3666. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 323–326.
102. Rue de Grenelle. Faubourg St Germain.
Sunday– [28 October 1855] [1]
My dearest Isa I have your letter this morning, but it teaches me nothing very much worse than I had collected from Robert after your last visit (infructuous for me) to Dorset Street– Dearest Isa, you dont mean to stay in Paris, or to come till you are constrained—in which I think (people have their opinions) you are perfectly unwise & wrong altogether. Here in Paris there is no “crowd” to inconvenience anybody—& the weather has been brilliant till the last two days, when there has been some wet & cold. Everything is cheaper than in London, & better. We have lived upon poultry—a fowl large enough for all our dinners, at nineteen pence English—a fine goose, on which our whole establishment, above & below, lived for two days, at three shillings & four pence. Coffee, milk, & butter, of first rate qualities. In Arcadia you have not better butter & milk. Tea, very good, but dearer than in London– That is, what we paid five shillings for in Dorset Street we pay six and eight pence for here, but then this tea we are drinking here is considerably better. Candles, butcher’s meat, & nearly everything else (—always excepting fuel ..) are cheaper too. This part of the town is more moderate as to prices than the others frequented by English & American colonists, and we prefer it much on other accounts– It is more characteristic, more French—you are nearer the artists & authors of France. I should like you to come here .. to a rez de chausée– [2] Why not get Mrs Cassels, [3] who understands, .. to select one for you? As to Paris, you would certainly be caught by the charm of it directly, or you are not the Isa I take you for– The ease & liberty of the life here, & the fulness of resources cannot be exaggerated. It’s Italian freedom & northern civilization, the two together. Yet you stay & fritter away your life among the high prices & low fogs of that detestable London; which is quite strange to me– Only, who can account for or reason against “presentiments—”? Not I, certainly–
I write & praise Paris, & you would not imagine that I had been lying perdue here, (never so uncomfortable in my life as to house-room), during a fortnight nearly. We fell into a trap– Our imprudent friend absolutely signed a paper in Robert’s name, [4] binding him to residence for six months in the house we were speaking of in Dorset Street! Of course, it was just as I supposed, as to inconvenience. Penini has to sleep on the floor in our room, and Robert to dress in the drawing room– Also there’s nothing above us but the roof, & nothing under but an open space for remises, [5] so that, in spite of the sun, ’ware the cold!! We have not under the circumstances unpacked our trunks, & have spent our time agreeably in investigating whether or not there were enough rats to cancel the bond, & other inquiries as pleasant .. with intermissions of apartment-hunting, & private lamentations. At last, Robert has softened the heart of our propriétaire, the Baroness du Casse, [6] & we are permitted to go away at the end of two months (six weeks from this time) & to sublet in the interim– Which we can easily do if we please—but we wish to satisfy ourselves in a comfortable home, & to look out for it leisurely. Apartments are scarce in the St Germain quarter, & we like the St Germain quarter. Still, we shall be able to gain our point at last—that’s clear to us– House-room is the dearest thing in Paris just now. After the exhibition, houses will fall of course—but even in the meanwhile the matter has been grossly exaggerated, in my opinion. For anyone to stay in London on account of high prices in Paris, is as if one wintered in Kamshatka [7] to avoid the Tuscan tramontana– I refer to Ferdinando, as an authority on such points–
Through our state of discomfort we have called on nobody—but who, do you think, spent Friday evening last with us? The two Lyttons—not to speak of Mr Jerves, who came upon me like a thunderbolt, all of a sudden– [8] I thought I should have sunk through the floor when he appeared– (But it all passed off wonderfully– I will tell you when we meet.) Then Sir Edward was gracious beyond Lyttonism, & made the most agreeable impression on Robert– I will prove to you the depth of it when I add .. that before half the evening passed, he whispered to me “Speak of the spirits”– Fancy that. Not that I spoke—oh no—of course not. But presently, before I knew where I was, .. there, were he & Sir Edward, talking of Hume, turning over all those volcanic cinders– It amounted to not much but something, for Sir Edward explained why he did not think it “humbug”—& Robert told me afterwards that in his opinion nothing irrational had been said. Also, it was agreed, before the evening ended, that we should all go together .. the next morning, to see a medium!—& we went—!! and, that we went (by the bye) was the most miraculous part of it on the whole—for the medium was not satisfactory even to me–
All this (mind) did not pass before Mr Jerves—who had only an opportunity, poor man, of conveying to me in a whisper the fact of his own power of seeing spirits &c– He is coming again—but I shall avoid spiritual talk with him before Robert– That must not be dared– Only Sir Edward …
By the way, while they were talking & I almost trembling, Lytton whispered to me—“Oh– I do wish they wd choose another subject. A fortune-teller told my father that he was to quarrel with somebody tonight—” No quarrel, however, in spite of fortune-tellers & probabilities.
Robert is always magnanimous, I must say, in not cleaving to a wrong, because he has done it once or twice or thrice. He is good & noble himself, whatever ill he may have touched with his impulsive finger. The dirt does not stick, as on common earthly natures–
Say nothing of these things, however, when you write.
