3716. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 80–83.
3. Rue du Colysée.
Saturday. [19 January 1856] [1]
My dearest Moña Nina, you reprove us as the Roman traitress was killed, by the blow of a gift. [2] Shall I say first .. thank you .. or forgive me? Dear, dear friend, your book [3] was very welcome & we are grateful to you .. (that forces itself foremost ..) for though we knew it in England, we shall like to have it here with the touch of your warm kindness on it, to beautify the beauty. I should have written long since .. I should. We dont do what we should, only– The fact is I have been & am so much occupied, that I am scarcely equal to the letters which press on me for answers. But if I behaved ill to almost everybody it would still be no reason for behaving ill to you– So forgive me. I come back to that.
You see I was thrown behind terribly with the Rue de Grenelle misfortunes, and when I came to face the heap of dishevelled m∙s.—with still the heap unwritten .. it seemed scarcely possible to draw a poem out of it all. I was desperate .. what with the real thing & the despondency superinduced by not feeling strong, .. England & the preface to Paris having nearly done for me. So then I had to try to be reasonable, (which involved a struggle) and decided on the most reasonable process of transcribing the finished books of the poem .. in order to enable me to see what was done, & judge what remained to do– Very busy I have been, & the first book is finished, about which Robert has given me a little courage. (I showed it to him in mere faintness of spirit—but he has done me great good by his good word.) And I am much better in health, in consequence not only of our warm & convenient rooms, but of the astonishing weather, which is making everybody, except me, they say, ill with the heat of it.
Dearest friend, if you were here, how you might work & enjoy society together[.] What a pity that you lag behind so in England? Ah!—and it’s not a good sign for us that you send us your Commonplace book, I fear, I fear!– Cant you come? If somebody pushed you .. I am ready to pull .. could’nt you really come?
It was great, great pleasure to me and to Robert, that you should say what you said of his poems. [4] I am not surprised .. I knew you would appreciate them .. but I am greatly pleased. You mention Cleon too, which is one of my favorites—very fine & subtle– The book will stand, it is certain, let the people pelt mud ever so—and indeed there was an article in Fraser, of the dirtiest in that way. [5] The emotion, both for evil & good, seems to have been strong on all sides– The American publisher sent him a letter yesterday, by no means expressive of regret for the sixty pounds. He sends us reviews the most enthusiastic, & is sure of a great success– Longfellow drank Robert’s health at a dinner just before he wrote .. and (what is ominous of good) he (Mr Fields) duns Robert rather for Sordello .. which is to be put straight for him this winter.
Dickens has called here—but we were at dinner, & we missed him. Robert goes out sometimes to Mrs Sartoris & other people. We are all very well—and I comparatively so really–
Since I spoke to you a little of the medium now at Florence, I should tell you that his moral character has failed lately, & that there has been a tremendous explosion in Florence about him, everybody quarrelling with everybody. Powers who believed in him entirely, writes to me that he suspects him of partial trickery—but as this opinion is plainly an après coup .. I mean the consequence of irritated feeling upon other grounds, subsequent to the holding of seânces, .. I do not give much weight to it– Other persons equally vexed with Hume as a man, consider his medium-ship as real as possible. He is said to be doing the most extraordinary things just now .. more wonderful than ever– The failure of moral character seems to refer to some intrigue .. but I have’nt had it specifically described to me. Young Rymer, they say, had quarrelled with him in consequence & had returned home to his father. [6] Perhaps I ought’nt to write of this, I know so little– However it is,—the faculty of the medium being a physical peculiarity (according to all the theories) it need surprise nobody that he has proved himself incapable of resisting a temptation of the senses– My impression of him always was that he was weak & vain .. commonplace to the most ordinary level. Robert is loud in triumph of course. Still, he admits that in the evidence against, which has reached us, there’s an evident mixture of personal feeling–
Little Penini grows rosier & rosier, and learns French to his great glory & delight, and rejoices incessantly in the treasury of engravings.
Write & tell me how you are, dearest Moña Nina—do write!
May God bless you always– Robert’s true love with that of
your attached
Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Date provided by EBB’s mention of Fields’s letter arriving “yesterday,” which RB also mentioned in letter 3715.
2. As recounted by Livy and Plutarch, Tarpeia (the daughter of the commander of the Roman citadel) betrayed the Romans by agreeing to let the enemy Sabines through the gates of the Capitoline Hill in exchange for the gift of what they wore on their left arms (which she understood to be gold bracelets). However, when she let them in, their king threw on her not only his bracelet but also the other thing he wore on his left arm, his shield. His army followed suit, and Tarpeia was crushed under the rain of shields and bracelets.
3. Mrs. Jameson’s A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies (2nd ed., corrected, 1855), a copy of which sold as part of lot 787 in Browning Collections; see Reconstruction, A1301 (now with Meredith). This copy is inscribed by the author: “Elizabeth & Robert Browning, from their affectionate friend A.J.”
4. Men and Women.
5. The mostly negative review of Men and Women that ran in the January issue of Fraser’s Magazine (pp. 105–116) was written by George Brimley (1819–57), the librarian at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the first part of the review, Brimley accuses RB of “laziness and vanity—the two most fatal forms of selfishness” and later adds: “Our main object in this paper is to show how Mr. Browning defrauds himself of sympathy and fame, and his readers of enjoyment, by not doing justice to his own genius,—by wilfulness, caprice, and carelessness.” For the full text of this review, see pp. 337–344. Commenting on Brimley’s notice, Dante Gabriel Rossetti called him “the cheekiest of human products. This man, less than two years ago, had not read a line of Browning, as I know through my brother; and I have no doubt he has just read him up to write this article” (see SD1886).
6. As Patrick Waddington explains, the quarrel began as the result of D.D. Home’s relationship with Georgina Baker, a married woman (see letter 3711, note 4), which Wilkie Rymer and most of the rest of the Anglo-American community of Florence thought improper. In the latter part of December 1855, Wilkie recommended that he and Home “should leave for Rome immediately” (Waddington, p. 323). Home wished to stay and suggested they separate. A final break came on 23 December, when Home accused Wilkie “of base ingratitude” and pronounced him “‘a mere cypher’ of whom he was glad to be rid. ‘It is useless to attempt to write all the names that he called me’, Wilkie reported to his father, ‘but worse than all he told me that he had saved myself and brother from the most horrible crimes, had left his friends and his health to save my Father from Atheism … and had saved my sister from a life of infamy’” (p. 324). Wilkie left Florence for England “on or around 13 January 1856” (p. 345).
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