3782. Adelaide Sartoris to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 217–218.
[London]
Sunday– [11 May 1856] [1]
Thank you again & again my dear friend for having written to me– I was very sure he would not misbehave under his discomfiture, but I liked to hear you say it, & to feel that you knew how good & loveable he is– I was so pleased that he went to find you immediately upon his failure– [2] Your wife I am sure welcomed him– She likes people to come to her in trouble—do you remember how good you both were to me when Mme Martini did not hang herself? [3] I am very anxious that Leighton should (like Millais) send several pictures to next year’s exhibition– I would like him to send his syren, [4] & some of his seasons [5] —he need not appeal to one’s Crimean sympathies as Millais has [6] (rather a low kind of appeal that I think for a great artist) but he must clothe his creatures for everything that is naked is immediately qualified as “nasty” by the English ladies at present & his next pictures must not only be admired, but sold– Such a dear letter from little Hatty! I felt myself all the wretch I am for not having written sooner, but will amend my ways forthwith– May looks very bad—but oh, London looks worse! Such a boiling black bustle! bubble bubble toil & trouble! [7] When are you coming? & is it not too bad to wish you here? I do though, in spite of all Christian virtue & “do as you’d be done by”– [8] You tell me nothing of yourself, your wife or child– My loving Leighton does not prevent my caring for some other people in the world? Can I do anything, when the time comes, to be of any use to Mrs Browning in the way of lodging-hunting? it would make me very happy to think I was preparing for your coming—the only pleasure I have is in my house here which I have gradually made pretty by small economies [9] —so that each table or cabinet has been in its time a small event. I have not been at all gay, as the melancholy ceremony of going out is called– Fanny sails for America on the 17th & I chiefly run after her & get such minutes as her multitude of affairs permits– My husband is very happy here for the present—he is pleased with all his substantial comforts & very happy in the beauty of the women. Which is indeed pleasant to behold—the ideas of French people with regard to beauty I think are very like their ideas of virtue in women—one does not mind their vicious people or their ugly ones—one gets so used to both—but one can’t help feeling indignant at what they call beautiful & good– God bless you—give my love to your wife—do you know how very affectionately yrs I am?
Adelaide Sartoris
Harness says there are some letters of Miss Mitford’s that you ought to have sent him & have not. [10]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Date suggested by Mrs. Sartoris’s reference to Leighton’s “failure” at the Royal Academy exhibition and to Fanny Kemble’s sailing “for America on the 17th.” The preceding Sunday in May was the 11th.
2. Mrs. Sartoris refers to the negative critical reception of Frederic Leighton’s picture, “The Triumph of Music,” in the Royal Academy exhibition; see letter 3779, note 2.
3. Unidentified.
5. Unidentified.
6. In his “Peace Concluded,” which depicts a British officer, evidently recovering from a wound, lying on a sofa, surrounded by his family.
7. Cf. Macbeth, IV, l, 10–11.
8. Cf. Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to His Son (Dublin, 1774), I, Letter XCVII, 220.
9. The Sartorises’ London address at this time was 99 Eaton Place, Belgravia.
10. The previous summer William Harness had sent EBB a “basketful of letters” she had written to Miss Mitford in exchange for a selection of the letters from Miss Mitford to EBB (see letter 3592). EBB faced the task with reluctance, and she procrastinated until shortly before returning to Italy in October 1856.
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