3549. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 145–151.
Florence.
April 27. [1855] [1]
My ever dearest Henrietta, I have a letter from Arabel pulling at my elbow, but really I must write to you this time to congratulate you tenderly & truly on your escape at last .. absolute, I trust in God .. from so many ills & fears. Oh– I know what it is to hear the dreadful silence that comes into the house from the hushing of one silver voice in it! that is too dreadful!– And though you had another child to talk through it all—still .. nothing made amends for Altham, I understand too well. But, I dont compare our evils at all– There was nothing to apprehend reasonably about Penini, who in fact never is ill—this is the first time for a year that we have had recourse to Dr Harding for him—& this was simply the effect of an accident, which passed with the cause of irritation– I was horribly alarmed without any reason at all, said Dr Harding,—and he proved his case by the event certainly– Well—your dear treasure of an Altham is getting stronger & stronger I do hope. To hear of your recovery of the quiet of home & the opportunities of fresh air for him filled me with satisfaction both for him & you. And you mean to be very prudent for the future about teaching—dont you? For his life’s sake you must & will. Remember that his intellect as well as health will be bettered ultimately by the most perfect repose now. As to Penini’s being in advance of him, “putting him to shame”, as you say .. you certainly laughed in both sleeves when you wrote such words. You remembered perfectly the difference in age (nearly two years) between the children—and if you did not remember I beg to remind you now, that Penini at Altham’s age was beginning to stammer ba be bi bo bu—he could’nt read a word. It was not till he was past four that Robert would let me give him regular lessons, & then I only taught him during ten minutes a day. It’s true he had caught up his letters by himself .. and that he wrote printing—but he only did this as he drew, just as it came into his head– Last november year I began to teach him to write—and there’s his copybook to prove it, with the first ms and ns intact– I consider one of the causes of his quickness to be this opportunity of quiet healthy development in infancy which was secured to his brain. Over-exercise the brain too early, and the probable consequence is fever—with convulsions as a close– I tell you plainly that you may know & understand. Oh—I would not, of course, let him forget his reading—but so little is needful for that, dearest dear Henrietta! A quarter of an hour spent on it. If I were you too, I would give up all the going to church—it is all premature & unnatural– My Penini at six years old could’nt sit through a long church service without being the paler for it after– I set aside the moral & religious question, because we should’nt agree upon that– I speak simply on the physical side. Observe—I should’nt in the least object to Penini’s taking the Lord’s Supper tomorrow .. (he said the other day he would like it) but I do object to that attempt at the straining of attention for an hour & a half at once, which if it were possible would be injurious & unnatural in a child, even of his age. See how I love you, that I dare to be so frank to you– And you wont be angry, you say. Of course he is your own child, and you will act according to your own convictions of right and wrong– Only, I think it right to share with you the instructions which I have received from instructed & experienced persons. How often Dr Harding has warned me! And Robert used to threaten to “hang” me if I transgressed– Even now .. at half past ten, often, Penini has done his “lessons”. He entreats for another chapter sometimes, & I resist. Think of that!– Not that he likes his lessons as a whole. Of course not—lessons are lessons—& he’s a child. As to Altham he is most remarkably advanced, as you must be quite aware. We all know that,—but I want him to keep advanced, & to have rosy cheeks besides, seven years hence– So he is reading Frank– Penini has finished it,—somebody here having lent it to him in the very edition in four volumes you have. The first volume contains Frank & the Orangeman Cherry Orchard & Dog Trusty– He has read the whole of it—but I wont take him on to ‘Rosamond,’ [2] in the second, because we have other things to read just now, & also because he has begun to read ‘Frank’ in Italian .. an excellent Italian translation .. in a precise counterpart of your four volume English edition. Robert bought it for him the other day, and Peni reads a page every morning. As for English .. having finished ‘Mama’s Bible Stories,’ & read the ‘Peep of Day’ twice, we are half through the first volume of ‘Line upon Line’. He is enchanted with this last book, & said in a