3755. EBB & RB to Harriet G. Hosmer
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 161–165.
| [In RB’s hand] | Paris, 3 Rue du Colisée, |
March 27. ’56.
Dearest Hatty– Here is going to be another great break & long silence between us three, if we two don’t take care. I should like to write to-day & I will. We got your duck of a note duly about six weeks ago—then news of you from Isa, then a little more news from the same, and now it’s time for a cupful of water from the spring-head. We were vexed about that Isa, that she could not contrive somehow, manage in some way that capital little Roman scheme, which you proposed: but her heart was all of a tremble about Spanish plans & Florentine projects: do try her again, for the commotion has subsided in many respects: she at last gives way to our wise schooling and renounces that foolish & indeed dangerous journey to Madrid—for which we promise her a knee that will work without pulleys from the bed-top, and other delights which she was bringing on herself. She now means to go straight to Florence, there set up a villa, and thence,—what better can she do than go to Rome in the winter as we hope to do? If your schemes have worked themselves any clearer, therefore, try these on her, I advise again! She is quite her old self now, able to see & be seen, go to pleasant plays & so on, & all this she would have jeopardized for just no good at all. Now, what shall I tell you of Mrs Sartoris?—this week’s state of her mind,—which is pretty likely to differ altogether from next week’s, as I conjecture from past experience. First then, She means He—he won’t go to Rome, but will settle here,—take a house & furnish: that will lead naturally to his getting tired of furniture & house, and beginning his travels again. What they do, Leighton will do,—but we others have had enough of civilization and want the Campagna. Not but that the weather has been, and is, while I write, very nearly Italian—mild at worst, and sunny & surprising very often: tho’ I have kept the house these three weeks, thro’ a bilious fit that got the better of me. Pray, Hatty, what shall you do in the summer that’s coming so fast? Any chance of your going to Paris or London this year,—as we hoped about, last year? We shall stay still [till] the end of June, then be in London till Autumn, & then, one fine November morning, somebody will jump up the little stairs three at a time, do a deal of damage to some plaster-casts on the way, & then, having first put on his glove, request permission to touch the tips of your fingers. Meanwhile there’s a good deal to do however. I told you, Ba had felt the cold sadly in those abominable rooms we got shut on us for our sins: since our removing to this place, all that was wrong seems set right again, and she has worked like a spirit at her poem. I have read the first six books,—all transcribed & corrected in two months—Lord I don’t dare say, in cold words, what I cannot help thinking of them,—while warm words are not proper, you know: at all events, the poem is quite new and unlike anything she has hitherto done: two more books are growing to comp[l]etion by daily work to the amount of something like thirty or forty lines. When all’s done, it’s to print in London, print in America simultaneously, put out of the nest and set flying & earning its own livelihood, and then, off to something else, somewhere else—that’s the way of we noble poets whether in words or lines, poetry or plaster, isn’t it? I’ll tell you too about myself that your people have been very kind & indulgent to my own things, & that there is great success for the bookseller, if I may believe reports—which bookseller has my best wishes, having behaved capitally. [1] I can hear nothing certain about Page’s pictures,—as to their completion & destination,—you know, he meant to send the Venus & another work to London, [2] —did he not? Are they gone? Nothing sent in after the first monday in April—i.e, Apr. 7. will be admitted. I have given the proper orders about sending the Portrait—and can only trust that they will put it in a good place—my wife wrote a letter to an influential personage (hem!)—whose name &c it is not necessary to particularise (hem, hem!) [3] —not, of course, demeaning herself crookedly, but honestly calling attention to what might miss <its> due attention in the throng of the thousands—and the result is particularly satisfactory—we are told the Academy always strains a point to do homage to the work of a stranger—that Mr Page’s work can have nothing to fear &c &c[.] [4] All we can do, & so little, is done,—& I hope & believe that the portrait will do the rest for itself. There will be a portrait of Dickens exhibited by Ary Scheffer. [5] Leighton’s Picture is done, [6] and expedited,—& he waits the result with anxiety enough. So do we all: there is great merit in it, the expressions are true, the composition simple, the background good, and the whole one consistent anachronism,—a purely modern picture, without a touch of the antique real, or antique conventional: the modern violin is no more a surprise than the modern faces & figures. But I breathe into your ear that I doubt whether folks won’t cry out for more than this truth of expression and ask for the poetry of this grand old subject,—God Pluto, Goddess Proserpine, Half-God Orpheus, & half-human Euridice. I like Leighton so much more, now that I know him more,—and indeed he is improved visibly in many little points of youthful shortcoming, that I am very likely to be over sensitive as to his deficiencies here—so may it be! I write all this, I know to whom,—and will bode no more evil. He certainly has not finished the details as completely as I expected: there is evidence of great study in portions, no doubt: the knee of Orpheus could hardly be better modelled; and his arm (right arm) is coloured, with the drapery, to heart[’]s content: but the careless part seems to me in the figure of the Proserpine (right arm, good though) and her drapery (from the waist down)—not effective in colour or foldings: observe, all the faces are capitally true, and if you will take the four heads in a line,—& arms too, if you please,—for the picture, you get a striking one,—all the more if you write under it “The Minstrel so & so, endeavouring to procure from the Duke & Duchess of so & so, the liberation of his love, got somehow into trouble, & considerably out of health.” Leighton has been drawing deliciously—he may make admirable pictures out of some ten or fifteen that lie there: and he is finishing a couple of half life-size, charming pictures: the “Pan” I told you of—a fine fellow treating himself to figs; while he has grapes and gourds about his feet, down in a dell, with blue Italian scenery over his head,—a finished study from the miracle of a model he has got,—but properly idealized: the other is the Venus, [7] which,—save that one hip is exaggerated in the action, I think,—will come out well too in the end. There’s a Diver, or Fisher, pulled down by a syren, which is exquisite in the sketch. [8] So now let’s all wish him what’s best for him.
