3840. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 33–36.
[London]
Wednesday. [20 August 1856] [1]
My dearest Sarianna Thank you for the good news that you have gone to the country. [2] Nothing could be wiser—for the heat you describe would have ended by making you suffer still more, perhaps, than inconvenience– Also, the change of scene, even to a duller, will be good for both of you– Here, it is just as cold as it was hot, and I have had to take to all my precautions to avoid being caught in the sharp teeth of the chill wind. Rain & cold together. On account of it, Leigh Hunt would’nt venture to keep his engagement for yesterday evening with us. Just now I am thinking of nothing but the loss of Arabel, the whole Wimpole Street house being to be removed for two months– At first we thought it was to be as far as Wales .. to Tenby—but my father suddenly turned & fixed on the isle of Wight– To my great joy! When we go, we shall catch a glance at one another’s eyes, at least–
The Cowpers wanted us to pass last saturday & sunday at Brocket Hall [3] with them, and I was a little bit vexed because Robert would’nt go—Peni being especially invited—but now, the knowledge rushing on me of the approaching removal from Wimpole street, of course I am glad not to have lost the two days with Arabel– Peni looks somewhat better, I hope, but by no means well. His bloom has vanished– Leigh Hunt called him an “ideal child” the other day, nevertheless–
Has Robert not confessed to you that he never, no, never, draws—and that Sordello waits [4] .. like the poor nonno, for his books–! But the books go at last– That’s a comfort. Mind you tell us exactly the price you pay—because I have a strong conviction that what Robert heard on the subject, was very large exaggeration. Your decision on the matter of chairs is your own affair of course, but, for my part, I should have decided quite differently– If you change your mind while we are here, speak. Evidently these chairs must lose their value every year, in their present position [5] —and if anything happen to displace them (for which we must be all prepared) they wd have to be either sold or sent at a disadvantage, with nobody at hand to look to it. London is emptied, and we grow quiet in proportion– Mrs Jameson is bringing out a new essay on the woman question, [6] which is really excellent,—but full of afflicting facts with regard to the working of our internal system of workhouses and the like. She does not notice however a new feature which has produced much emotion lately .. the fact of the men, in authority in the workhouses beating the women. Imagine such a state of things. Did Robert tell you?– When we dined with Mr Forster, he attacked me on the petition, [7] both he & Mr Procter being against it– Then, turning to Robert, .. “I must observe, that the husbands of the ladies signing this paper, are not in an enviable position”– In fact, Montagu Procter (the son) had written from the east, his regrets to find, from the names to the petition, as given in the newspapers, that Mr & Mrs Browning were separated. He “had supposed that marriage to have been a happy one!!”—— What a wise world it is, to be sure!–
Jessy White comes often—but she is removed to the other side of the town—the new streets near Victoria place, [8] where all the houses are horizontally built, as in Paris. She is in a very convenient apartment, Robert says, and I shall see soon for myself, as we are going to have tea with her—but the situation is not healthy on account of the river, people will have it, & she thinks herself. She has been behaving nobly to Felice Orsini, [9] who brought her his m∙s. & begged her to help him. She entirely reconstructed it, as the art of sentences was beyond him & translated it in a month for Routledge who thereupon gave her fifty pounds, every penny of which she transferred to Orsini, on the spot. It was too much for a woman, in her position to do—but she says .. ‘I did not do it for him, but for Italy.’
Mary Howitt & her daughter have been to see us– Of course Robert hated them, because they believe in the spirits. I do not, though, of course also.–
I feel very sorry that M. Milsand has wrung back his article [10] —and you may tell him so with my love. I have the proofs of almost two of my books. The title is, ‘Aurora Leigh’– Tell me if you like it. The book is to be crown-octavo—a larger form than we have published in, hitherto. [11]
The exhibition was good—very superior to last year’s. Holman Hunt’s scape goat is sublime, [12] to my perception. Mil[l]ais was not at his greatest– [13] Wallis’s Death of Chatterton is exquisite—deeply pathetic. [14] The portraits were particularly bad, we thought,—marvelling at the insolence which excluded Page’s. [15]
I write this between proofs– How stupid it must be. May God bless you both–
Your ever affectionate Ba
I am going to try for myself with the Nomenclator. [16] Robert says I never believe in other people’s trying—and indeed one’s own is much more satisfactory. We have never seen Forster since the dinner. He has taken a house in Montagu Square & has invited guests to his marriage in October [17] but denies the fact of his being engaged whenever the subject is approached.
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / À Mademoiselle / Madlle Browning, / Hôtel de Lyon, Rue du Hazard, 22. / Versailles.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. This letter is postmarked 21 August 1856, a Thursday.
2. To Versailles; Sarianna and her father stayed there until 18 September.
3. In Hertfordshire, near Hatfield. Brocket Hall was built in 1760 for Matthew Lamb, grandfather of the 2nd Viscount Melbourne. Upon the latter’s death, it became the property of Lady Palmerston, William Francis Cowper’s mother.
5. See letter 3832, note 2. The remark in parentheses refers to the eventuality of John Kenyon’s death.
6. The Communion of Labour: A Second Lecture on the Social Employments of Women (1856).
7. The Petition for Reform of the Married Women’s Property Law, which EBB and Sarianna had signed (see letter 3745, note 2).
8. In the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3), Jessie White is listed at 28 Ashley Place, Victoria Street, Westminster. Victoria Street was a new thoroughfare built primarily in the 1850’s and 1860’s from Victoria Station to Broad Sanctuary. Construction “involved the clearance of much slum property. … The street was remarkable in its time for the even height and scale of the buildings” (The London Encyclopædia, ed. Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, 1983, p. 916).
9. Felice Orsini (1819–58), Italian patriot and follower of Mazzini, who was later executed for his part in an assassination attempt on Napoleon III. Miss White had worked with Orsini on The Austrian Dungeons in Italy: A Narrative of Fifteen Months’ Imprisonment and Final Escape from the Fortress of S. Giorgio, “translated from the unpublished manuscript by J. Meriton White.” The book was issued by Routledge & Co. in late July 1856.
10. EBB refers to the review of Men and Women that Joseph Milsand had written for Revue des Deux Mondes. He withdrew it, however, after its publication was postponed for five months by the journal’s editor, François Buloz (see SD1926 in vol. 22). The review finally appeared in the 15 September 1856 issue of Revue Contemporaine et Athenæum Français (pp. 511–546). For the full text of this review, see pp. 379–406.
11. Except for EBB and RB’s Two Poems (1854), a pamphlet approximately 8 x 5⅜ in., Chapman and Hall had issued all of the Brownings’ books in octavo size, or approximately 6¾ x 4 in., as would be EBB’s Poems (1856). Aurora Leigh (1857) was issued in crown-octavo, or approximately 7½ x 4¾ in.
14. “Chatterton,” by Henry Wallis (1830–1916), depicts the death of the eighteenth-century poet Thomas Chatterton. Considered a Pre-Raphaelite painting, it made the artist “famous overnight” (ODNB).
15. i.e., William Page’s portrait of RB, completed in May 1854, which was rejected for exhibition by the Royal Academy (see letter 3787, note 1).
16. RB had earlier attempted to find a publisher for RB, Sr.’s genealogy of Biblical characters (see letter 3652, notes 2 and 3). EBB would try to place it with James Nisbet (see letter 3865).
17. John Forster married Eliza Ann Colburn (née Crosbie, 1815–94) on 24 September 1856. They lived at 46 Montagu Square until 1863.
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