3963. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 1–3.
Florence–
Feb 2. [1857] [1]
My dearest Moña Nina .. To begin (lest I forget before the ending) .. dont mind the sugar tongs if you have not actually bought them, [2] —inasmuch as to my astonishment, Wilson has found a pair in Florence .. marking the progress of civilization in this south. In Paris, last winter, we sought in vain. There was nothing between one’s fingers, and real silver, too expensive for poets. But now we are supplied splendidly, .. & at the cost of five pauls, [3] let me tell you.
Always delighted I am to have your letters, even when you dont tell me as touchingly as in this, that mine are something to you. Do I not indeed love you & sympathize with you fully & deeply? Yes—indeed. On one subject I am afraid to touch– But I know why it is you feel so long, so unduly .. so morbidly, in a sense. [4] People in general knowing themselves to be innocently made to suffer, would take comfort in righteous indignation & justified contempt: but to you, the indignation & contempt would be the worst part of suffering: you cant bear it—& you are in a straight between the two. [5] In fact it relieves you rather, to take part against yourself, & to conclude on the whole that there’s something really bad in you calling on the pure Heavens for vengeance– Yes, that’s you. You sympathize tenderly with your executioner.
I have observed it in you more or—less, in every case where people treat you ill more or less—(so has Robert.) & now the tendency comes out in full development. And I give you notice dearest friend—that you may please to understand, whenever I come to snub you, how I want you to do me “splendid justice” [6] & defend me against faultfinders–
The tendency is in you: and then, in the peculiar case, it intensifies itself–
Ah well– I might say what I wont say. It were no comfort to you if I praised your generosity, much less if I reproached it ever so tenderly– Come out to Italy, & get away from all that—this is the best & only thing left to say.
I feel really glad about Brighton, & hopeful that you will have less care & more happy individuality of life– [7] You might settle perhaps at Florence,—only there are drawbacks in the distance, & the lack of such society as would please you. The artist-liberty & repose, on the other hand, are beyond price: the cheapness less than it used to be, we must own: still, Florence is Florence. I have been surprisingly well all the winter,—better than I was for the last two months in London though there was no winter in them– How anybody can expect me to like England, I cant understand. Still, I do like all the kindness & nobleness in various ways, besides the energy & activity, which are to be recognized in it as grand facts–
And as for the critics .. yes, indeed,—I agree with you that I have no reason to complain[.] [8] More than that, I confess to you that I am entirely astonished at the amount of gracious reception I have met with .. I, who expected to be put in the stocks & pelted with the eggs of the last twenty years’ singing birds, as a disorderly woman & free thinking poet. People have been so kind, that, in the first place, I really come to modify my opinions somewhat upon their conventionality, .. to see the progress made in freedom of thought– Think of quite decent women taking the part of the book in a sort of effervescence which I hear of with astonishment. In fact there has been an enormous quantity of extravagance talked & written on the subject,—and I know it—oh, I know it– I wish I deserved some things .. some things– I wish it were all true. But I see too distinctly what I ought to have written– Still, it is nearer the mark than my former efforts .. fuller, stronger, more sustained, .. and one may be encouraged to push on to something worthier: for I dont feel as if I had done yet—no indeed. I have had from Leigh Hunt a very pleasant letter of twenty pages [9] —& I think I told you of the two from John Ruskin. [10] In America, also, there’s great success,—& the publisher is said to have shed tears over the proofs .. (perhaps in reference to the hundred pounds he had to pay for them) & the critics congratulate me on having worked myself clear of all my affectations, mannerisms, & other morbidities– [11]
Even Blackwood is not to be complained of, seeing that the writer evidently belongs to an elder school & judges from his own point of view. [12] He is wrong though, even in classical matters, as it seems to me–
I heard one of Thackeray’s lectures, .. the one on George the third, and thought it better than good, .. fine & touching– To what, is it that people are objecting?– [13] At any rate they crowd & pay. [14]
Ah yes. You appreciate Robert—you know what is in his poetry. Certainly there is no pretension in me towards that profound suggestiveness; & I thank you for knowing it & saying it.
There is a real poem being lived between Mr Kirkup and the ‘spirits’, so called. If I were to write it in a poem I should beat ‘Aurora’ over & over– And such a tragic face the old man has with his bleak white beard!– Even Robert is touched.
Best love from him &
your ever attached Ba–
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs Jameson / 2. Vere Street / Oxford Street / London. W.
Publication: LEBB, II, 251–253 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. In letter 3956 EBB had asked Mrs. Jameson to buy and bring with her to Florence a pair of sugar tongs.
3. Equivalent to about two shillings and three pence.
4. Possibly a reference to Mrs. Jameson’s estrangement from Lady Byron; see letter 3735, note 7.
5. Cf. Philippians 1:23.
6. Cf. the Orphic hymn “To Justice,” line 1: “I sing the all-seeing eye of splendid Justice” (The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus, trans. Thomas Taylor, 2nd ed., 1824, pp. xxxvii–xxxviii).
7. Mrs. Jameson had recently settled three of her sisters in a home in Brighton (see letter 3956, note 7).
8. About the reviews of Aurora Leigh.
10. Letters 3927 and 3947.
11. In the New-York Daily Tribune’s notice of Aurora Leigh (20 December 1856, pp. 5–6), the reviewer wrote that among the defects in EBB’s former poems was “an over-morbid individuality of mind” but that in “her last poem and her longest, the most fastidious foe to her earlier mannerisms will hardly find a trace of them.” For the full text of this review, see vol. 23, pp. 324–327.
12. EBB refers to William Edmonstoune Aytoun, who reviewed Aurora Leigh in the January 1857 issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. For the full text of his review, see vol. 23, pp. 336–347.
13. Thackeray’s lectures, entitled The Four Georges, were first delivered in America and later in England and Scotland (see letter 3697, note 9, and letter 3954, note 11). EBB must have heard Thackeray’s lecture at a private residence, possibly his own (see The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed. Gordon N. Ray, Cambridge, Mass., 1945–46, 3, 613n), because he did not begin presenting the lectures publicly in London until the end of 1856. Among the chief objections to them at that time were a lack of balance. In commenting on the lecture on George IV, a writer for The Daily News of 21 January 1857 wondered: “Are the materials the best that can be chosen? Is the effect—beautiful as it undoubtedly is—the very one that ought to be produced? Is, in fact, the picture a true one?” (p. 2). The writer went on to compare Thackeray’s lectures to Scott’s historical romances: “Both writers tell great truths in the most captivating manner, but they do not tell the whole truth” (p. 2).
14. Thackeray’s four lectures on the Georgian Kings were presented in London on consecutive Tuesday nights beginning 30 December 1856 at the Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institution (17 Edward Street, Portman Square). They proved to be so popular that before the first round had ended, a second was given on consecutive Saturdays beginning 10 January. Admission prices were advertised in The Daily News of 30 December 1856 as follows: “Platform tickets, 7s. each; reserved seats, 5s.; unreserved seats, 2s.” (p. 1).
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