rapture once, “I leally shall go mad about lis boot.” The scripture history is given in a most interesting way for children. He likes it a hundred times better than Frank, which he never took to much. I wish you would tell me, what scriptural-instruction books you use with Altham. ‘Church-books,’ you say—but then you cant bring in much about the Church of England in giving the history of Moses & Joseph for instance– It seems to me that Mr Cook [3] could not help liking ‘Peep of Day’, & ‘Line on Line’, if he knew them. For my part I expunged certain things—but he would not object to those, nor would you. Ask him from me if he knows the books, because if they did seem unobjectionable to him it wd be a pity that Altham missed the advantage of them. I am very particular about what Penini reads, and I go through everything first myself, blotting out & printing in– I am rather heretical on certain points– Instructions upon hell-fire, & the damnation of Judas I wont hear of .. & there are other things in which I cant help swerving a good deal from generally received opinions. Then Penini remembers & applies everything he reads—it is’nt like having to deal with a common child– After reading the account of Christ’s suffering, he went about threatening to “cut off” peoples ‘ears’ “like Peter” [4] when ever he was vexed. The other day he had been out in some crowd with Wilson & Ferdinando, & Ferdinando, his particular friend, had a pocket picked of a silk handkerchief– The child came home in a tremendous state of excitement—his eyes & cheeks in a flame! “I am solly to say, Mama, I have a hollible sing to tell you”–—— Presently with the utmost vehemence—“I will tate my sword– I will go out and kill that man—yes, I know his face velly well– I will kill him like Moses!” Then when told to be silent & not talk of killing,—“It cant be naughty to kill, when Moses killed and God let him! And the man Moses killed was’nt near so naughty as this man! he did’nt steal!—he only beat”– [5]
This morning while I was dressing he was talking of his rabbits & shaking his little fist in defence of them against some imaginary enemy of the “grey one”– “Who taught you to put your hand out so?” said I. “It’s naughty,” said Wilson, “to shake your hand in that way.” He looked up very earnestly– “The Jews did it.” “The Jews”—we exclaimed. “Yes!! I read it in a little tiny testament at Isa’s” .. (meaning at Miss Blagden’s.) Oh—Penini’s very funny sometimes & not least so when he’s naughty– The naughtiness is so pretty & picturesque & harmless– The other day he came to teaze me about going to the “opera of the monkeys” again– Monkeys & dogs act in an open day theatre here, and he has been there once with Ferdinando & Wilson in such a state of ecstasy, talking & screaming in Italian, till the audience accepted him as a part of the performance– By the way, a jeweller from the Ponte Vecchio turned, & asked Ferdinando whose child he was– “His master’s” Ferdinando said. “Then you live with an Italian.” “No, with an Englishman”– “And the child speaks Italian so? ma pare impossibile.” [6] (Peni is quite as fluent in one language as another.) On the second occasion however I would’nt let him go when he wished– “Another day” said I “you shall go again—but you cant, today—& so my darling Penini, there’s no use teazing me when I am very busy.” He threw himself into a theatrical attitude instantly and began—“Well! I know I cant have everysing I lite, in this world– I know lat– Yes– But still, mama, I must say, I sint there are some people in this world more tind (kind) than you are.” Most difficult to keep one’s countenance! However as seriously as I could I begged to enquire whom in the world he had found more kind than I was … upon the whole. “Why, just loot at Frank’s mama—how she toot off all the tups and saucers, only to show Frank about the led of the table. Now I know, mama, you would never take so much tlouble.”– Was’nt it funny of the child.? Really perhaps I would’nt—perhaps he was partly right. Very touching things too he says at times. Just now he has come in with his hands filled with roses– “My darling Ba, I have brought all these flowers for a present for you and to show that I love you so very much, and to show I mean to do my lessons so well because I love you.” A little speech delivered with the utmost animation & followed by quantities of kisses. I complained lately that he who writes so well, spells so badly that he is forced to have me at his elbow for every word. I insisted he shd go to the table & write some words by himself .. two or three words .. anything he liked .. only by himself. He was very unwilling—but up he comes in a minute with something written in his best way– What do you think it was—— “Poor little Penini.” I was quite touched– It sounded so like the bleating of a lamb left alone.
