3896. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 98–100.
39. Devonshire Place
Saturday. [Postmark: 18 October 1856]
Thank God—& thank you, my own beloved Arabel, for the breath of good news that comes with your letter. It was a great relief– I only wish you had said something good of yourself, to fill me with thanksgiving–
See that I am not gone!– No—& we shant get off on monday,—that, I see plainly. On tuesday certainly. Its cruel to both of us to be so near meeting, & not meeting: & yet it would be small pleasure, a meeting with goodbye tacked to an end of it so closely.
I saw George twice yesterday. He is very kind—but he would’nt stay the evening out with our Pre-Raphaelites—& we had five. [1] Robert sent me to bed in the midst—so I liked it rather. I mean (for I like them all really much) I was not over-tired. Last night I slept better & coughed considerably less– There’s no spitting of blood or anything bad .. so dont fancy it: but the cough has been breaking me to bits in the old way .. which considering all the work I have to do .. & that dismallest work of all, with dear Miss Mitford’s letters .. which I have been forced to buckle to, at last .. for Mr Harness complains of me loudly they say [2] .. I was on the brink of a black melancholy, & quite ready for bad news from Ventnor. But it’s all better now .. I do thank God– Try to persuade Papa to come to London by Cowes .. where there is every facility for embarkation. The rail-carriages are smoother too from Southampton, & it’s a much less fatiguing journey in every respect. If he would consent to sleep at Southampton, he need not be fatigued at all. If you go by Cowes, mind you look at Mr Kenyon’s house .. in the Parade .. the row of new houses close to the water. You cant miss it. His brother left England for Vienna the day before yesterday– She came to take leave of me the previous day, & looked ill .. said she was very unwell & entirely in consequence of trouble of mind—but not a word did she speak out to us. I confess I should like to hear the other side of the question. She seems to me full of good impulses & very kind. Still I cant conceive how she can be justified, under the circumstances. [3]
Dearest, when we can get a revise for you, you shall have one. The book is in proof .. & that’s all– Yesterday I wrote & despatched the dedication [4] —& the title page [5] .. which was’nt so very hard as the rest. I hope you will like the winding-up of the poem. It’s a poem which evolves the spiritual philosophy as was never attempted to be done before by a poem—but, of course, the success is another question. That there is truth, must be my comfort, if the poetry should be less recognized—but with all my nervousness on that point, & fears of short-comings (which are incessant) I feel more & more settled in my own mind, that I, Ba, never did anything so good, .. I mean, never put out so much general power, as in this poem. I agree with George there certainly– Which proves nothing as to results, after all– And there are heaps of people who will agree with neither of us– Coventry Patmore told me the other day that I was to send him a copy, because it wd fall to him to review the poem for the North British. He has just written (& forwarded to me meanwhile) an article upon women, putting us all in our places most dogmatically. [6] Fine mince-meat he will make of me in the North British! [7] —— He must, if he’s consistent.
Dearest, I wrote a long note to Mrs Stratten, [8] & sent it by Peni yesterday, as you bade me. She was preparing, I believe, to strain a point on saturday, today, & come to see me—but I let her understand through Miss Heaton, that it was far better not to come– Talking just now is wretched both to me & everybody who talks with me—& people throng in– Oh, for a little rest, & freedom to do these heaps of things! We shall return in the summer & then I shall hope to see Mr & Mrs Stratten, in comfort– To drag them out on Saturday was wrong in all ways–. What rest will be to me, when it comes! I feel as if I would fain lie on a sofa & shut my eyes for the rest of my life. I wrote a long note .. & in it, I put you under the care of Mr & Mrs Stratten, abdicating to them all supposed right “to counsel or command,” [9] which might be supposed to rest in my elder sisterhood & deeper love– So, if you dont obey in all things, where they bid you, .. the degree of rebellion in you, will be after the fashion of Lucifer’s.
At Marseilles we decide for or against the Cornice. [10] If it’s fine weather, we take that route—tho’ it will be six days journey to Genoa even! But we can have a comfortable vettura, & I can put up my feet, and the inns are good, & the scenery exquisite, & the climate warmer than Italy–
I hear of a great assembling of mediums at Dr Wilkinson’s the other evening– Ros[s]etti was asked & would’nt go– We have hope of a further development in England very shortly—so, look to it– As for me, I should’nt be much the better for it, if I stayed .. in spite of Robert’s lively protestation, just now, that he never, never, never, will interfere with me on the subject again. Oh, oaths of men! Should a woman trust them?
I will write, I will write—that’s my oath. And this is’nt a last word absolutely– May God keep you my own Arabel
for your Ba–
Peni is out .. or would send his message–
Address: Miss Barrett / Milanese Villa / Ventnor / Isle of Wight.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 261–264.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Two of the “five” were certainly Dante Gabriel Rossetti and David Masson (see letter 3888) though the latter would not be considered a Pre-Raphaelite. Strong candidates for the other three are: William Michael Rossetti, Thomas Woolner, and William Holman Hunt.
3. EBB refers to the contention between Sarah Bayley and the Edward Kenyons regarding the care of John Kenyon; see the second paragraph of letter 3858.
4. See letter 3892, note 1. EBB’s draft of her dedication to Kenyon, signed with initials and dated 17 October 1856, is now at Eton. The date and some minor corrections are in RB’s hand.
5. The title page reads: “Aurora Leigh. / by / Elizabeth Barrett Browning. / London: / Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. / 1857.”
6. The article, “Victor Cousin on Madame de Hautefort and Her Contemporaries,” which appeared in the October 1856 issue of The National Review (pp. 317–342), reviews three books by Victor Cousin: Madame de Longueville (1855); Madame de Sablé (1854); and Madame de Hautefort et Madame de Chevreuse (1856). Towards the end of the article, Patmore expresses some of the qualities he admires in women: “mysterious influence ... charming subordination ... flattering inferiority” (p. 339). On the notion of gender equality, he writes: “Of all the monstrous births of modern philosophy, surely none is so monstrous, so marked with moral ignorance and deterioration, as the doctrine of the equality of man and woman, in the form in which it is at present widely preached” (p. 340).
7. Patmore’s review of Aurora Leigh would be published in The North British Review for February 1857, pp. 443–462.
9. Cf. the definition of an accessory before the fact in William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (4 vols., Oxford, [1765]–69): “Sir Matthew Hale defines him to be one, who being absent at the time of the crime committed, doth yet procure, counsel, or command another to commit a crime” (4, 36).
10. The coastal road on the cliff tops along the Mediterranean from Nice to Menton.
___________________
