3980. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 40–41.
Casa Guidi.
March 30. [1857] [1]
Your letter was three times welcome, dearest Fanny, for the wind blew omens after you, and one felt sure that you must have suffered at least inconvenience in the course of your journey or voyage, .. and I had no second sight of angels ministrant [2] on the road, in the shape of commis voyageurs. [3] Now, however, all is well, however much may have been ill; & nothing remains but to hear that you have chosen discreetly from Miss Hayes’ [4] list of apartments the thing to suit you comfortably. Rome must interest you. Only remember that a letter will always interest me, & tell me of your adventures. I assure you I miss you, .. we all three miss your potentiality of apparition from the other side of the wall– Penini was melancholy, tell Trautchen, [5] & wondered at [‘]‘the use of people going to Rome, when Florence was so much better.” Such a fuss he was in the morning he went down to the railroad—“I really have a pain in my stomat with the incitement.”
What kind of pain Lotti had, I dont pretend to analyze. He called here yesterday morning at nine (just as we were about to breakfast) to enquire if we had heard from you, & to explain that he only received your Leghorn letter the day before, having been absent from Florence six days. He returned & found it. Very full he was of sympathy & compassion for all your disasters– Nota bene– I sank the commis voyageurs in my history, & did’nt even mention Salvini. [6] (As he did the Testament .. which, illuminated on the cover by a golden cross, he left on the diningroom table.)
The villa people [7] have passed two evenings here since you went, & Robert has been there as usual. Otherwise we have kept pretty well unspotted from the world. Mrs Monro [8] called, a few days after your going, in astonishment at such a disappearance in a gale of wind. “She could’nt have supposed you would have gone under such circumstances.” She went to your door before she came to ours. “What! gone!” It seemed incredible.
I had a delightful letter from Mr Ruskin the other day. [9] There is a proposition about making him “professor of poetry” at Oxford, [10] which he does not decline, though he will not actively “stand”. He is fuller however of Turner, .. and Spurgeon [11] .. think of that. It[’]s the earnestness & the soul-life of the young man, however, which have the hold on him. Anything is better than the sort of preaching which is used as a coat-brush now-a-days.
Mind you go to the campagna– The campagna is Rome.
We have had some splendid days & I have had the windows open. But Robert would not take me out on account of a wind at the corners, likely to interrupt my extraordinary course of prosperity (as to health) this winter.
You are to remember to love Hatty Hosmer, and also Mr Page.
I look up at my precious little picture on the right hand side [12] .. & that would be enough to make me think of you very affectionately, if I had no other reason. May God bless you & love you, dearest Fanny. Try to remember or learn (for I think you never learnt it) that nobody can live in a doorway. Let us go forward. There is something happier beyond, than what is left behind.
Hume is taken into great favour by Louis Napoleon, & the empress has sent to America for his sister. Napoleon had a blow on the face from ‘a spirit’, purporting to be Louis Philippe. He holds regular séances, & is very particular in excluding from the circle all sceptical persons. <***>
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Pen’s “incitement” at the railroad station; see the ninth paragraph in letter 3976.
2. Paradise Regained, II, 385.
3. “Commercial travellers.”
4. Matilda Mary Hays (1820–97).
5. Trautchen Birgel, described as “faithful friend and Servant” in Fanny Haworth’s will (London Probate Registry).
6. Presumably, Tommaso Salvini (1829–1915), celebrated Italian actor who specialized in Shakespearean roles.
7. i.e., Isa Blagden and Annette Bracken, who lived at Villa Brichieri, Bellosguardo.
9. Ruskin’s letter is not extant; however, EBB provides an extract of it in letter 3983.
10. Matthew Arnold (1822–88) was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in May 1857. He held the position for ten years.
11. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92), son of John Spurgeon (1810–1902) and his wife, Eliza (née Jarvis, 1815–88), was an immensely popular Baptist preacher, who, despite an unprepossessing appearance and frequent vulgarisms, drew great numbers of followers. At this time he was preaching at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall.
12. EBB refers to Fanny Haworth’s portrait of Pen (see letter 3957, note 18).
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