3768. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 188–192.
3 Rue du Colysée.
April 22. [1856] [1]
Dearest beloved Arabel I wrote you a mad half letter a few days since, having been frightened out of my wits by hearing of the birth at Taunton first from the Times [2] —then, on Surtees’s letter coming to hand (which had been wandering about Paris for a week) I abolished mine to you .. & so you hear later. Now I am fearing that you may think it too late– You see I had relied on Henrietta’s passing my letter on to you & on your hearing instantly, that way, that I had not an ulcerated sore-throat, nor was about to have one! But she being taken ill just at the time, of course, you heard nothing of me– I do hope & trust you have been too busy thinking of the new baby, to be vexed at my not writing. Otherwise I must have seemed unkind. What a blessing, this new blessing at Taunton! I wrote to Surtees the moment I had his announcement, & rely on having an account of Henrietta before he leaves her. What a great blessing to her, that, just in that particular parenthesis of his visit to Taunton, the confinement took place! If she frets when he goes away on the twenty fourth, she deserves the new punishment for wife-beating [3] —it will be too bad. He gets home—<he holds the candle to the baby’s entering> [4] —what can be completer? Now he goes back to Aldershott—& presently he’ll take rooms in London for Henrietta & company, so as to be near her husband’s regiment … & Arabel & me. There’s the consummation of all. Meantime, you, darling Arabel, will go with Bummy to Mrs Davidson or Ridley Hall [5] or anywhere else where you can get in– Dear, you must, in love to me. The change is necessary for you I am quite sure—and, as for me, remember .. that I shall not be in London till the sixteenth of June—(we cant—we have this house till the fifteenth) & that when I come, I must see you well, or I shall do as ill, or worse, as I did last year under the Hume regime, which was wretchedly as you very well know. At present Robert & I are the most united of friends & lovers– I said to him the other day in a gush of gratitude .. “If truth were not truth & I could disbelieve what I believe, I would give up the spirits for you & set them down as mere bosh.” And he answered—“If you could, I should not like it. I like you best as you are, & believing as you believe.” So this is “dwelling together in unity” [6] —is’nt it? At the same time he’s as far from the truth as ever, I lament to say in certain respects .. only one can hear oneself speak, & various other advantages– Oh—this dearest Robert—he has not, I assure you, thrown off his illness quickly—in part, I think, because he could’nt be persuaded to take blue pill [7] enough, & exercise enough. Now he is pretty well however, & has got over a torment of toothache which was very disagreeable. Peni is radiant– And I have been out walking once .. not within the last few days however, when a north-east wind has drawn a razor along the sunshine– The day I went out on was warm bright summery weather—and I crept up the Champs Elysées, & sate on the bench & looked at the people, & was horribly tired afterwards. Of course I am the weaker for my winter—but it’s past—& Robert swore to me today he never saw me looking so well in his life—(Use your scepticism in the right place, Arabel! & dont keep it wholly for the imperial baby, & the rapping spirits.) Really however I am very well, & pass the day without cough. Work goes on indefatigably. I am in the last book of my poem, gathering together the reins before I draw up. We had a letter from Chapman two days since, which was satisfactory to both of us .. but pleased Robert far the most .. to say that he must have a fourth edition of my poems out instantly .. a new edition too of ‘Casa Guidi’ .. & proposing to make three volumes of the whole, together with any new fugitive poems I might have by me—pressing on us, too, an enquiry after my novel-poem .. as “something striking was wanted in the market just now.” Of course it will be desireable to attend to the recommendation at once, & we are to have the proofs of the poems sent over to us. To bring out this new edition in the summer will be well, before the publication in the autumn of my long new poem, that one may not interfere with another; & I have ‘ballads’ &c hitherto unpublished [8] which will give something of a fresh feature to the reprint, and make up the third volume. Mr Ruskin has not sent us his new volume, but I hear that Robert is mentioned in it with a very glowing compliment [9] .. which is better than sending us the book. Among other things, it is said that Robert is “always right in matters of mediæval art,” & that thirty lines of a poem of his contains the substance of thirty pages of Ruskin’s writing on the same subject .. Robert being admitted to be the precursor of Ruskin. Ros[s]etti copied us out some extracts.
