3797. EBB to Henrietta Cook

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 232–236.

3 Rue du Colysée.

June 12. [1856] [1]

My beloved Henrietta, If I could sit in a veil & write, I would, for I am ashamed. The very day after the arrival of your last letter, Penini addressed the enclosed poem to Altham, [2] which has been waiting ever since for me. Dearest Henrietta, you cant think how I am backed into a corner by all this quantity of business, & how hard it is to stand clear & not tired, so as to be able to write letters at ease. So one puts off & puts off– If I had written whenever I thought of you, you would have been overworked in reading. This poem not done yet! & a new edition of the other poems in the press, .. with corrections to be attended to. So unfortunate! everything coming at once. You will have heard all my news from Arabel—& how we go to Devonshire Place by Mr Kenyon’s desire. It is very kind, & perfectly unexpected, of course. He offers us linen too, not plate .. & there are two servants left in the house, whose business is to clean it– The worst is, that I fear he is in a very uncertain state, & that there will be melancholy associations therefore, with everything– We remain here at least a week beyond the sixteenth, on account of my poem, but we cant wait out the transcription of the last two books, so that I must make time in London. The Hedleys are there, in Grafton Street, for a month. Really I dont know how I am to get over Paris .. I have things to buy of course, in order to appear decently in England, .. & unusually for me, at this time of year, my favorite shopping is too much for me quite, & I feel sympathetically with Penini, “It[’]s really enough to mate one dead, to sit a whole hour in shops looting at dresses.” Yesterday I made an effort, got out at two shops, & came back a ghost. I bought two pretty frocks for Peni however, which are both to be made high, after the high blouse pattern you have, as at seven years old this must be,—though he may wear out the low dresses he has already. He will look pretty & graceful any way. His hat this summer, his old brown straw one, is trimmed with brown velvet, strings of the same, & long brown feather. His Leghorn hat is to be trimmed with green, in the like way– You cant think how the child is admired here– He was discoursing of it very naively last night .. in relation to a gun he is to have before sunday, & intended to take out with him– “You see, dear mama, the Champs Elysées are much more full on sundays than other days. You know why? Betause on weeks they work, and on sundays they are on liberty– So all the peoples, the men & the women, & the children too, always loot at me so very much, and say either this .. ‘What a little general’, or ‘What a pretty little boy,’ or somesing lite that, & the women pull my turls to mate me look back—(especially when I have my velvet jattet on!)—so when I det my gun, & anybody touches my turls, I shall speat fierce and say “Je vous brulerai la cervelle, Madame”!– [3] So funny he is! such a great darling– Just now he observed he had been “very unhappy all day.” ‘Unhappy,’ said I—‘what has made you unhappy?’– “I’ve been out in the hot sun, and I have seen no Punches nor nossing.” I hope you observe Peni’s notion of misery– To be in the sun, & see no Punches!. Tonight however he’s to make up for it & go to the “Cirque” with Ferdinando & Harriet, where there is acting with horses & rope-dancing. Tell me, Henrietta– Are you particular about diet with your children? We have never been so– Peni has always taken butter, eaten pastry & drunken wine, just as I should do,—& he has no tendency to exceed in anything. But he has some curious objections to make—and pray ask Altham from me if he has any of them. Peni does’nt like … what do you think? cream in his tea—strawberry jam on his bread, .. and apricot tart! I certainly think it’s a peculiarity. Every evening his particular cup of tea is taken away to have milk put into it, & escape the ‘nasty cream’. His gun which he is about to have, he has earned, tell Altham. Every good lesson brings a good mark, +, a cross; and every bad lesson a bad mark .. so, 0; & every bad mark annuls one good mark—& then the good marks are counted up (with a deduction of bad marks) and when two hundred good marks are complete, he is to have a gun. Many weeks he has been working for it,—& he will probably have it before sunday– Meanwhile he goes to look at it periodically through the toyshop window– I find that he can say all his lessons in an hour & a quarter– He reads & translates every day about two pages of Berquin very nicely, .. & every day he says two verbs, so as to keep all the French conjugations & auxiliary verbs in his mind. In Italian he has read all four volumes of Miss Edgeworth’s Early Lessons, Frank Rosamond & Harry & Lucy, and now he has begun the first volume again. It’s hard to get Italian books interesting to him. What vexes me is the loss of the music—for of course he has forgotten every note. Robert thought we could not afford to pay for it this winter, & now the money has come in as I knew it would, too late. He is difficult at his lessons sometimes, through being so mobile & full of play. I hold him down on my knee, to have a chance of attention,—& have to overwhelm him with bitter reproaches now & then. When he thinks he has gone too far he will throw his arms round my neck & kiss, kiss, kiss—“You poor little darling, Ba-lamb! You are the very best mama in the whole world–” “Except one,” says Altham. The Martins are here– She has been extremely unwell with cold & cough, & has had medical advice, & does not get better quickly– They are always driving about, & we miss them constantly, calling, & being called on. We were asked to dine at their hotel with them last sunday—but the weather was uncertain & I by no means up to being out in the evening– (I have not been to church since last october,—or november, was it?) but I dont think they seemed quite satisfied with us for refusing– (I am sure Mr Martin suspects me of a systematic process of shamming, by the way.) Think of my horror at Robert’s having heard today that Hume the medium is in Paris. I thought he was in Rome. I looked so scared that Robert promised me he would be “meek as maid” [4] for my sake, & that if he met the man in the street he would pass without pretending to see. Oh—perhaps you dont know that Robert had talked himself into quite a hatred of this Hume, which of course was very foolish indeed. On the subject of spirits generally, we are at peace, & one can hear oneself speak. I had a letter three days ago from Mr Story, for which we paid three francs & a half, so full it was on the subject. He has had mediums walking in the air over the heads of him & others .. feet literally on heads .. & is quite convinced. Robert & I read the letter together on the sofa, like the lion & the lamb [5] —but Hume personally is still a bone in the lion’s throat. Certainly a young man of very unreliable nature, as weak as a reed & more vulgar .. but a most wonderful medium in spite of all. Pray never mention his name though. As much of spirits, apart from him, as you please. Mr Story says that the belief has penetrated into all parts of American society, & when you scratch through the most external fashionable crust you find it everywhere– Even the great new Music Hall at Boston (of the opening of which you may have read in the Athenæum, together with the erection of Crawford’s statue to Beethoven) [6] is filled every sunday with from five hundred to a thousand persons,—mediums in a state of trance & otherwise, ministering to them. This is extraordinary in a cold conventional place like Boston. Louis Napoleon is rising everyday in popularity through his conduct during the inundations– A boatman carried him through the mud on his back, in some places, .. & he went in an open boat, he & his aid de camp alone with the boatman, & administered help with his own hand through the windows of the flooded towns. Tears ran down his cheeks, they say. Of course there’s a quantity of enthusiasm about it– [7] Robert says it’s a man of genius using his opportunities—& there are people who exclaim on his luck, & that even evil turns to good for him. We are to have a merry christening after all. [8] The preparations I hear much of through Penini–