As to Sir Edward, I like him in many ways– He is agreeable, full of talent in the things he throws out in conversation– And yet, and yet, our Lytton is worth fifty of him—more earnest, more elevated .. & without that touch of pomposity in the manners which a little spoils Sir Edward’s. How young he looks! He is to be here for one week more.
If you refer to our house in Florence pray send anybody to take it who will. We shall be only too glad of course–
Dont let me forget to say that Sir Edward particularly enquired about you, dear Isa– Now do write to me. And do, if you are very kind, thank for me your particular Jones [9] for the book .. & say how good I think it was of him to send it to me–
“Absorbed in Paris”– Well– I have been absorbed certainly in house-taking & things thereto appertaining– But I am no more likely (when we are at ease) to be absorbed in Paris, than you would be absorbed in Paris, if you were here.
The book, the book, Isa! [10] Oh, I am overwhelmed with shame & confusion of face! I fancy Wilson must have packed it up with our books at the bottom of the largest trunk– When we unpack I hope & trust to find it– Otherwise I shall lose Eden [11] too—shant I?—be ruined for ever in her sight.
Dearest Isa, I never heard a word about Forster & you & the tea-drinking—nor did Robert, he says—but if I had heard it would have come to the same thing, for Mr Forster, (at all times a difficult bird to catch) was engaged everyday at that time in special literary work. [12] He gave us only two evenings in Dorset Street, all the time we were there. But if you had come—well!—you did’nt come, & there’s an end now. You were “absorbed,” I suppose–
Mr Jerves cries out at the improvement in your looks– So best– Be well, dearest Isa—whether I see it or do not see it. Robert’s best love–
Your constantly affectionate
Ba–
I have neither paper nor pens—we are in such “wretched case”– [13] Can you read?
Lytton met Mr Cottrell [14] (the count’s brother) in these streets the other day, & was told that Home had done wonders in astonishing people in Florence. Mrs Trollope, for instance, had seen him lifted up in the air & whirled round the room– He was thrown down upon some lady’s head,—which must have been particularly pleasant for her– One had better be killed by a tortoise—on the whole– It would be classical at least. [15]
Publication: B-IB, pp. 82–85.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s remark that she had been “lying perdue” in Paris for “a fortnight nearly.” The Brownings arrived there on 17 October.
2. “Ground floor apartment.”
3. Sic, for Castle. Margaret Egerton Castle (née Smith, 1822–1912) was married on 29 July 1852 to Michael Arthur Castle (1818–85), an American physician who had published several books on phrenology in French and German. Isa knew Mrs. Castle and her two sisters: Mary Egerton Bracken, the second wife of Isa’s uncle John Bracken, and Annie Egerton Smith, to whom RB dedicated La Saisiaz (1878).
4. John Frazer Corkran probably “signed” for the apartment, but it was his wife Louisa who chose it (see the first paragraph in letter 3658).
5. Short for “voitures de remises”; “carriages for hire.”
7. Sic, for Kamchatka—peninsula of far northeastern Siberia.
8. Jarves was travelling to Florence via London and Paris after a trip to the United States to see his book Art-Hints published and to sell two pictures (see Francis Steegmuller, The Two Lives of James Jackson Jarves, New Haven, Conn., 1951, p. 139).
9. Perhaps a reference to Thomas Jones (1819–94), a minor poet, who is mentioned by EBB as “your adoring ‘Jones’” in a 16 May 1860 letter to Isa Blagden (ms at Fitzwilliam).
10. Charles Auchester, A Memorial (1853), published anonymously by Elizabeth Sara Sheppard. In letter 3676 EBB reports that the book has been found.
11. Probably Emily Eden (1797–1869), daughter of William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland, and his wife Eleanor (née Elliot). Later known for her two novels, The Semi-Detached House (1859) and The Semi-Attached Couple (1860), she reviewed Isa’s first novel Agnes Tremorne (1861) in The Athenæum. Years later, Miss Eden is mentioned by RB in a letter to Isa as “a friend of yours … you brought … to call once” (18 March 1865, ms at ABL).
12. Possibly his preparatory work for The Life of Jonathan Swift (1875), which Forster began in 1855 (see James A. Davies, John Forster: A Literary Life, Leicester, 1983, pp. 118 and 287n).
13. This expression is frequently used in Elizabethan and Jacobean poetry and drama; see, for example, The Faerie Queene, IV, xii, 72.
14. Perhaps Charles Herbert Cottrell (1806–60), eldest brother of Henry Cottrell (1811–71). Two other brothers were living at this time: Clement Chute and George Edward. A fourth brother, Lucius Frederick, had died in 1836.
15. After Æschylus was tried and acquitted for profaning religious mysteries in his plays, he left Athens and went to Sicily. There, according to legend, he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head, mistaking it for a stone on which to break the tortoise’s shell. EBB twice refers to this episode in Aurora Leigh: I, 453–455 and V, 294–297.
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