3749. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 151–155.
3. Rue du Colysée.
March 13. [1856] [1]
My ever dearest dearest Arabel I have been dribbling on, day after day, with meanings to write to you. Yesterday, & the day before, it should have been. I dont mean to countenance you in silences. They wont do between London & Paris—they become regular unkindnesses—so put that in your pipe & smoke it. I suppose I should be content with what you say of yourself, & yet I am not– I have a second sight, Arabel, & know that you want change of air. It was very hard you were not let come to me. Really it surprises me, like an after-stroke of chastisement, that you were not let come– I could’nt have supposed that it could be intended, after all these years, to interfere with our intercourse, your’s & mine– I cant suppose it even now. It strikes me that the Owens were not considered trustworthy [2] —that they might be suspected of some fraudulent converting tendency in respect to their deposit. [3] If they had siezed you & made a pillar of you, [4] nobody would have particularly liked it. Penini was overjoyed with his letter, & the frenchman inside, & his two cheeks grew very red at the allusion to Leocadie—“How tould Arabel have heard about Leocadie”? That sentiment goes on with equal ardour, & it[’]s excellent in its influence on the French. What surprises me is that Peni is’nt in the least shy about talking French, & how ingeniously & boldly he puts his knowledge into his experience, would amuse you to observe. He gets out quite long sentences .. with plenty of faults of course. I heard him saying yesterday .. ‘je serai revenir’, for ‘je reviendrai’ [5] … but still he gets on, & these things will correct themselves. He read a page of Berquin [6] to me this morning, really very well, both in the reading & translating. I think his progress is quite astonishing, considering the time—for during our first two months at the Rue de Grenelle, he never heard a french word scarcely, nor attempted to learn anything. His eagerness about it is great, & his emulation of Harriet, sometimes too vehement. Yesterday, because she had read a few lines beyond him, he was almost in a passion .. as near a passion as he ever is .. he siezed the book with flashing eyes—‘No, I wont have it, I wont have it!’ ‘Indeed,’ said I, ‘you must. You cant be so ungenerous as to keep back Harriet, nor shall I be so unjust as to allow it. So if you dont give me the book, I shall have to speak to Papa when he comes in—’ He threw the book down at his feet on the floor. ‘Tate it’ said he vehemently. “But I do wish all women were out of the world except Mrs Browning!” Poor Peni—he would’nt wish me out of the world, even in his passion! & though I was opposing him at the moment. But he thought it sublime to say “Mrs Browning.” Harriet read what she had to read, & then he insisted on adding to what he had read before that morning, in order to keep up with her—which of course I could not refuse. Presently in he came with his hat on, for the usual kiss preparatory to going out. “Are you good,” said I. ‘Yes’—said he, ‘I’m more good. I’m only a little angry now—but really I did feel intlined to tate away that boot, and teep it for weets & weets. I tan not let Harriet det before me in French.” — Peni is very funny with his new learning in Peter Parley [7] & geography. If anyone mentions .. Piedmont for instance. [‘]‘I know where Piedmont is.” Or Cuba—“I know where Tuba is.” And I heard him (with fresh recollections of the mythologies) observing in a complimentary mood to Harriet .. “Really, Harriet, you are tuite the dod (god) of naughtiness– You’re lite the old Egyptians who ....” In what way she was like the old Egyptians remains unknown, for she interrupted him by retorting that he was like a naughty boy– Poor Peni– You are not to think he has grown naughty & pert. On the contrary. My own opinion is, & Robert’s too, that the child grows sweeter & sweeter. His lovingness & perfection of disposition become developped as the days go on. “I wonder”, said he, the other day to me, “if I were to tiss you for a month, if it would not mate me dood for a year– I sint it would.” Then he’s so much more disinterested than entered into his baby-nature——its perilous work to get him to take his right quantity of wine, or tartlets, or anything of the sort, while he has the faintest suspicion that there is not a superfluity left for Papa .. or Ferdinando. “No, I leally tant. Pray dont ast me.” He is going to write to you directly—but a brief delay is necessary because of some verses on Mr Leighton’s new picture, which he is to write out for the artist’s mother. [8] The picture is just finished .. the subject, Orpheus winning back Eurydice from Pluto [9] .. and Robert took Penini to see it—& Penini made a poem on the occasion which has been enquired for. [10] Peni’s poems are excessively admired in Paris, I assure you. He made one for little May Sartoris on her birthday, which May (eleven years old) learnt by heart & goes about repeating—besides a magnificent ode on the war which has had its due renown. He said he had a very happy birthday—he had his squirrel & a box of tools, & a box of kitchen utensils, and a cannon, and a nosegay of violets, and a tricolor flag with an eagle .. which he carried off instantly to perambulate at the Tuilleries gardens. He observed to me that “leally he was enchanted with that flag.” Then, for the first time in his life, a holiday was accorded. I dont like holidays for him—because the amount of lessons is so small—but he wanted one & got it– The next day he said he “had still the delight of his birthday.” But today Robert & I were informed gravely that “the gladness of his toys was bedinning to go off.” Of course it is literally so.
