Correspondence

3731.  Sarah Bayley & John Kenyon to EBB & RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 111–114.

Feby 6th [1856] [1]

My dear Friends

I do think I may now set you at ease about our dear Mr Kenyon who seems to me to advance a little every day towards his ordinary state– We drive out and walk, and he goes up and down stairs with comparative facility—and tho he is cautious in acknowledging his amendment, there can be no doubt of it– The weather is very mild, and this air agrees with him perfectly—and he promises to confirm this bulletin of mine by a few lines from himself– Mrs Trollope has written to an old friend of hers (who is also my friend) the result of the invitation she gave to Mr Hume of spiritual notoriety. He had with him a young man the son I suppose of Mr Rymer—and they spent 5 weeks at Mrs Trollope[’]s house. She says “she has discovered Hume to be a bad unprincipled man [2] —that he has behaved very ill to his companion & that he is now living on his wits & spiritualities—so that her faith in him is utterly destroyed”– This detection will not surprise your husband, but I am afraid it may shock so indulgent an observer of mankind as yourself– You may not trust to Mrs Trollope’s discrimination, but a mistake to this extent would be still more difficult to admit, and I hope your own candor will not in future be so imposed upon.

My dear Anne Braun writes most despondingly– She says the wound may heal, but the scar will remain for ever—and that a cloud has passed over her future life– Dr Braun has written a sketch of De Witt for the last week’s “Critic” [3] wh is translated by Anne and is no doubt polished by her pen—it is very interesting and pathetic– She asks me for your address as she wishes to write to you– I hope dearest Ba you are recovered and will soon be able to venture out– Give my kind regards to your husband & Sister and believe me

your affecte. friend S. Bayley—

[Continued by John Kenyon]

My dear Friends– First—All good wait on you All Three—Exiles to pleasant Paris—not forgetting Good—to Wilson——

Miss Bayley has told you that we are leading a quiet life here—her presence is a great blessing to me.! Of myself I will not tell you more than she has told you– That I shall never lose this Asthma is quite clear—I am told—but according to times and seasons it may moderate—— May it so prove– In the meantime I have given up the receiving my own Dividends—and must now propose to do so as to Yours [4] —and also some others which I receive– And when you have fixed on whom you would like to appoint as your deputy, Arnould and Chorley and I will give the needful power—I suppose that you wd in all probability appoint Reuben Browning. [5] —You had better put this in hand soon-- I was glad to hear that you are all so well & pleasantly placed– I suppose that dear Ba is now writing again “like Mad”– What a charmingly mild winter for you, out of Italy—for your Expt “Ba—better!’[’] “The boy well to a wonder”! What a pleasure for dear Ba to have so warm a nest!

As to the Reviews! I have not seen one of them yet—and dont care to see “Scalpers”—as Ba calls them– I hear from Forster today, who is expecting Dickens in London, to dine on his birthday [6] —and conclude the sale of an “Estate” at Gad’s hill– [7] May he prosper in all he tries, for he is a good fellow!– For myself I am proposing to stay here till the end of March—and have this day sent my Coachman to town for Carriage & horses– Yesterday was mildness itself– We—Miss B & I managed 15 miles in a small open Carriage—today is yet milder—but not so sunny. I fear the London air for breathing—and if one must be sick—or die—I prefer—like Ajax—the Light of Day. [8] That Sonnet was not meant for portraiture of Eagles [9] —excepting in the “Shy recess”– [10] He was partly—poor fellow—the suggesting cause– I trust that your father in law and Sarian[n]a both continue well– What a blessing it must be for them to have you so near them——!

[Continued by Sarah Bayley]

Note the second– We open the first dearest Ba to thank you a thousand times for your delicious one. Mr K says “tell her I am quite ashamed of my dull prosy one after reading hers”—but you will like it as proving how very much better he is—indeed today he looks well and as handsome as ever—and I no longer hear him breathe– I am glad it comforts you that I am here, he calls it a sacrifice on my part, while I call it an immense privilege to be of any use and pleasure to so dear a friend. You may be sure I shall not let him go to London in a hurry. If it becomes very cold we may go to Ventnor perhaps in March– Mr Forster sends us Dickens’ impression of G Sand—la voila. [11] “She might be one of the Queen’s monthly nurses—chubby swarthy—black-eyed-matronly[,] nothing of a blue—but quietly settling her own opinions—and yours also”. [12] Is the portrait like– We rejoice in the success of “men and women” and deplore our own blindness to some—while we give due admiration to other some—but you love your friends in spite of their shortcomings—and don’t they warmly respond to that love think you? Now farewell dearest Ba—and give the little student Pennini a tender kiss from each of us. SB.

