3740. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 134–136.
3. Rue du Colysée.
Feb. 28 [1856] [1]
My dearest Moña Nina Three letters, one on the top of another—& I dont answer– Shame on me. How I have thought of you, to make up! And you write to apologize to us, from a dreamy mystical apprehension that we may peradventure have lost eight-pence on your account.! Well, it would have been awful, if we had. And so, providence interposed with a special miracle, and obliged the officials to accept the actual penny-stamp for the four-penny stamp you meant to put, … and we paid just nothing for the terrible letter.! [2] Take heart, therefore, in future, before all hypothetical misfortunes. That’s the moral of the tale.
Dear, dear friend, I bore much better the word you sent me about not coming to Paris so early, than the circumstance you mentioned of having had to apply a blister to your knee. Was that by advice? and why? and are you relieved now? Tell me of that knee. Is it not entirely rheumatism as you supposed? Is it a sprain?
As for Paris I was rather comforted by the idea of the Brighton plan, which appears to have been worth trying, .. because you see, if it succeeds, it will relieve you so immensely. Also it does appear to me just, that your sisters should do something for themselves. Why should a whole house be carried upon one head? The danger is, lest your money go without results—but then a scheme of the sort would be well weighed of course–
On another subject I am tenderly afraid of speaking—only, you are better, I perceive clearly, and it is reasonable & natural of you to be better. [3] For my part I have an instinct against certain natures .. in women especially. You may stand up very straight .. and it may be less from strength, than from an unemotional stiffness. You may stand like a card, or, like a stone. It’s easy to stand if you’ve no joints. That pretension to the calmness of absolute justice is … horrible—now really there’s no other word for it!—and it always ends in gross injustice, always—and if it did’nt, it would be horrible just the same, in my mind.
Dearest Mona Nina, throw it all off—like a bad, bad dream. There must be a re-action in wide souls like your’s—you must recoil, after having suffered. I am only glad that I do not know her by your means. I assure you, I feel so on this subject, that I could not bear the touch of her hand.
Telling of which—our friend Capt. Aidé told us the other day that he met the Guiccioli [4] —& that at three paces off, she looked thirty-three .. with real beautiful luxuriant golden ringlets dropping into her lap almost—such heaps and a fair white complexion– Only catlike in expression, affected in gesticulation .. & without a charm as a woman. So said our friend. But Madame la Marquise talks still of Lord Byron as if she loved him. She sits on the top of respectability & talks on of him. She may have loved him perhaps.
My dear friend .. how shall I pull you & make you come to Paris? Madame de Triqueti was here the other day, & spoke of you, & swore she would’nt help to take rooms for you, unless you came near her. [5] As to the two rooms you speak of, I am sure you might have what rooms you pleased now, in this neighbourhood. What would you give? Our present apartment is comfort itself,—& except some cold days a short time after you went away, we have really had no winter. The miraculous warmth has saved me—for I was so felled in that rue de Grenelle, I should scarcely have had force against an ordinary cold season. Little Penini has been blossoming—like a rose all the time– Such a darling, idle, distracted child he is .. not keeping his attention for three minutes together for the hour & a half I teach him .. & when I upbraid him for it, throwing himself upon me like a dog .. kissing my cheeks & head & hands .. “O you little pet, dive me one chance more!. I will really be dood,” .. & learning everything by magnetism .. getting on in seven weeks, for instance, to read french quite surprisingly. He has written a poem on the war & the peace, called “Soldiers going & coming” .. which Robert & I thought so remarkable, that I sent it to Mr Forster. Oh—such a darling, that child is!– I expect the wings to grow presently.
As for my poem (far below Penini’s) I work on steadily—& have put in order & transcribed five books, containing in all, above six thousand lines ready for the press. I have another book, to put together & transcribe—& then must begin the composition-part of one or two more books, I suppose. [6] I must be ready for printing, by the time we go to England in June. Robert too is much occupied with Sordello [7] —& we neither of us receive anybody till past four o’clock. I mean that when you have read my new book, you put away all my other poems or most of them, .. & know me only by the new. Oh– I am so anxious to make it good. I have put much of myself in it—I mean to say, of my soul, .. my thoughts, emotions, opinions .. in other respects, there is not a personal line, of course. It’s a sort of poetic art-novel. If it[’]s a failure, there will be the comfort of having made a worthy effort, .. of having done it as well as I could. Write soon to me & love us both constantly as we do you–
Your ever affectionate Ba.
Address: Angleterre. / Mrs Jameson / Ealing / London.
Publication: LEBB, II, 227–228 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Letters between London and Paris were charged double if they carried insufficient postage. Letters weighing under “7½ grammes … cost 40c.” (Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1856, pp. 8–9). At this time 40 centimes equalled about 4 pence.
3. This and the following paragraph refer to Mrs. Jameson’s break with Lady Byron; see letter 3735, note 7.
4. Teresa Guiccioli, Marquise de Boissy (1800–73), Byron’s last mistress.
5. Madame Triqueti’s husband is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3) at 3 Rue Blanche, closer to Montmarte than to 3 Rue du Colysée.
6. EBB would compose another three books. Aurora Leigh consists of nine books.
7. His revision; see letter 3705, note 20.
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