Well—I have told you enough about Penini—and I shall only be able to use this sheet, I suppose– (You wont answer my questions– Therefore Robert is probably right in supposing that you have paid double for every one of my letters.) I must send you Alfred’s letter just received .. because it is so pleasant. Oh—if he were but clear. I am much afraid he will suffer from the peace—& so will Surtees .. will he not? Perhaps the latter will not however—for there will be a press in favour of no negligence in respect to military organization for some time.– [11] I am quite sick with what Robert has told me of the review in the Athenæum, of that stupid, wretched Biographical dictionary [12] which shd not have been noticed in any respectable Journal. But the Athenæum ceases to be a respectable journal—it is quite intolerable. The misrepresentations, the absolute lies about French affairs, [13] sting our friends here to the quick. The paper has got hold of some English correspondent who is seduced & poisoned by certain paltry ‘salons’ of the St Germain quarter– It’s discreditable to the Athenæum in all ways. As to Robert, of course there’s nothing but mistakes .. even his works misnamed!– [14] There should be penalties for such meddling with private life with dirty hands—— I was writing this letter in the evening while Robert was away at the magnetism séances, & here he comes in (this second week) not having been able to force admission on account of the crowd. He saw Dupotet afterwards, who was ‘very sorry’ but “had’nt it in his power to arrange it otherwise”– Robert & his friends “must go another wednesday.” Robert says he wont, whatever his friends may do. He’s easily daunted in such matters, and it is not destined for me to have other than a sceptical husband. I had told him I expected to have him prostrate before me in an attitude of repentance & conversion—but no, it cant be. A hundred persons were sent away from Dupotet’s rooms—yet people pay there, a franc a head. Lytton comes to us oftener than he did, not having, I suppose, such a squeeze of parties in Lent—and Isa Blagden too is often here in the evening. “What next,” do you say, about the petition to parliament? [15] Yes, I was asked to give my name, & did’nt answer like Miss Strictland [sic], that, “the sufferings of women being the consequence of Eve’s transgression, she wd take no step to mitigate them.” [16] Did you read what the prayer of the petition is confined to, & do you mean to say you disapprove? Why, even Sarianna who is rococo about such things, could see no objection, when I asked her. The evil presses chiefly on the lower-class women, whose poor gains are commonly distracted into the gin-shops by drunken husbands away from starving children. And observe, this evil is properly English. And Why should Englishwomen suffer peculiarly from Eve’s transgression? I should like to hear that from Miss Strictland. It was foolish to publish those names in the Examiner, [17] & I have said so—names without either distinction (in some cases) or number to give them force. But these things are always ill-managed. There are many signatures. I have finished my sixth book, & am now in the composition-part. I was anxious about the sixth book & Robert,—as the situation is rather hasardè [18] —“What next?” will you say, Arabel? But he was delighted with it & did’nt set it down as too indecent. He keeps saying .. “Out & out superior to anything you have done.” I myself (now I am out of my panic) am inclined to think so too. There is more power & variety than in my previous things. At the same time there is much provocation to attacks– I am perfectly aware of that also. Enter Penini .. “Dear mama, I leally am ashamed to ask you—but may I have Leotadie adain today?” Yes—she may come. He’s of opinion that she “tourages” him (encourages) in French. I am anxious about dearest Henrietta. She should have some one with her indeed—but I cant think it will be befor<e> April. She wrote me a very pleasant letter, dear thing<–> How unfortunate that now, of all times, Surtees shd be absent. [19] The Owens are returned– I heard from Mary Hunter. Angela was ill with change of place & manners! I do wonder how such persons bear the change to the spiritual world .. <don’t> you? Swedenborg says it does make some spirits uncomfortable at first. [20] Is Bummy with you? My best love, if she is– Tell me of Papa. Tell me of yourself—dearest! And how is Trippy? May God bless you all as I love you. Write to me Arabel– It’s snowing today to our great surprise, for it has not been cold. Your own own Ba.
