Correspondence

3571.  EBB to Elizabeth Clementine Kinney

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 193–196.

Baker street

   London

My dear Mrs Kinney

I do hope you have not thought of me that, having lost sight of my friends at Florence, the recollection of them is as far with me as their faces. On the contrary, the more we go, the faster we stay .. in our hearts & anxieties. Particularly anxious we both are about Mr & Mrs Read, & the trial in the midst of which we left them,—& my reason for not having written before to beg you to let us hear about them, is simply that I have waited to be able to give you an address which would find me in London. At this moment at last I can give it to you—13– Dorset street, Baker Street. My sister has succeeded in taking rooms which—will suit us, & we leave Paris where we have loitered from day to day, on monday next, in order to reach London in the evening of the same day– Pray do write, & tell me of yourself and yours—and of the Reads especially. My husband & I are both of us in the hope of hearing good news– We were late at the train that last morning of our leaving dear Florence, & had not a moment to stop at the hotel for enquiries, [2] which made a pain more to take with us from Tuscany. A friend of ours told us last night that he had had a Florence letter to deny positively the imputation of epidemical cholera—and this was a great comfort to us to hear–

Think of our having lost our luggage en route .. at Marseilles, .. & being forced to appear in Paris with the smallest possible quantity of apparel! My maternal vanity suffered most, .. as all my Penini’s pretty frocks which had been intended to glorify him among the Parisians, were beyond the horizon somewhere, & he had to stand before the eyes of his grandpapa in his dirty travelling frock. I accept it as the chastisement of my pride! After a ten days state of purgatory, our boxes which had been left (& found) at the douane, were sent to us, & the tribulation ended. By the way, at Marseilles we parted from Miss Blagden, who carried on her charge by ‘express,’ travelling day & night—we pausing to sleep & refit from the horrible sea-voyage. Just now I have a note from her, written in much depression, after her parting from poor dear little Louisa.

The beauty of Paris is almost fabulous, & we have had glorious, hot, breezy weather ever since we came, both sun and air doing their best for us– The Exhibition is magnificent, with less space & more picturesqueness of arrangement, than its English prototype. The collection of national pictures is full of interest, & the French school, affluent & various in power. In the English department, our pre-Raphaelites are supreme for genius & expression: [3] for the rest I care very little.

Of course we are in a tornado of friends here,—ah it educates one for being torn to pieces patiently (and gratefully) in England. Among my chief pleasures is having found Mrs Jameson– I should have been so very sorry to miss her! By the way, she has heard & told me that Mr Hume the medium, after having thrown the village of Ealing (close to London) into a state of convulsion, was “on his way to Italy” .. which is a great disappointment to me of course—and I am hoping fervently that there may be some misapprehension. If you hear of him at Florence, do tell me—and tell me also whether Mrs Trollope was satisfied in her experiences. [4] I meet people here who belong to “circles”, & have dealt in “apparitions”,—but, upon the whole, I am not much in the way of any such. It may be different in London, or when I come back. Do tell Mr Powers this, with our best regards.

We were at a matinée musicale at Ary Scheffer’s the other day, & heard a second Swedish nightingale, a Mademoiselle Berg the daughter of the instructor of Jenny Lind– [5] She sang with her soul, and the music moved in her face beautifully– Afterwards we went to M. Simart’s studio– [6] He is realizing the Minerva of Phidias as described by Pausanias [7] .. all ivory & gold .. but with a poetical sentiment which overcomes the vulgar richness of the material– The still, massive ivory face, and the lapis lazuli eyes seeming dilated as a seer’s, are really & wonderfully grand. Gibson is left far behind on his own road– And I do long for Mr Powers to come & see– If it is’nt pure art, it is grand art– The order is from the Duc de Luines, [8] and four thousand pounds (English) are spent already in the material. We expected to see something simply curious, & were surprised and impressed. Then we have made the acquaintance of Rose [sic] Bonheur, the great female artist. She reminded us of Hatty Hosmer in her simplicities– Her works are of undeniable genius, the first (in their range) whether of male or female animal-painters; & the vitality & movement in them are prodigious.

This is a very dull letter I know—only the change in so many sous, for the letter I beg for humbly– Has Mr Tennyson left Florence? How are the Cottrells? is dear Sophia a little better? Tell us of all our friends– And do, (if you can anyhow) give us good news of yourselves .. of your own health & Mr Kinney’s—& say that your spirits are a little brightened since the sad days God sent you. [9]

I found a letter here from Mr Ruskin who thanks us for introducing Mr Jarves with whom he was much pleased. Have you heard from Mr Jarves again?– Is the poem to be had in England? [10] I am full of questions, & could be fuller– May God bless you– You will say to the Reads how we feel for them anxiously– With my husband’s true regards to yours & you,

Your’s affectionately & faithfully,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Address: Italie. / À Madame / Madame Kinney / Casa del Bello / Via della Fornace / Firenze.

Publication: Bosco, pp. 78–80.

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. Year provided by postmark.

2. To escape the cholera, the Reads had moved from their apartment into a hotel (see letter 3583, note 6).

3. Besides Millais (see letter 3565, note 4), the only other Pre-Raphaelite represented at the Exposition Universelle was William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), who exhibited three paintings: “The Light of the World” (1851–53), “Strayed Sheep” (1852), and “Claudio and Isabella” (1850–53); see Catalogue of the Works Exhibited in the British Section of the Exhibition (1855).

4. In a letter to William Burnet Kinney dated 21 June 1855 (ms at NJHS), Frances Trollope reported that she and her son Thomas spent two days at the residence of John Snaith Rymer in Ealing, where Daniel Dunglas Home was also staying. During séances held on succeeding nights, she thought she had communicated with the spirits of her dead children. The second night’s séance was attended by Lord Brougham and Sir David Brewster. But while the latter “looked more vexed, and puzzled” by what he had seen, Mrs. Trollope felt that she had witnessed “marvels.”

5. Helena Sofia Berg (1834–80), daughter of Isak Albert Berg (1803–86), Jenny Lind’s first singing instructor in Stockholm. Mlle. Berg married in 1860 Henrick Hjalmar Petre (1832–1928). Her brother, Joseph Albert Sault Berg (1832–1916) was studying art in Paris under Ary Scheffer.

6. Pierre Charles Simart (1806–57), a French sculptor, whose “most successful works were bas-reliefs” (Grove’s The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, 1996, 28, 746). He completed a number of works on the subject of Minerva, all of which are now in his home town of Troyes. His “reconstruction of the Athena Parthenos … was ill-received when shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855” (28, 746).

7. Pausanias (fl. ca. 150), Greek traveller and geographer. The reference EBB mentions occurs in his Description of Greece, I, 28, 2, trans. W.H.S. Jones.

8. Honoré Théodoric Paul Joseph d’Albert de Luynes, 8th Duc de Luynes (1802–67).

9. See letter 3556, note 3.

10. Presumably Mrs. Kinney’s Felicità: A Metrical Romance (New York, 1855), which had just been released in America. There is no evidence of an English publication.

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