the way, let me relieve you about the “spirits.” Nothing about the rapping-spirits in the new poem, up to the present five thousand & five hundre[d]th verse. [4] I dont bind myself .. mind .. for the future—but I am rational, oh, so rational,—that you can with difficulty conceive of me. Let me set you right on the subject of Mr Kirkup. Neither fool nor knave—be sure. He is not philosophical in his experimentalizing, & the learned say rightly that he does not manage his clairvoyante [5] well, & that she would make a real medium perhaps in other hands. Mr Trollope went the other day “by appointment with the spirit” to hear the rappings. No rap came. Robert triumphs. I can say nothing. I believe I dont believe much in these phenomena as enacted at Mr Kirkup’s house. They seem a sort of dreamwork, & are at best very imperfect. Mr Hume the great medium is to be in London in the summer—& then we shall see, Arabel, we shall see. He is grandson of the Lord Hume of Scotland [6] .. a law lord—& the best medium almost in the United States—and I shall know him—& you shall see him swim in the air,—or do anything else you please. He is said to be very devout, & is preparing for the ministry, [7] or was .. for his health is failing fast I fear. As to Mr Kirkup’s being a knave .. Robert exclaimed at such an idea. Now you will trust Robert .. if not me. The foolishness you will set down as less disproved, when I have told you a story– Mr Kirkup who is a great collector, has bought lately an old picture of Dante. This picture which he had leant against the wall, was displaced—& he discovered it on the floor, lying on its face. In his next interview with the spirit of Dante he asked the spirit who had displaced it– “I,” said Dante, .. “because it was ugly, & misrepresented me.” “Shall I destroy it,” asked Kirkup. “Certainly,” said Dante. “Shall I throw it into the Arno or burn it in the fire?” “Burn it in the fire” said the spirit. Hereupon Mr Kirkup quietly took his picture & burnt it in the fire. I call that faith. I dont call it wisdom by any manner of means. This happened two or three days ago–
You are to understand, Arabel, that Penini’s “poems” so called, are not to be compared with any writings of precocious children, .. (though he is miles in everything before any in my knowledge) simply because they are not writings .. compositions .. at all. Children, when they compose, always do it stiffly & without fancy– What makes Penini’s things so pleasant, is, that they are the prattle of the young soul .. just pure improvisation. He talks it all so fast that I have hard work sometimes to put it down—& I assure you he’s very particular about being faithfully followed. Oh no—he’s not the least bit an author—& perhaps he never may be. But he’s a little improvisatore .. which Robert & I were at no time in our childhood. The prettiest notes, that child speaks out .. & letters .. that can be! And all his talk is pretty & graceful, in the same way, with that little silver voice of his. His “great poem” was sung out from beginning to end, .. & we shall bring it to you if Mr Kenyon does not let you see it, [8] as I hope he will. Only pray dont fancy that he’s going the way of his fathers as a juvenile author. I hope he may write hereafter if he can write greatly & to a noble end—but what he has done, so far, is not in our way at all, but in his own angelical way. He breathes & lives in that book—it’s his prattle .. & no more. You know him by the book– He has another more than half done, written in ink this time, which we shall bring. Ah yes—I know you love him—you love him through my heart & with yours, & so you must love him well. And then, everybody loves Penini, more or less .. As to Ferdinando, it’s more, with him. You cant think how concerned & tender that man was when the child was ill—he is very good, Ferdinando, & we have a real regard for him. I used to get him to feel the child’s pulse for me .. to get a little comfort so—and he made Peni talk sooner than any of us that worst day when I was so frightened. Peni who had been lying quite silent, broke out into a fit of Italian animation & told him how he would take him to see the elephant .. “ma bisogna pagare .. se no, non potete entrare per quella gran porta di ferro.”! [9] Think of the child remembering the iron gate! I could have kissed Ferdinando! He’s as well as a child can be—& with a supererogatory appetite just now. I dont mention Wilson’s attention to him when he was ill, because it’s so much a matter of course. She loves him dearly. Isa Blagden says “it’s frightful to see Penini so attached to Wilson & Ferdinando for that unless we all four live together for ever, he will some day break his heart.” Peni takes passions of love—& he took a fancy to Ferdinando from the first, which goes on increasing. Once or twice when Wilson has gone out, he has insisted on Ferdinando’s putting him to bed– Think of that! I would’nt leave Ferdinando behind—not for the world.