On Holy thursday (so called) he went on the Florentine pilgrimage to the “seven churches” [7] —in each of which there’s a pretty show of a “garden,” a “Calvary” &c &c. He counted the churches, would’nt miss one—& came back in a rapture, & sate on Robert’s knee that evening, discoursing about it all. “Oh—it was so beautiful– I’m sure if Mama had been there she would have cried– I [8] could hardly at all keep from crying– Oh—those dreadful things they killed Jesus with– That dear little ladder! [9] I do hope evellybody’s sinting about their sins tonight.– Oh that horrid Adam and Eve that began all the naughtiness!!” So earnest he was with his radiant round cheeks & curls hanging!—one exclamation following another. Robert & I had hard work to keep serious faces always–
Arabel puts me into a great fright by what she intimates concerning the danger of Wimpole street turning out suddenly into the country. Now, if that is done before we go to London, we wont go at all– What’s the use of going? We shall move north in some part of May—but not the earliest. So much we have to do– Robert & I are swallowed up of work. He will be ready to begin printing in the summer– Perhaps I shall be later. I dont wind up my poem yet, though it amounts to above six thousand lines. Arabel asks me if its a tale– Why surely I told her so long & long ago– Yes—a tale—but a good deal besides adventure– I am anxious about it. Robert’s poems are magnificent, & will raise him higher than he stands. We are up early, working, working. Penini’s lessons I never neglect—then I write—and Robert goes to Isa Blagden to whom he dictates for several hours– Then dinner—then I criticise Robert’s mss– Altogether I have scarcely breath for reading. Also, we have had people here too often lately,—several men having brought us letters—among them Lord Fordwich[,] Lord Cowper’s son, & Lady Palmerston’s grandson [10] .. a very gentlemanly unassuming young man, & intelligent up to a certain point– It was necessary to pay him attention and he took to Robert apparently, as young men often do, & heaps of galette (commonly called knead cakes) he annihilated here. Sir William Ingleby’s son [11] too .. who mesmerized me into deep sleep by his miraculous stupidity & commonplace. Said Isa to me, “Really, dear, you were absolutely asleep once.” No wonder! Then a Mr Harrison, [12] a cousin of Wordsworth’s, whom I like better so far. Mr Norton we dont like half as much as I fancied we might– He is constantly on a pedestal,—turning round on one heel before a glass, absorbed in self-contemplation … drinks too, neglects his wife, is selfish altogether. She, poor thing, has her baby—that’s all that can be said. She told Isa that the “signore” was “very kind,” but “still she was happier with her mother[”]– She reads words of one syllable now, & begins to write, but of course will forget everything when Isa goes away, as her husband cannot spare time from himself & his self-adorations in order to instruct her. I look forward with fear to the result, for her, of a few years more. Certainly that marriage was fatal to them both. And she is so gentle and good and sad– Not a trace of prettiness, except in the pure, good countenance! Poor thing!– Mr Tennyson who is “fanatico per la musica,” [13] has been having music all the winter—the best music, German chiefly .. & quite an orchestra of professional people to play it—fourteen at once– [14] At first he had it in the morning, but lately it has been in the evening on account of the convenience. How you would enjoy it, Henrietta. I have been there once—but had to miss the last occasion because of the wind– I hope to go again on saturday. Mr Tennyson says he likes Florence chiefly for the advantages of having as much music as you please with very moderate means. Once when he lived at a villa, he had a full opera orchestra to go out there & play to him—him alone, in his elbow-chair. That was a princely luxury, was’nt it? Dear Mr Tennyson—music is all that he cares for, he says, between this & the second coming of the Lord .. which he looks for sedulously– But his Italian wife says, “Quantunque Gesù venga, io voglio vedere Parigi.” [15]
During the whole of this month we have had the divinest weather possible—like July weather in England when it’s warm. Fires were at an end—windows open till ten at night—walks delayed till after six oclock for the coolness—and butter arranged with ice to prevent it’s melting away. But for the last two days a cold wind has returned & with some vexation I had the fire re-lighted. I did’nt expect to see a fire again till I got to England in June– Then,—of course. Meantime we had new potatoes for dinner today—peas, some days since; &—for the last three sundays, the weather has admitted of my going to church. Everybody admires at me for looking so well. They expected to see a Mrs Lazarus in small. How can I ever hope to be pitied, I who am always dying and it makes no difference.? I am really peculiarly well just now,—sprouting green with cod’s liver oil, & up to anything as to spirits. Hard work is excellent for the spirits under all circumstances.
Such a kind pleasant letter I had today from Alfred, who wont come here .. cant, because of his being forced to keep on the watch for telegraphs .. but desires to see us for a night at least at his campagna at Marseilles, promising to feed us on strawberries & cream with glorious hospitality. Of course, if we go through Marseilles!– But it’s doubtful. I lean to the land journey, if anyhow Robert decides we can afford it. I do dread the sea. Alfred complains of not hearing from Wimpole Street. He hates Marseilles the town, but calls the country most beautiful & the country houses cheap. I am glad that dear Bummy is to be in W. St—but it will exclude me. Oh, I feel the pride mounting into my face, Henrietta! I never shall be able to let Bummy see me creeping & sliding behind the doors in what was my own home—as if I had stolen the tea pot– Can I? What do you say of Trippy?– Is’nt it all extraordinary—I do <…> allowances made<, feel> vexed <wi>th <her.>
May God bless you & yours, dearest dear Henrietta! Love to dear Surtees, and the brace of darlings. Say how you are your own dear self & write soon & fully. Mr Kirkup’s spirits go on rapping– I told the story about Dante’s picture wrong. It was hung on the wall & came down five times; once when he was looking. Mr Trollope has been made exceedingly uncomfortable through having heard the raps according to the announcement of the spirits when he had taken all possible precautions against any deceit—locked outside doors—&c &c– He is uncomfortable, because previously he had the comfort of not believing in spirits at all. There’s no delusion in these things. Love me. Robert’s love with that of
your ever attached Ba.