Some of our friends are floating away .. Mrs Sartoris, for instance, & Lady Monson .. & the Aidés. By the bye Penini has sent you by them what he calls “his own Napoleon,” [10] —a great work which you will perfectly appreciate, & two poems. The first Napoleon was somewhat injured by keeping, so he insisted on doing you another .. better in certain respects, if a shade less happy as a likeness. I ‘mounted’ it .. I’m rather conceited of the mounting .. just as Peni is of the drawing—& he stood by me in absolute ecstasy to see his work so glorified,—the sole drawback to his gratified ambition being that Mrs Aidé could’nt see it through the brown paper of the parcel .. “What a pity, dear Mama!”—Mrs Aidé carries it to London. He has told people ever since, the Sandfords & others, that he has “done a most beautiful drawing of Napoleon,” with “two blat lines all round it” for his “aunt Arabel in London”——from whom, by the way, he expects a proportionate quantity of gratitude. —So look to it, Arabel.
Dear, what do you say to the Leigh & Gordon marriage? [11] Of course, you have seen it in the newspaper .. Mrs Gordon & Mr Leigh .. in Switzerland? Nothing can be worse to my mind, considering the creed & profession of Mrs Gordon at least. Here is the meaning of her insisting on getting away from Florence, where under Sophia’s eyes it would have been more hard to arrange. For Sophia will be profoundly hurt at it—of that I am sure. I remember now hearing a rumour at Florence, which at the moment I would’nt tolerate as a possible thing—& now I seem to understand why she would’nt believe in Sophia’s spirit-experiences under Hume– Oh, that struck Robert as soon as he had heard of the marriage! It was convenient to keep off the poor spirits as much as possible. A second marriage after such love! & a marriage with her brother in law who had loved her sister, as he did! & she a Swedenborgian, .. believing in the eternal validity of marriage & the consciousness of disembodied spirits! it is monstrous. It crowns her conduct to Trippy with a triple tiara! [12] With grown up daughters & a son, too! [13] Everything against her changing her position!
The Sandfords are come & settled near us. You know the end of Mr Sandford’s London house .. after spending fourteen hundred pounds in furnishing, & living in it barely a winter? He leaves it, under oath never to spend another in London, & carries off his daughters to recommence their wandering life. They are trying to persuade him to remain here, & to take an apartment for a year, in hopes it will tie him. As if anything could! As if he had’nt a mole on his foot, & the prophecy ran not that he must have no rest to the sole of it accordingly! [14] I tell Jane that I shall push him towards Rome for next winter,—but she says he hates Italy. The more reason for going there in six months, say I. As it is, directly I mention it to him .. “Really,” he admits, “I should like it very much.”!
I think I told you that Lytton was gone .. removed to the Hague as paid attaché– Think of the Hague after Paris– We have most affectionate & melancholy letters from him .. and he means to try to give us the meeting in London this summer. Robert told him he really must, for that we meant to go to Knebworth–! I wonder if we shall– By no manner of probability, I dare say.
I am very anxious & fearful about the conferences. I mean, about Italian affairs. Napoleon did what he could, & England was not slow to help .. but I much fear that they could do nothing with “questa bestia d’Austria.” [15] We shall see however .. only the rumours are disheartening. [16] The Austrian representative [17] went away much irritated—but where’s the comfort, if he gained his point? The most iniquitous of powers is that Austrian government.