Arabel—you would laugh at me if you saw me reviewing & correcting the theology from England. “Peep of Day” has had two pages cut out at the end,—containing descriptive horrors of the world being burnt to bits .. which as I by no means am sure of myself I dont mean to frighten Penini to death by suggesting to him—“Did you ever see a house on fire? How much worse .. &c &c— … but you must not be afraid” [10] .. Oh no—of course not. What dangerous trash all this is. Then all the conversation between the Father & the Son (.. which is simply Arianism adapted to the plainest capacity ..) I took the liberty of erasing or otherwise changing. Both in “Peep of Day” & “Line upon Line,” the unitarian wd find nothing to object to, or very little—& I a great deal. I object too, extremely, to a sentence like this .. “God has told fathers to beat their children to keep them from hell.” [11] .. a tender adaptation of scripture!—to say nothing of the various places in which “fire & brimstone,” & “your bodies burning for ever & ever,” are mentioned & complacently dwelt upon. I assure you I have weeded the little books (so excellent in many respects) of all these things. He has nearly finished the second volume of Bible stories, & likes to read them very much. Some things he finds hard– For instance, about Abraham’s intention of killing his son for a burnt offering, .. an ‘offering-burnt’ as he persists in calling it, .. he looked up at me with a face of horror .. “Burn his son, he did!” And he was’nt quite satisfied at the end even, seeing that another angel did’nt come down to save the “ram” [12] as well! He’s tender to animals & told me yesterday that “if the world was’nt so large, he leally would write a letter to all the hunters, to tell them not to till tleatures.” (creatures.) I do hope when we get to England, none of you, my dearest brothers, will take to making Penini “manly” & spoiling him so. Ah, Arabel—when his wings drop off! when he grows deeper into the world! I shant like it, I assure you.
How stupendous what you tell me of poor Trippy is. Has she delusions on other subjects?—because this looks like pure insanity. I feel to be angry with her & to pity her both together– She ought not to think such things of you even with a weakened brain—and yet, poor, poor, dearest Trippy! Tell her that I love her & think of her. My darling best Arabel—never imagine that I fancied you were sulky, or could be sulky, though heaven & earth came together! I wd as soon accuse you of administering arsenic. You! the most patient & forbearing of human creatures, & the most magnanimous in smiling down an offence! I know you too well. And now, tell me. If poor Trippy dislikes (with ever so little reason) any servant about her, why not engage another in her place? That might turn the current of thought perhaps, & admit of a calmer state of mind. How wonderfully better she must be. Will not the Lord’s hand give health to the soul also? It is so sad.
I am sorry to hear that Mary H. can be ruffled in her temper—it is a bad fault for an instructress. Has she gone over to the N. St Churches? [13] Did you ever talk to her on the subject? I feel sure she will, you know. Dear Mr Hunter must have an uncultivated congregation at Ledbury, & sees little reason <***>
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 137–142.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Approximate dating suggested by EBB’s reference to Pen’s poem, which is also mentioned in letters 3534 and 3537.
2. Probably Altham Cook, who EBB thought was being pushed too hard by Henrietta.
3. Cf. Proverbs 15:17.
4. Evidently, she had not yet written lines 563–570 in Book V, which contain her only reference to spiritualism in Aurora Leigh. Counting the lines in the poem continuously, line 570 is line 5,425.
5. Regina Ronti; see letter 3518, note 10.
6. Alexander, 10th Earl of Home (1769–1837). According to the ODNB, Home maintained the “belief that his father was the illegitimate son of the tenth earl.” This “belief” is shown by Patrick Waddington to be Home’s own invention; see Waddington, pp. 50–51.
7. According to Home, he was not “preparing for the ministry.” In 1853 he was living in Newburgh, New York, “at the Theological Institute, but only as a boarder, and in no way included in the theological classes” (Incidents in My Life, New York, 1863, p. 70).
8. “The Poem of Lucy Lee.”
9. “But you must pay .. otherwise, you are not allowed to go through that great iron door!”
10. The objectionable passage reads: “One day God will burn up this world we live in. It is dreadful to see a house on fire. Did you ever see one? But how dreadful it will be to see this great world and all the houses and trees burning” (The Peep of Day, Lesson 52, “The Judgment-Day”).
11. In Line upon Line (part II, 1853), the author notes that Eli was wrong not to punish “his wicked sons. … God has told fathers to beat their children with the rod to save them from going to hell” (Chapter 41, “Samuel, or the Little Prophet”). EBB erased this last sentence in Pen’s copy.
12. See Genesis 22:1–18 for the story of Abraham’s temptation and blessing.
13. i.e., the Newman Street Churches, or the Catholic Apostolic Church. EBB’s comments about Mary Hunter in letter 3556 (see the sixth to the last paragraph) indicate that she had converted to that denomination.
___________________
