3800. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 241–244.
3– Rue du Colysée
Saturday. [14 June 1856] [1]
My dearest Isa, I am so ashamed, I feel inclined to put my head in the ground like an ostrich (does’nt an ostrich put its head in the ground?) when I begin this letter– Dear, dear Isa, since you went away & left me I have lost the count of days– I have only been counting lines, & feeling as if this poem of mine meant to roll on to eternity– Certainly nobody will ever read to the end of it, whether I write or not. Robert swears he wont go to England till I have done, so we take on the house for another week, to see what comes of it! .. & I have been & am in the greatest press possible, .. not a moment for breathing even,—and so weak & low physically that I was just fit for lying on the sofa & reading a flat novel .. say James’s. [2] All this to explain to you why I did not write– Can anything excuse it? Yesterday & today for the first time I begin to feel decidedly better, & “up to a thing or two” .. which I was beginning to despond about doing ever again. The magnificent weather has ended by telling on me at last, & I suppose I shall be able soon to go to a shop without going to bed afterwards, as happened to me last week. I miss the vital air of my Italy. I suppose it is that—or else that I have been paying for the two months in the “cursed house”. αι αι! [3] Have you taken to your Greek again–
Dear, your first note from Marseilles was balm to me––so frightened I was about you! though Robert swore that you were kept till wednesday at Marseilles & would’nt have us know it– We did’nt get the note till thursday by some accident– You know Robert always sees through the earth, or thinks he does. Afterwards your letter from Florence proved him wrong on this occasion. How very, very good of you, you ever good & dear Isa, to write the last long letter. I must canonize you and set my heart at ease, for never was a greater saint of a friend than you. To sit up late to hear, that night, & to write so much in detail. The account in itself too was interesting, & confirmatory to me of all my own views– Robert himself was struck. Think of my horror two days ago at hearing that Hume was in Paris! I looked so scared that Robert swore to me he wd take no notice of the ‘wretched creature’ if he met him in the street, & would’nt go to a certain house where he might peradventure set eyes on him– You know the sort of feeling there is—something, as it strikes me sometimes, almost supernatural .. considering that there has been no sort of provocation after all– But what can bring Hume to Paris? [4] Is it that the Poles [5] have shaken him off already? Mr Cranch told Robert he was here, & had sent his card to somebody—much as if he were here on his own account. Tell me if you hear anything of it from Mr Jarves or others. I have had another letter from Mr Story, consisting of six sheets & confirmatory of the spirits– He has had a medium walking in the air over his head .. (feet on his head)—table floating in like way .. (table-legs on his head)—all very satisfactory. What is less so, is, that the Storys sail on the eighteenth of June, & hope to see us immediately, & to spend the winter in our dear society, where, says he is of no consequence, as long as with us! [6] This measure of mutual beatitude, however, we shall escape by means foul or fair. How, is of no consequence, as long as &c &c &c—! We go to Mr Kenyon’s house in London, 39. Devonshire Place, Regent’s Park, he having been so very kind as to write with his own hand to press it on us for the summer & autumn– It is a large excellent house, & will be close to my sister .. so as to admit of running in & out; but there’s something to be sighed against it after all, for the association will be melancholy, unless our dear friend gets much better than he is now, I fear. He is better—well enough to reach the isle of Wight—but by no means in a state to satisfy anyone who loves him. Miss Bayley is apt to despond perhaps—but she does despond– Madme Braun is with them at the isle of Wight– I saw her as she passed through Paris, & heard a little of Rome.
As to Lytton—judge of our conduct to him by our conduct to you– Robert (who is without excuse) wrote to him only three days since– Miss Power & her younger sister [7] passed the evening with us last week—both so pretty, so winning, so elegant,—& the elder came yesterday to say that the other poor girl, just eighteen .. or at least not nineteen .. had lost her betrothed of yellow fever, off Jamaica, a young naval officer, [8] devotedly in love with her, & to whom she was to be married next august. These be griefs! She grew thin (as after long illness) in two days, & has no pulse,—& the medical man is uneasy about her.
