3759. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 172–176.
3. Rue du Colysée.
Thursday & friday. [10–11 April 1856] [1]
My ever dearest Henrietta, Arabel cries out to me that I have an ulcerated sore throat .. or must have .. or ought to have—but I cant cry back to her that I have’nt, until I have written to you. Of course my thoughts are very very full of you just now. You are on the verge of having Surtees back again .. so your thoughts are better engaged with him … and one or two [2] other little things. [3] As for me I dont believe you think of me at all except by a back stroke .. & even that is extraordinarily kind. People in the third volume of a new novel, wont look off when somebody cries ‘Bah’—will they, Henrietta? And I’m as anxious about this third volume as you are. May you be as happy as our empress, but with much less cost .. for she suffered dreadfully, poor thing,—and you will not be expected to have a scelta [4] from the gentlemen of the county round your bed, to do you as much harm as she endured. Arabel wont believe a word of any of my affidavits (which were nevertheless entirely trustworthy, & had from medical-men & attendants at the Tuileries & by no vague report) about Napoleon’s tears & refusal to eat, .. so its of no use telling her that the baby has an enormous head & a quantity of hair, & that it sleeps continually & that the Norman nurse complains of the etiquette, & of not being able to dandle & kiss it at will! Arabel wont believe a word of all this; she’ll set it down as “spiritual”. Always she keeps asking Why the spirits play only on accordions, & not on other instruments– Why, why? But they dont play only on accordions. They play on accordions, because the accordion is a cheap instrument, easily fetched & carried—also it may require a less amount of “odic force” on the part of the spirits, to move—but the truth is that various other instruments are played on .. the guitar for instance, and the piano-forte frequently. The piano-forte was played on at Florence. Nothing however is to me as conclusive & interesting as the ‘Hands’ seen writing, & leaving a real autograph. Robert & I were so excessively amused the other day by an American visitor who brought us a letter from Florence .. a raw intensely American American, who came into the room without gloves, & sate down & did the conversation in the manner of the “highest black circles.” [5] Of course we threw him on the spirit-subject, & he informed us how all Florence had been “infatuated” &c .. but … and, there, he addressed himself to me in a prepossessing manner .. “but I observe that believers in these things are usually of one-horse power” .. to the extreme amusement of Robert and Isa Blagden, who sate by listening. He thought he was saying something particularly agreeable to me of course– And as he is rather of one-ass power himself, I did’nt take the unintended affront much to heart.
Dearest Henrietta I do wish I were with you at this time– If it were summer & we in London I would leave Robert & go to you—it would be comfort to me at least. Aunt Jane has been ill I am sorry to hear, & will of course be unable to keep her half promise,—but if you have Surtees, whom else will you want? Only one might at least kiss you & talk to you a little, or keep the children out of the way. Its a delightful time of year for such an engagement & I envy you .. oh, so much! more than I can say. Penini ought to be a darling, to make up for all the children I should like to have—and really he is! That, there’s no denying. A very little naughty sometimes to show he is mortal .. & as he observed with apologetic gravity two days ago, “Even Moses and the prophets were sometimes a little naughty.” So funny that child is, so irresistibly funny– He was melancholy about something just now, and Robert said to me rather disparagingly, .. “Penini’s woes”!. Peni took him up at once .. “Yes, woes indeed!” said he,—“everybody has woes. The bible speaks of woes for everybody!—woes, and thee and thy!”—meaning that the subject of ‘woes’ and ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ were Biblical peculiarities. He reads in the bible now everyday—but what I’m proud of is his reading French. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘he wants to learn German’ .. Too soon a now for me! but I mean him to learn German presently & in time, & before he begins with Latin, (which he will have much less trouble with a few years hence), whereas the living languages are the most easily dealt with the nearer to infancy– The organs are mobile, & the ear catches sounds & the memory keeps them. Perhaps we may carry him to Germany one of these days to catch up the language. He is quite well .. as rosy as before his illness. My poor Robert has been much slower in getting over his attack which indeed, in his case, was complicated with bilious disarrangement, always very difficult to correct. Harriet too has been ill with sore throat. Of course it is infectious—& then she caught cold by taking off her neck-kerchief when she was over hot with the burning sun at the Review, [6] & afterwards getting chilled. She is a delicate girl & liable to attacks on the chest, from which nevertheless, she says, she has been peculiarly free since she came to Paris. As for me, Minny is quite right– I have caught no sore throat .. and am well otherwise—though not as strong as after an Italian winter– I drove out again the other day with Isa Blagden to the Bois de Boulogne, & came home tired. One soon takes to sprouting however when the habit of the spring air is formed. And I’m really on the right road, .. every wrong symptom which vexed me at the beginning, having ceased. I keep on with the cod-liver oil—think of that! We have this house till the fifteenth of June & then go to London—but I do hope & trust my dearest Arabel will spend the interim somewhere .. so that I may find her looking well. She might go with Bummy to the north! [7] —it would be so good for her. Much better than dull Frocester– She wants a change of social atmosphere as much as anything: Oh—its too hard that I cant have her here– I who long so for her! Too hard!—too cruel, I might really say–
I am very busy still at my poem [8] —& am in my last book .. not in the transcription but the composition. It will be ready by June—and I hear that the American publisher “has the money in his hand” for it– Seventy five pounds he proposes, [9] but it certainly ought to be more .. for some ten thousand lines. [10] You will be scandalized by certain parts, and a few things you may like perhaps– Robert is going tonight with Lady Monson to see Ristori at the Italian play. [11] He was at Dickens’s last night, & heard her much depreciated by himself [12] & Macready who is in Paris for a few days, [13] while Mrs Sartoris, Mrs Jameson & others extol her as of the highest genius. I am very curious to have Robert’s opinion on these contraries. Macready called on us, found us at dinner, & comes again. You must know that he rather likes me—Robert, of course. Monckton Milnes has gone home– He told us of his father’s refusing the peerage just now—admitting that it was a vexation to himself & observing that his wife had “borne it very well”—“most women would have made a row about it.” [14] In fact nothing can be more selfish than old Milnes’s refusal of an honour which was offered entirely on his son’s account, as he well knew. He is a very peculiar man, & chose not to be put out of his way by a new crease in his name to please his son—not he!
