3699. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 50–51.
3 Rue du Colysée.
Avenue des Champs Elyssées [sic] Paris.
Dec 24. [1855] [1]
My dearest Isa, you never write to me—you put off what you have to say, I suppose, till I come—& I have been so unwell since our tribulations in Paris, that you might have been in time perhaps to drop a tear on a very new tombstone. I might have “received” at Père La Chaise. [2]
Well, well—it is’nt so bad as that quite yet. Still you might really, Isa, have answered my last plaintive letter from the Rue de Grenelle. What with England & our late proprietaire, [3] I have seldom felt more ‘done up’—coughing, spitting blood, & feeling as if the world were at once too small & too large for me. Do you know what the feeling is? Now I am much better & more lively. In the first place the weather has changed—no, in the first & chief place we have changed our apartment & have come to warm, cozy, convenient rooms where we shall live & do well, I hope with reason. We can see the Champs Elyssées sideways from the windows, & have the sight of trees from the back of the house. Also we are in an entresol .. somewhat lower than the first floor .. so that the stairs are as little stairs as possible—& there’s an idea I have for the ground floor which I shall speak of presently, & which I account excellent meanwhile. In the second place the weather has changed, & is quite mild. We have had hard frost enough, for it to change at last. Oh, my Italy!
Dearest Isa, I want you to be so kind as to bring something for me. Will you get for me one or two of those little beginning French books– I think there is a “Henry’s first French book” [4] .. but I feel out vaguely for the name .. at about sixpence or a shilling—a word-book, & phrase-book, verb-book—such things as may be used at the quite beginning, by young children. How distinct these instructions are. Then I want some maps .. coarse & cheap .. colored .. a map of the world, & a map of Europe .. such as are sold for children. Not dissected maps, observe.
I have had a letter from Sophia Cottrell, from Florence, .. a thick letter on thin paper, & full of Hume. She & her husband are implicit believers. They have seen an accordion lifted from the floor at Mr Powers’s, simply by the “spiritual hands”– Mrs Powers has seen & kissed her mother’s hand. [5] Sophia Cottrell has held her father’s hand & her dead baby’s, feeling all the little fingers. [6] She asked her father by what intimate name she used to call him. Answer—“Daddy.” Right. Tables have been lifted into the air, “as high as our chins” says Sophia, without a finger touching them– Hume & everyone else standing a foot away. The accordion was played on beautifully, while it lay on Sophia’s lap. Of course Robert believes just as little as he did. I dont understand on what principles human beings believe or disbelieve. Do you?
The Examiner is good & friendly, but does not err on the side of enthusiasm– I see Frazer has an article on the poems. Also, the British Quarterly. [7]
Dearest Isa, did it ever strike you that the “marriage” might be .. with Hatty herself– [8] Oh—I hope not.
May God bless you. Write to me, dear. Tell me if your rooms here are taken. I heard … I forgot what I heard– People have come to interrupt. By the way, Mrs Dickens [9] called here two days since. Penini writes for himself to you .. sitting by himself, spelling by himself & writing horribly, because ambitious of “writing small like Papa.” Robert’s best love–
Your attached friend
EBB
[In Pen’s hand] Penini’s love to dearest Isa, and a kiss.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 97–98.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the Brownings’ move from Rue de Grenelle to Rue du Colysée.
2. Cimetière du Père Lachaise, a cemetery on the east side of Paris, opened in 1804. It is notable for its great size, its monuments, and the fame of the individuals buried there.
3. Baronesse du Casse; see letter 3664, note 2.
4. Thomas Kerchever, The First French Book: on the plan of “Henry’s First Latin Book” (1848).
5. Elizabeth Powers’s mother, Margaret Ann Gibson (née Reilley, 1792–1854), died the preceding year on 10 September in Cincinnati.
6. Presumably, EBB refers to the Cottrells’s three-week old infant son, Clement, who died in March 1855. Sophia Cottrell’s father, Charles Augustus Tulk, died in 1849.
7. Reviews of Men and Women appeared in the 1 January 1856 issue of The British Quarterly Review (pp. 151–180) and the January 1856 issue of Fraser’s Magazine (pp. 105–116). For the full text of these reviews, see Appendix III.
8. Perhaps further speculation on Harriet Hosmer’s relationship with Shakspere Wood; see the penultimate paragraph in letter 3683.
9. Catherine Thomson Dickens (née Hogarth, 1815–79), wife of the novelist. On the 22nd, the day of her visit, Charles Dickens was in England. He returned to Paris on the 24th (see Dickens, 7, 769–770).
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