The Athenæum is mendacious beyond one’s patience. Berenger wrote no verses, for instance, & the poem is a forgery, which passes under his name. [18] Why the Athenæum has taken it into its head to be political, it’s hard to say—the metier is peculiarly unsuitable–
Isa Blagden is still here, threatening every week to leave us for Florence. Mr Cartwright, our all but next door neighbour, [19] knows the Polish count with whom Hume is travelling [20] —he is rich & of one of the best families in Poland. I dont think Arabel, that we are likely to catch up the medium when his present patron has done with him .. (unless it be by the nape of the neck.—) in spite of the advantage to Peni!! As the mediumship is said to have passed from him, he is no more interesting to me than to Robert, observe. —Our authority about the Imperial baby is an intercourse which Sarianna has with a woman engaged at the Tuiléries every alternate fortnight in the nursery. The child was much bruised about the face by the accidents of his birth, but is a strong healthy child, & grows “like a mushroom”. They held him up at the window to see the “national guard” & he would insist on taking no notice. Is dear Bummy with you? If so give her my tender love. Tell me, Arabel, if you hear anything of the Jagos– Nelly does not write, & I am fearing lest Mr Jago may be less well than usual. Best love to Trippy– She seems to be very well. May God bless you, dearest dearest. Write at once, & fully of yourself—& mind you go from London somewhere. Say how Papa is. Robert[’]s love with mine to all the dears.
Your own Ba
I hope you will see the exhibition at once & find out where they have put Robert’s picture. Lady Eastlake promised me her influence in the matter. I want to know how you like it– Also about Leighton’s picture .. which must fail I cant help thinking from the descriptions– [21] Millais has several pictures—& he wont fail!– [22]
Address: Angleterre– / Miss Barrett / 50. Wimpole Street / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 225–230.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. The Times of 18 April 1856 carried an announcement of the birth of Edward Altham Cook (1856–1943), Surtees and Henrietta’s third child and second son: “On the 13th inst., at Wilton, Taunton.”
3. i.e., flogging. In March 1856 the Aggravated Assaults Bill was introduced in the House of Commons by Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn (1814–92), M.P. for Swansea. The bill proposed modifying the current law protecting women and children from violent assaults by reducing the maximum term of imprisonment but adding mandatory corporal punishment in the form of flogging. Before the bill’s second reading on 7 May, it was voted down (see The Daily News, 8 May 1856, p. 3).
4. The passage in angle brackets is reconstructed, having been obliterated after receipt, probably by Arabella.
5. Susan Davidson’s family seat was Ridley Hall (see letter 2968, note 6). In mentioning Ridley Hall, EBB probably has in mind Lady Ridley, whose family seats were also in Northumberland (see letter 3788, note 2).
6. Cf. Psalm 133:1.
7. A purgative consisting of mercury, confection of red rose, licorice powder, and gum mucilage (The Pill Book, by a Retired Druggist, 1853, p. 108).
8. Probably the “novelties” mentioned by RB in letter 3766 (see note 2). Poems (1856) included only three “hitherto unpublished” poems: “A Denial,” “Proof and Disproof,” and “Question and Answer.” All three were written before her marriage and are found in the same manuscript notebook that contains Sonnets from the Portuguese (see Reconstruction, D875). Echoes of that work can be seen in the three poems (see The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. Sandra Donaldson et al., 2010, 2, 411–420).
10. This drawing has not been traced.
11. Caroline Augusta Gordon (née Tulk, 1815–81), the widow of John Gordon (1810–49), was married on 14 April 1856 at Neufchatel to James Peard Ley (1807–85), whose late wife, Louisa Susanna Ley (née Tulk, 1819–48), was Mrs. Gordon’s sister. The marriage was announced in The Times of 19 April 1856.
13. Mrs. Gordon’s four daughters (see letter 2813, note 15) were unmarried at this time. There were two sons: Charles Edward (1835–1911) and John Hart (1842–1918). EBB is probably thinking of the younger son.
14. Cf. Genesis 8:9.
15. “This beast Austria.”
17. Karl Ferdinand von Buol-Schauenstein (1797–1865), prime minister and foreign minister of Austria from 1852 to 1859.
19. According to Leonée and Richard Ormond, Cartwright was staying at 5 Rue Roquepine (see Lord Leighton, New Haven, Conn., 1975, p. 36), a short walk from the Brownings’ apartment.
20. Alexander Branicki (1821–77).
22. Millais had five entries for the 1856 Royal Academy exhibition: “Autumn Leaves,” “L’Enfant du Regiment,” “Peace Concluded,” “The Blind Girl,” and “The Portrait of a Gentleman.”
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