While I write Peni sits by me drawing a picture of Napoleon which Arabel asks for, & which we have an opportunity of sending—and I hear him say .. “Oh .. you dont know how beautiful its beginning to look now, Mama”. Peni is very susceptible to the beauty of his own works, whether poems or drawings. He had finished a drawing of Napoleon before, better as to likeness, .. but having taken a fancy to hang it up in his room, it has become so much the worse for wear, that he thinks it necessary to produce another for Arabel. I see that Altham has a mere pittance of faults, & really it is so with Peni. Perhaps his fault presently will be some excess of sentimentalism– What if he runs away with a third love, at sixteen?– I said the other day .. “Well, Penini, I hope, whatever you do, you’ll always live with Mama.” “Oh yes, dear mama, I will,—if I tan, you know.”– “How do you mean .. if you can?” “Why, if I dont die.”– “Oh Peni!—I hope it is more likely for mama to die than for you to die.” “Ah—but if you died, dearest mama, it would be worse for me than if I died”! Constantly he says things like that—unusual to a child of his age—a boy too! He has been going about asking for a locket, to put Leocadie’s hair in it. His French is a great glory to him. I called him this moment, .. “Que desirez vous, madame?” [15] he replies, with quite a Parisian accent. Robert praises his accent always, and he is particular about such things. If I were you, when Altham is a very little older I would accustom his ear to French words, & get him on in the language gently, gently. Childhood seems the time for living languages—only not for study .. let us both remember it.
Mrs Erskine [16] was here yesterday & lectured me about Peni just as I lecture you, .. and thought an hour & a half much too long for a child of his age, & quoted Sir James Clark upon it .. that at seven he should be beginning to learn his letters a few minutes a day. She was shocked at me! In my own defence I told her that he had asked me the meaning of the word “arithmetic” two days before—which did’nt look too learned .. did it? We have the orthodox april weather, rain & sun, and the trees are in a mist of green .. so forward is vegetation. It has been a very extraordinary winter certainly. Robert gives his verdict on Ristori midway between the contending parties. She has sensibility, he says, & not imagination. It’s a sort of madness, the admiration for her here. I shall wait to see her in Italy– I would rather meanwhile go to the French players, if I went anywhere– Oh Henrietta, I do hope & trust I shall have sight of you in England this year– I must. And the children! the three! I dare say Altham is as large as Peni .. as tall even. Yet Peni grows. And the pretty little Mary. This peace will piece you up with Surtees, and, as the military establishment will be cared for henceforward, I hope there will be no difference for the worse to your income. Kiss the darling for me—and tell dear Surtees with my love that I am sure he will remember to send me the good news I am hungry & thirsty for, without delay. I fear you are suffering, full of discomfort at least. Do you like your medical man, & have you a good nurse?
May God bless you & love you my dear dear dearest Henrietta. My heart is full of prayer for you.
Your attached
Ba.
Robert’s love to both of you.
Address: Angleterre. / Mrs Surtees Cook / Wilton / Taunton / Somersetshire.
Publication: Huxley, pp. 242–245 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 11 April 1856, a Friday.
2. Underscored four times.
3. Surtees returned to Taunton from Aldershot on 5 April (Surtees, 5 April 1856) in order to be with Henrietta during the birth of their third child, which event occurred on 13 April 1856.
4. “Selection.”
5. Presumably, EBB is referring to séances, which took place in darkened rooms.
7. To visit Susan Davidson and/or Lady Ridley (Bummy’s friends), whose family seats were in Northumberland.
8. i.e., Aurora Leigh.
10. Aurora Leigh would eventually come to nearly 11,000 lines in nine books. EBB was currently working on the eighth (see the second paragraph in letter 3766), which at the time she thought was her “last.”
11. Medea, an Italian translation by Giuseppe Montanelli (1813–62) of Médée by Ernest Legouvé (1807–1903), with Adelaide Ristori in the title role, opened at the Théâtre Italien on 8 April 1856.
12. Criticizing Medea in a letter to John Forster, dated 13 April 1856, Dickens writes: “In the day entertainments, and little melodrama theatres, of Italy, I have seen the same thing fifty times, only not at once so conventional and so exaggerated. The papers have all been in fits respecting the sublimity of the performance, and the genuineness of the applause” (Dickens, 8, 89).
13. William Charles Macready had arrived in Paris on 6 April and was staying in an apartment Dickens had rented for him next door to his own at 49 Avenue des Champs Élysées (see Dickens, 8, 77 and 83).
14. Robert Pemberton Milnes (1784–1858), father of Richard Monckton Milnes (1809–85), “declined the offer of a barony in 1856” (ODNB). In a letter to C.J. MacCarthy, dated 21 February 1856, Milnes wrote: “My father has just refused a hereditary peerage from Lord Palmerston, owing to a crotchet of his own importance as a Protectionist. I take it easy, but am not the less annoyed, more for my wife and children’s sake than for my own” (T. Wemyss Reid, The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton, 1890, II, 3).
15. “What do you desire, Madame?”
16. Katharine Erskine (née Stirling, 1791–1868); see letter 2982, note 15.
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