Miss Cushman never came here again– Robert called (after an interval à la Robert) & she had removed to another hotel, nobody knew where. Of course she is in England by this time. England is perfectly rapt just now, it seems, hanging Palmer. [9] Do let me tell you that the very day you went, the weather changed– We all thought how you wd triumph at Marseilles. Since then, however, there have been intermissions—& one whole day & a half it rained constantly, to account for the ‘floods’– By the way, Napoleon is more popular than ever because of them,—having risked his life, been carried on the back of a boatman, and wept visible warm tears over the misfortunes of the people. [10] The sensation is great– Today is the baptism– [11] The cortège was magnificent—but not a carriage is permitted—so I stay at home. Tomorrow is the grand fête, the preparations for which are enormous. [12] Paris is dazzling to look upon,—the trees, the sky, the people– Oh, it was very base of you, Isa, to go away, & leave me to shop by myself! The consequence is that I shant shop at all .. beyond the barest necessaries––such as a pretty frock or two for my Peni. Tell me of Alice. Is she developped much? and how does she get on with reading & writing? Peni is in triumph today, having won his gun by two hundred good marks– [13] He was in a dreadful state about the mortality among the rabbits, & exclaimed, in his first wrath, with his blue eyes gleaming, that he “had a great mind to take his sword & kill everybody in the Villa Tassinari except three!”! (to correspond with the number of surviving rabbits.) Remember me to Mdme Tassinari, & give a kiss for me to Alice. Peni will be charmed to see her again, in spite of the race of rabbits– He took your going away deeply. You know he went from your house to dine at the Sandfords. ‘Come for me very early’ said he to Harriet, “for I feel so very unhappy I cant bear it.” Then he walked on a little—“Do I look, Harriet, as if I had been crying?” “Have you been crying?” said she. “I dont know. I felt as if I must cry at Isa’s– I could scarcely stop it. And I thought perhaps I had been crying”– Jane Sandford told me he was low all day. The other day, Robert told him he might go to your old house to see his friend, the little boy, there—but he refused—he “really tould’nt”– Poor little Pen. You were so good to him always–
Dearest Isa, write to me & tell me everything. Imagine how anxious I am about your villa.
Tell me too of dear Mr Tennyson, & of other of the Florentines less dear. Explain to everybody how hardworked I am & how I dont thrive on my oats, & cant write letters just now. Still I am much better & stronger & more lively these two days, & now there’s no fear for me even in my own mind. Write to me, dear, dear Isa, & believe how truly & tenderly I love you.
Your attached friend
EBB–
Robert is deep in bones & muscles. He’ll anatomize you when he sees you. His best love, meantime.
Delayed by fêtes. [14]
Address: à Mademoiselle / Mademoiselle Blagden / Villa Tassinari / Firenze / Toscana / Italie.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 107–111.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. This letter is postmarked 16 June 1856, a Monday.
2. In letter 1322, EBB had paid the prolific novelist George Payne Rainsford James (1801–60) a left-handed compliment: “I do not know better books for an invalid … they seldom make the heart beat.” James’s latest novel, The Old Dominion (New York and London, 1856) was issued in December 1855. Its historical focus is the Nat Turner slave uprising of 1831.
3. “Woe, woe.” EBB compares the apartment at 102 Rue de Grenelle to the House of Atreus in Greek mythology and, more particularly, to Agamemnon’s palace at Argos, where he was murdered.
4. “In June, 1856, I went to Paris, and, as I had been advised to do by the Pope, I sought the counsel of the Père de Ravignan, one of the most learned and excellent men of the day. The purpose of my remaining in France was to acquire a facility in the language” (D.D. Home, Incidents in My Life, New York, 1863, p. 138).
6. The Storys had been in the United States since the previous summer. On 2 July 1856 they sailed from Boston aboard the America, with fellow passengers Thomas Gold Appleton (1812–84) and Richard Henry Dana (1815–82), arriving in Liverpool on the 13th (see Charles Francis Adams, Richard Henry Dana: A Biography, rev. ed., 2 vols., Boston, 1891, I, 359–360). In December the Storys returned to Rome and took up permanent residence in the Palazzo Barberini.
7. Ellen Power (b. ca. 1823). She, Marguerite Power, and their youngest sister, Helen Elizabeth Power (1836–92), “the other poor girl,” were residing at 5 Rue de Courcelles, not far from the Brownings’ apartment. Helen Elizabeth later married (1860) Charles Alan Henderson (1823–1908).
8. William Eyre Orde Massey (1835–56), eldest son of William Nathaniel Massey and his wife, Frances Carleton (née Orde). According to The Times of 7 June 1856, Massey was acting-lieutenant on H.M.S. Malacca when he died of yellow fever at Port Royal, Jamaica, on 4 May.
9. William Palmer (see letter 3746, note 2) was convicted of murder and sentenced to death on 27 May 1856. His hanging took place on 14 June (the day of this letter) “in the presence of 20,000 people” (ODNB).
11. The Times of 16 June 1856 carried a report of the ceremonies, filed by their Paris correspondent on the 14th: “The baptism of the Imperial Prince was celebrated to-day at half-past 5 o’clock p.m. in the church of Notre Dame. A salute of artillery, fired at 6 o’clock this morning, announced that this was the day fixed for the ceremony, and at 2 o’clock all the avenues leading to the cathedral were occupied by the Imperial Guard” (p. 12). Pope Pius IX had consented to stand godfather to the prince and sent his representative, the Cardinal Legate a Latere, who performed the baptism.
12. On the night of 15 June 1856 in Paris, the illumination of public buildings and a fireworks display marked the celebration of the baptism of the Prince Imperial. Additionally, “at all the theatres gratuitous performances were given, each house performing its best and newest pieces” (The Times, 18 June 1856, p. 10).
13. In letter 3797 EBB described the system by which Pen earned the gun.
14. See note 11 above.
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