Is it possible to purchase the Brussells [sic] edition of G Sand’s life? [13] I delight in it, and am surprised at the wisdom contained– I wish also it could have been more truthful—but that would have been a puzzle—so we must accept her en buste. [14]

God bless you all three– My love again to your Sister Sarian[n]a–

[Continued by John Kenyon]

Miss B. has just come in from the mild garden and desires second remembrances– This is a silent place, whence no news comes worthy of your busy Paris. But let us hear from you—and tell us how Ba is working on with the book of books.

Yours ever. J Kenyon

Address, in John Kenyon’s hand: À Monsr Robert Browning / Rue du Colisée– No 3– / a Paris. / Affranchie.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Year provided by postmark. The return address and the date are in Kenyon’s hand.

2. As pointed out by Hiram Powers in letter 3711, D.D. Home had a habit of revealing to others all he had “heard or seen” in a friend’s house. Regarding the Trollopes, Powers wrote to Emma Rymer that they “were kindness itself to him [Home], but no sooner out of their house than he commenced telling to my wife some horrible things of two of the members of that family and would doubtless have stated the whole if my wife had not interrupted him with an exclamation ‘I don’t believe it’ so emphatically that he was induced to stop short” (24 March 1856, author’s copy at Smithsonian).

3. Emil Braun’s biographical sketch of Theodor de Witt (1823–55), who died in Rome on 1 December, appeared in The Critic for 1 February 1856, pp. 76–78.

4. The Brownings’ dividends were derived from EBB’s £6,000 in Bank of England stock and her shares in the David Lyon (see the third paragraph in letter 2878).

5. As indicated in a letter from RB to his Uncle Reuben, dated 17 March 1859 (ms at ABL), the latter began receiving the Brownings’ dividends in 1857. Kenyon, Arnould, and Chorley were the trustees of the Brownings’ marriage settlement.

6. Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812.

7. Gad’s Hill Place, a country house near Rochester, Kent. Dickens bought it for £1790 on 14 March 1856 (see Dickens, 8, 71).

8. In The Iliad, while attempting to rescue the body of Patroclus, Ajax implores Zeus to “make clear sky, and grant us to see with our eyes. In the light even slay us, since such is your pleasure” (XVII, 645–647, trans. A.T. Murray). In this and subsequent quotations from, or references to, Greek and Latin classical authors, citations are from the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise indicated.

9. Kenyon’s friend, the art critic and poet John Eagles (1783–1855), who died at Clifton, Bristol, on 8 November. Kenyon’s sonnet “To a Beacon Light,” signed “J.K.,” appeared in the 5 January issue of The Examiner (p. 7).

10. “To a Beacon Light,” line 11. This image also occurs in Wordsworth, The White Doe of Rylstone (1815), I, 293. The introduction to The Sketcher (Edinburgh and London, 1856) contains the following description of Eagles: “His somewhat reserved disposition shrunk from the excitement of the metropolitan world, and contented itself with the comparative seclusion of a provincial city. … For society at large he cared little” (p. ix).

11. “There she is.”

12. In a letter to John Forster, dated [20 January 1856], Dickens wrote: “I suppose it be impossible to imagine anybody more unlike my preconceptions than the illustrious Sand. Just the kind of woman in appearance whom you might suppose to be the Queen’s monthly nurse. Chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed. Nothing of the blue-stocking about her, except a little final way of settling all your opinions with hers, which I take to have been acquired in the country where she lives, and in the domination of a small circle” (Dickens, 8, 33).

13. George Sand, Histoire de ma vie (10 vols., Brussels, 1855) was published by Auguste Schnée.

14. “Half-length.”

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