A note comes from Mrs Martin. She is no better, & means to go away on saturday—proposing to come & see me tomorrow– Dearest dear Henrietta, do write to me & tell me of yourself first, & then of your treasures .. of the last jewel that came into the treasury in particular. And what of Surtees? when does he come home? & how shall you arrange it? & could’nt it be well for you to let Wilton for the summer & be transplanted to London at once? Oh how happy at least it wd be–

Robert’s best love–

Are you quite strong? & do you nurse well?

My love to Surtees when you write to him– Love me, dearest Henrietta–

Your ever & ever attached

Ba.

Peni has come back from the Cirque in a state of ecstasy. “Eight horses dancing, with tings and tweens on their bats.”

Address: Angleterre. / Mrs Surtees Cook / Wilton / Taunton / Somersetshire.

Publication: Huxley, pp. 247–249 (in part).

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Altham Archive; and British Library.

Enclosure:

Paris.

May 8. 1856.

A Poem for Altham

Pretty little Altham,

I saw you with the goats,

And I turned back from the coach

And asked where you were going,

And you were fast asleep!

And I kissed you and I loved you

As much as I do now!

I know you are my friend,

I know you are my friend.

My dearest, my dearest,

My dear little friend!

I kiss you, and pat you,

I love you, I love you,

My dearest little friend!

I love you more and more!

Every moment,

And every hair!

I love you, I love you,

My dearest little friend.

Penini.

1. Year provided by postmark.

2. See enclosure.

3. “I am going to blow out your brains, madam.”

4. Cf. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, line 69.

5. Cf. Isaiah 11:6.

6. The Boston Music Hall opened in November 1852. Story himself participated at the unveiling of Thomas Crawford’s bronze statue of Beethoven, which occurred on 1 March 1856. The Athenæum of 19 April gave a brief description of the ceremony: “The Germanism of the whole proceeding was complete. The Hall was dressed with festoons and garlands of flowers. The statue was enveloped with ‘a green star-spangled drapery till the right moment,’ when the poet of the evening, ‘William W. Story,’ recited a prologue, during which the veil fell off” (no. 1486, p. 498). The statue is now at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston.

7. In late May and early June 1856, severe flooding occurred in the Rhone and Saône river valleys. A report dated 2 June appeared in The Times of 6 June 1856: “The waters of the Rhone rose between Thursday and Saturday last 4 feet 8 inches higher than during the great inundation of 1840. … The celebrated breakwater of Boulbon yielded to the pressure of the waters, and in a short time the town of Tarascon was completely flooded. The waters rushed thence over the plain which separates Tarascon from Arles, and the latter town was simultaneously flooded by the water rushing over the plain and that rising from the lower part of the Rhone” (p. 10). There were numerous reports of the Emperor’s visits to the worst-affected flood areas. Galignani’s Messenger for 7 June 1856 reported his visit to Tarascon, and noted: “His majesty went through the town of Tarascon in the boat, giving liberal pecuniary assistance as he passed; and on his approaching the railway station, it being impossible for the boat to get close enough, the Emperor entrusted himself to a stout boatman, who landed him high and dry on the staircase leading to the railway” (p. 2).

8. EBB refers to the public baptism of the Prince Imperial, which took place on 14 June 1856 at Notre Dame (see letter 3800, note 11).

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