I am much interested by accounts I get from Rome from time to time of Mr Gibson’s Pandora. [9] Tell us all about it, you Hatty: and tell us exactly how your own statue progresses, [10] —and what else you have done, or think to do. What is this we were amazed with about Theatricals? I’ll engage you played famously. Don’t I envy Lyons, [11] now,—who is here, till Lord Clarendon [12] can find time to start him off, & then he’ll be in the very Rome; he called here two days ago, and spent an evening last week with Mrs Sartoris & Leighton,—was not that like an old thing come about again! Aidé is here every now & then,—well, as is his mother, & mindful of you. Do you ever hear from Virginia Vaughan? We don’t. Next tell me a matter: do you happen to know or to have seen a young lady with a mother to her, called “Iremonger,” [13] an Australian bent on studying painting in Rome,—who made a memorable transit thro’ this place at the end of last year,—memorable, I mean, for her enthusiasm and wild ways? She had a letter for Mr Gibson, she said—how has it all turned out? Now I shall leave off & make Ba do the rest– I generally push her into a mere corner, & you don’t thank me for that. I ought to have put more interest in this quantity of writing, that’s certain: but writing’s a bad business at the best. Will you please to answer this at once,—not leaving out one particularity about yourself—your health especially—in short, be so good as to Shaggy-Abby-ize [14] for our profit and delight. Your early Easter-season, that’s over, will leave you leisure, won’t it? We are in a crowd here, diplomates and great people are like blackberries, and next week you shall see what you shall see: but not one word more lest I break irresistibly in upon the Baby [15] and the lace wrappings and you go mad that you can’t see them. Goodbye, dearest Hatty, with the loving embrace of
<Robert Browning> [16]
[Continued by EBB]
What am I to say after Robert? He will have emptied Paris of all the news you will care to hear. Dearest Hatty .. let me say at least that we want both of us to have news from you. Write, dear, & make us glad. Here’s my plan for you—after Robert’s. Come to the north this summer & spend it with us in England—& then let us all travel south and to Rome in the autumn. Then, too, we shall be able to plot & secure Isa– You know I am against all schemes for settling her in Rome, because any continuance in that place would be bad for her I feel obstinately sure—but she might go for a winter, & would perhaps, .. if we all together took to pulling & hauling her. “A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together” [17] ——yo ho!—— Lend a hand, Hatty. And now that I’m a sailor I feel inclined to a fit of swearing against Robert’s paper– Did ever man in his senses & with any degree of conjugal consideration select such paper?– D .... etestable!
With Clichy [18] on one side, the diligences on the other and a sprinkling of brigands up & down, we have persuaded Isa against Madrid finally. Now its your turn– Try for Rome–
Give my love to Mr Page when you see him– We have launched the picture on the London Academy, and I do trust the good winds will take it– I long for the Venus– Is it finished? & if so, why does’nt he send it– Shant we see works on works of your own, dear Hatty, when we come to Rome & catch you? Really we are planning for Rome next winter. Do you think of London meantime for the love of us–
Penini is reading French & talking it, & not forgetting his Italian. He’s as great a darling as ever in my mind–
Your ever affectionate
EBB–
Our best regards to Mr Gibson–
Address, in EBB’s hand: Etats Pontificaux. / Miss Hosmer / Messrs Pakenham & Hooker. / Piazza di Spagna / Roma.
Publication: Harriet Hosmer, Letters and Memories, ed. Cornelia Carr (New York, 1912), pp. 63–69.
Manuscript: Radcliffe Institute.
1. RB refers to James T. Fields of Ticknor and Fields, publisher of the American edition of Men and Women.
2. According to Page’s biographer, his “Venus” was not “completed in time to send to London for the spring exhibition … and the painting was still in Rome in April when Lowell paid a visit to Italy from Germany” (Joshua C. Taylor, William Page: The American Titian, Chicago, 1957, p. 144). The painting was eventually purchased for the Boston Athenaeum.
4. William Page’s portrait of RB was rejected by the Royal Academy.
5. Scheffer began the portrait in November 1855, and Dickens probably last sat for it on 19 January 1856 (see Dickens, 8, 33). But by late March, the artist “was not satisfied with the likeness after all, and thought he must do more to it” (8, 79). The picture was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition in May. It is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
8. Leighton’s “The Fisherman and the Syren” (1858) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1858.
10. “Beatrice Cenci”; see letter 3717, note 13.
11. Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons (1817–87); see letter 3378, note 20.
12. George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon (1800–70), eldest son of George Villiers and his wife, Theresa (née Parker), succeeded to the earldom in 1838 on the death of his uncle, John Charles Villiers. Lord Clarendon was foreign secretary from 1852 to 1858. He was in Paris representing England at the peace conference that would officially end the Crimean War on 30 March 1856.
13. Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside (1831–67), Australian artist, later known by her initials as “AESI,” was the daughter of James Ironside, of Sydney, and his wife, Martha Rebecca (née Redman, 1814–69). She and her mother travelled to England in 1855 and evidently stopped in Paris on their way to Rome, where they arrived in January 1856 (Australian Dictionary of Biography). The Brownings met AESI the following year in Florence.
14. RB plays on Harriet Hosmer’s remark about “Shaggy Abbys” in letter 3717.
15. i.e., the Prince Imperial (see letter 3752, note 2).
16. RB’s signature at the bottom of the page has been excised, but Miss Hosmer has written “Robert Browning” in its place.
17. Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful (1834), chap. 12.
18. EBB refers to the debtors’ prison at 70 Rue de Clichy.
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