3848. EBB to Jessie Meriton White
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 40–41.
Melbourne Villa.
Thursday morning. [28 August 1856] [1]
My dearest Fiamma, [2]
I have your note, & I have been thinking .. & we have both been thinking– Here we are at Ventnor, but it is not fixed yet when exactly we shall be at Cowes—and, when we get there, .. from letters lately arrived .. we shall find our poor friend so very unwell that we must devote ourselves to him, & perhaps shall be sent away after a day or two. Under these circumstances, we think it would not be worth while for you to come .. unless you have objects independent of us– I write to say so, out of justice & love to you– Dear, let us see you .. flash on us & spend your light on us in London, when we return, that I may say ‘it is not all darkness here.’ [3]
I hear that Victor Hugo & all his family have gone over to the spirits, to a fanatical point.! [4]
Penini is overjoyed at the sight of the sea, & wears himself out with raptures.
Your ever affectionate
EBB–
Publication: Simonetta Berbeglia, “Il Risorgimento delle figlie adottive: lettere inedite tra Elizabeth Barrett Browning e Jessie White Mario,” Antologia Vieusseux, 16 (2010), p. 64.
Manuscript: Colorado College.
1. Date provided by EBB’s remark, “it is not fixed yet when exactly we shall be at Cowes.” In letter 3850, RB writes that he and his family would “stay till next Saturday week” (6 September). The only other Thursday the Brownings were in Ventnor fell on 4 September, two days before they left.
2. Italian for “flame,” or “fire,” alluding to Miss White’s red hair and perhaps her energetic personality.
3. EBB may be quoting from Miss White’s letter. Another possible source is Vittoria’s dying speech in Felicia Hemans, The Vespers of Palermo (1823), V, 3, 156–158: “Death parted us—and death shall re-unite! / —He will not stay—it is all darkness now; / Night gathers o’er my spirit.”
4. During his exile on the island of Jersey, Hugo participated in numerous table-turning séances beginning in September 1853. These séances were often attended by members of his family, which included his wife, Adèle (née Foucher, 1803–68), and their children: Charles (1826–71), François Victor (1828–73), and Adèle (1830–1915). According to Graham Robb, Hugo appeared to embrace fully the idea of communicating with spirits, but his “‘faith’ was partly a deliberate stratagem: the table evidently required a degree of gullibility to function properly, and there was no sense in wasting such a valuable source of free insights” (Victor Hugo, 1997, p. 335). “The table-turning came to an abrupt end in the autumn of 1855” (pp. 340–341).
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