Tell me how bonnets are worn in England? Dropping off behind? Can nobody wear anything else. I and Punch resisted this unnatural & most uncomfortable fashion [16] as long as we could and now that tyrant Robert insists on my “wearing hats like other people.” Really it diminishes my happiness in life, & I owe an immense grudge to the Empress Eugenie for tormenting me so, just because she likes to show her own beautiful hair! [17]
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs Surtees Cook / Taunton / Somersetshire.
Publication: Huxley, pp. 214–217 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. “Rosamond,” ”Frank,” “The Orange Man,” ”The Cherry Orchard,” and “The Little Dog Trusty” were all in Maria Edgeworth’s Early Lessons (1801).
3. Rev. John Aubone Cook (1811–59), Surtees’s elder brother.
5. See Exodus 2:11–12.
6. “But it seems impossible.”
7. In the afternoon on Holy Thursday in Florence, it was traditional for the Grand Duke and his family to visit seven churches on foot. A large number of Florentine citizens would follow. In 1855, Holy Thursday fell on 5 April.
8. Underscored twice.
9. Presumably the ladder that was used to take Christ down from the cross, as depicted in many Renaissance paintings.
10. Emily Mary (“Amelia”) Temple, Lady Palmerston (née Lamb, formerly Cowper, 1787–1869), renowned as a political and social hostess, was the eldest daughter of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne, and his wife Elizabeth (née Milbanke), though it is widely held that her natural father was the 3rd Earl of Egremont. Her first marriage was to Peter Leopold Louis Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper (1778–1837). Their eldest son, George Augustus Frederick, who became the 6th Earl Cowper on his father’s death, was the father of Lord Fordwich (see letter 3545, note 2). She married, secondly, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, in 1839.
11. Sir William Amcotts-Ingilby (1783–1854) died without issue. His estate was inherited by a first cousin, Sir Henry John Ingilby (1790–1870), whose son Henry Day Ingilby (1826–1911) was in Florence at the Hôtel Grand Bretagne for two weeks beginning on 12 April 1855, as indicated in the subscription records of Vieusseux’s reading rooms.
12. Richard Harrison (1832–59), fourth son of Benson Harrison (1786–1863) and his wife Dorothy (née Wordsworth, 1800–89), daughter of William Wordsworth’s first cousin Richard Wordsworth. Harrison is listed at the Hôtel de New York, Florence, as of 23 April 1855 in the subscription records of Vieusseux’s reading rooms.
13. “Fanatic about music.”
14. According to Mrs. Kinney, Frederick Tennyson had originally arranged these concerts for himself in order to indulge his desire to hear good music without a disruptive audience to distract him. “On hearing of Mr Tennyson’s solitary enjoyment, I determined to rally him on his selfishness, & did so, the first time we met thereafter, so effectually that he promised to invite a select few of his more appreciative friends to his next matinée musicale, … provided that each of his favored few would promise not to speak a word during the performance. … And what a glorious entertainment he gave his select guests in the choicest compositions of the great German & Italian masters!” (“Reminiscences,” part 14, ms at Columbia).
15. “Although Jesus may come, I want to see Paris.”
16. “Poetical Trimming for Ladies’ Bonnets” appeared in Punch, 21 April, 1855, p. 159, satirizing “bonnets that hang over the shoulder.”
17. In a column entitled “Fashionable World,” subheaded “Visit of the Emperor and Empress of the French,” The Morning Post of 21 April 1855 discussed the Empress Eugénie’s style of bonnet: “In regard to the much-mooted question as to whether a bonnet should be worn on the head or off it, it may not be amiss to take advantage of the actual presence of her Imperial Majesty, who is said to have introduced this popular feminine eccentricity, to place on record that, although the bonnet of the Empress Eugenie displays fully her face and hair, it does not convey to the beholder the idea of its being likely to fall from the head behind, but rather seems to cling to, and support, the hair in that position. This gives a lightness and grace of carriage to the head totally distinct from that boldness and barefacedness which have characterised the English adoption of the French imperial fashion” (p. 5).
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