Address: Angleterre– / Miss Barrett / 50 Wimpole Street / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 216–220.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. For accompanying Arabella to Paris; see the third paragraph in letter 3736.
3. Henry John Owen was a minister in the Catholic Apostolic Church.
4. Cf. Revelation 3:12.
5. “‘I will be to return’,” for “‘I will return.’”
6. Arnaud Berquin (1747–91), one of the first children’s authors in France. He was popularly known for his L’Ami des enfants (1782–83), issued in twenty-four monthly numbers, which continued to be a bestseller in the nineteenth century.
7. Pseudonym of Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793–1860), American publisher, who wrote or edited well over a hundred educational children’s books, beginning with The Tales of Peter Parley about America (Boston, 1827). Pen had been reading Peter Parley’s Universal History on the Basis of Geography (see letter 3705, note 14).
8. Augusta Susan Leighton (née Nash, 1804–65).
10. The verses were entitled “The Poem of the Picture of Mr. Leighton,” a 2½ page manuscript, dated “Paris, March 1856” (see Reconstruction, L56).
11. EBB alludes to the British mismanagement of the Crimean War (see letter 3514, note 4).
12. A review of Men of the Time. Biographical Sketches of Eminent Living Characters … Also Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Women of the Time (1856) appeared in The Athenæum of 8 March 1856 (no. 1480, pp. 293–295). The reviewer (identified as William Hepworth Dixon in the marked file copy of The Athenæum, now at City University, London) begins by admitting the book is “a vast improvement on the first edition” but thinks it “far from perfect” for three reasons: its anonymity, its reliance on opinion rather than facts, and the lack of proportion in the length of the sketches (p. 293). The rest of the review consists primarily of three extracts, from sketches of RB, Carlyle, and Douglas Jerrold. Although not mentioned in the review, the volume contains a lengthy sketch of EBB (pp. 815–817), mostly lifted from Miss Mitford’s Recollections of a Literary Life (see letter 2993, note 4).
14. The Athenæum reviewer, W.H. Dixon, extracted RB’s biographical sketch in its entirety, including the mistakes, among which were “King Viator [sic, for Victor] and King Charles,” “The Soul Errand” (sic, for A Soul’s Tragedy), and an incorrect publication date for Paracelsus. Dixon called the sketch a “meagre account” with “not one opinion in which we can agree” but failed to recognize the blunders. Instead, he added one of his own by mentioning a performance of “‘The Duchess of Cleves,’ at the Haymarket, with Miss Cushman as the heroine” (p. 294). The play was in fact Colombe’s Birthday (though Colombe is the Duchess of Juliers and Cleves) with Helena Faucit Martin in the title role (see letter 3162).
16. Agnes Strickland (1796–1874), author of Lives of the Queens of England (1840–48). “Agnes declined to allow her name to be used in this way. In explaining her position she said that ‘the grievances, though founded in fact,’ appear to her ‘irremediable by human means being part and parcel of the penalties entailed by Eve’s transgression.’ She sees no way of helping to right the injustice, but ‘to ask God to regenerate the hearts of wicked men.’ Therefore she must excuse herself and ‘leave the matter in the hands of our heavenly father’” (Una Pope-Hennessy, Agnes Strickland, Biographer of the Queens of England, 1796–1874, 1940, p. 243).
18. “Risky,” or “indiscreet.” In the Sixth Book of Aurora Leigh (lines 1167–1274), Marian Erle tells the story of her rape in a brothel and her subsequent despair.
19. Henrietta was eight months’ pregnant, and Surtees was away with his regiment at Aldershot.
20. According to Emanuel Swedenborg, “man, when he becomes a spirit, knows no other than that he is in his own body which he had in the world, and hence he knows not that he is deceased” (A Treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell, 1823, section 461, p. 319).
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