3979. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 37–39.
Florence.
March 27. [1857] [1]
Dearest Moña Nina, it is great pleasure to have a letter from you, & it will be greater when there is not need of one any more. Here is the glorious sun, & here soon will be you!– As for our movements I will tell you under the breath (swearing you to secresy) that it is not at all likely we shall go north this summer. We want repose, & it is convenient for many reasons for us to escape the toil & moil [2] of England & Paris, for twelve months longer: but we dont want our respective people who are counting on us, to be vexed before there is need. Waiting from June to next spring, is’nt so wearisome as waiting from March would be—and besides, nothing is certain .. there’s the truth. But, you see, after two successive summers in London, & eight or nine months in Paris, we seem to have bought the right to a little repose. The expense, too, of travelling, & furnished lodgings is enormous .. saying nothing of the wear & tear of spirits or health. I think of my dear Arabel chiefly .. who is all that makes England sufferable to me—but, even for her sake, .. (considering that, the moment the apparition of me becomes known, she is sent out of town, & we have to pursue her into holes & corners of the country, to catch sight of the hem of her garment,) [3] it becomes doubtful whether she loses more painful pleasure or pleasureable pain. [4]
Since I wrote last to you I have lost another dear, dear, old friend [5] —so old & dear, that she was tender to my father’s infancy. She was infirm, & we ought to have been long prepared—but these things come always like strokes at last, and this has saddened me much– My family in Wimpole Street have all gone into mourning,—<though she was not what is called a relative,—> [6] and we here, who had meant to put off our black, have had to renew it in the face of the joyous spring,—as is the way with men.
I dont know what you mean about my health. I left London with a bad cough as usual, but no other malady, <& lost it in leaving London, as usual.> [6] I have heard that Mrs Alfred Tennyson (by the way) spoke of me as having a “happy prospect” [7] .. in which thing she simply dreamed, I beg to say– No such luck for me!– If you refer to this, be assured of a negative. I have been remarkably well all the winter, & am not pulled down after it, as is always the case with me in northern springs.
I am delighted to have your account of dear Gerardine’s children [8] & of herself, and I do hope that by this time, Mr Macpherson’s state is no longer a matter of anxiety to her or to you. Tell her with my kind love that I was always under the delusion of being sinned against rather than the sinner, during our visit to Rome. In the winter, everywhere & always, I am kept in bonds .. & if people dont come to peep through the bars at me, they dont see me,—as matter of course. But I did not blame dear Geddie—she had much to do, I was aware– Only, I shall blame her now, if she makes what was my vexation, a matter of accusation against me. Rather let us say & swear, it shall be better next time.
I conclude that it was intended to enforce the residence with Miss Bayley on Mdme Braun, by making the latter entirely dependent. [9] I am very sorry, very,—& I do not wonder that she should be at least .. silent. Dont tell of me .. but I [10] never would be constrained in any such way– Is she in calm spirits? tolerably cheerful? .. I think I told you that one hundred pounds was left to each of my sisters–
Now, dearest friend, say to nobody what I have whispered to you of our plans—not to Mdme Braun,—because she may write it to Miss Bayley, & so it may go round to Wimpole Street. We have laid down no sort of map of the summer– We may go into the mountains perhaps, to find a shady nook somewhere. Miss Bayley says it is perfectly “unnatural” of me not to love England—and if she knew how my very soul turns from the thought of what we should meet there this summer in the form of congratulations & condolences, crowds & vacant places, glorifications & bitter reproaches (about Aurora Leigh), together with cruel associations, & the ‘abomination of desolation’ [11] where the tenderest ought to sit, .. (a cough tearing me to rags over all ..) she would set me down as a very wretch, besides being the monster she takes me for actually. Let me remember to tell you that the second edition of ‘Aurora’ is nearly exhausted, & the third in course of preparation. But people say the unkindest things, I understand, some of them– Never mind,—one must bear for conscience’ sake.
I dare say the Campagna is looking divine.
Hume the medium, is “taken up” by the Emperor of the French,—& the Empress has sent to America for his sister– Count Braniski [sic] who has had him for a year, wrote it to his sister here, the princess L, [12] … something,—& also Mdme Aguado, a lady of the court, present at the séances, wrote to her mother in Florence, Mrs Macdonald. [13] The emperor does’nt conceal his belief of the causes of the phenomena being spiritual. People even say that Hume is living at the Tuileries—but for this I dont answer. A collar was taken from the empress’s neck, by the “spirits,” to her great terror. Louis Napoleon said, “will the spirits stop that clock,”—& the clock stopped instantly.
Our best love, Robert’s with mine. Dear dear friend, go on to love
your ever affectionate Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Columbia University and Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Mary Trepsack’s death, which occurred on 9 March 1857.
2. Cf. Aurora Leigh, VIII, 676.
3. Cf. Matthew 9:20–21.
4. Cf. The Faerie Queene, III, x, 60.
5. Mary Trepsack (see letter 3976, note 2).
6. Bracketed passage is interpolated above the line.
7. i.e., pregnant.
8. The Macphersons had two children at this time: William (“Guglielmo”) Hamilton (b. 1853) and Joseph (“Giuseppe”), (b. 1855).
9. EBB refers to John Kenyon’s having bequeathed nothing to Anne Braun in his will, perhaps with the understanding that Sarah Bayley would provide for her.
10. Underscored twice.
11. Matthew 24:15.
12. Lubomirska; see letter 3683, note 10.
13. Sic, for MacDonell (see letter 3972, note 17).
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