4002. RB to Harriet G. Hosmer
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 70–71.
Florence,
May 22. ’57.
Dearest Hatty,—your note came to hand (& heart) a day or two ago: I daresay you know what a sad winter-time we had of it with bad news from England every other month. Now—(that is, a month ago)—came the death of Ba’s Father. She has seen nobody but Isa Blagden since then, nor once left the house—(but she shall, if I carry her on my back, before the week is out.) How often we both of us meant to write to you, you ought to guess—& do, perhaps. So you won’t take Florence in your way to England, [1] —nor on your return, I’ll engage: & what shall we do, who don’t mean to set our faces towards England for a year at least? Do try and take us back to Rome with you,—as you easily can. To think we have lost three years of you, Hatty! I would give something to see your Statue, [2] in London: all I have heard as yet about it is, that it is well placed: but that little sculpture vault is an abomination, when the best is made of it. [3] What else,—beside the sleeping girl’s figure of which people report so well,—what else are you doing? [4] Is it true you don’t draw now? Hardly true! I wish you .. but all idle people “wish”, .. and the fact is prettily rendered in Latin thus—“O si–! O si—Otiosi.” [5] Didn’t I think of you the other day, when I had perpetuated in plaster the ruinous back of a shaggy Abbey [6] well known in this neighbourhood: as it came home, I was little inclined to salute it, after English convivial fashion, with a “hip-hip-hip-hurrah!” And now I naturally turn to Mrs Jameson: that she liked you extremely, we had from her own mouth (or pen) long ago—and I rejoice that you can say those pleasant things about her from your heart. With her, & Mr Gibson, and other friends, you will want no letters to English people, of course: should anything happen to strike you, that Ba or myself could do,—you’ll tell us, won’t you?
I have not heard a word from, nor of, dear Mrs Sartoris, nor Leighton, nor Cartwright: you must hear sometimes. It seems strangest of all that I should be so near, in flesh & spirit to that noble Page, and never have word or sign from him: how glad I am that your picture is done. [7] You heard of all the sickening mischances about mine [8] —better fortune to you—and in all things, best fortune, dearest Hatty! Ba’s kindest love,—she sends it while I write– Kiss me as I kiss you, darling—being yours affectionately ever
RB.
Publication: Harriet Hosmer, Letters and Memories, ed. Cornelia Carr (New York, 1912), pp. 80–81 (in part).
Manuscript: Radcliffe Institute.
1. Harriet Hosmer travelled to England in the early summer of 1857 for the Royal Academy exhibition, in which her sculpture “Beatrice Cenci” was being shown (see note 2 below). She did not stop in Florence on her way. But following a trip to America, she spent two weeks in Florence, beginning at the end of October, before returning to Rome (see letters 4083 and 4100).
2. “Beatrice Cenci” (see letter 3717, note 13), on display at the 1857 Royal Academy exhibition since it opened on 1 May, had been commissioned for the Mercantile Library of St. Louis. The 1857 Annual Register (1858), reporting on the statue, commented: “The miserable Sculpture Room possessed one remarkable work, ‘Beatrice Cenci,’ asleep on the morning of her execution, by a young American lady, Miss Harriet Hosmer” (p. 80).
3. The Royal Academy Gallery was, from 1836, located in the eastern half of the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. Its “Sculpture Room” had been considered for many years cramped and ill-lit; consequently, in 1857 the government ordered plans to be drawn up for better accommodations. Construction began in 1860, and the new “Sculpture Room,” now consisting of three compartments with greater light and space, opened in May 1861 (see William Sandby, The History of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1862, II, 270–271).
4. Hosmer’s next major project was a commission for a tomb monument of Judith de Palezieux Falconnet, in the Church of Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte, Rome, which she began in 1857 and completed the following year.
5. “Oh if–! Oh if—of the idle one.” A Latin play on words, listed in A Dictionary of Quotations … in Ancient and Modern Languages, ed. Hugh Moore (1831), p. 293.
6. We are unable to clarify this statement. See Miss Hosmer’s use of the phrase “Shaggy Abbys” in letter 3717.
7. Not quite. William Page’s portrait of Harriet Hosmer was evidently not completed until the following year (see letter 3717, note 16).
8. Page’s portrait of RB, completed in May 1854 (see the frontispiece to vol. 20), was submitted to the Royal Academy for the 1856 exhibition but ultimately rejected (see letter 3790 and letter 3769, note 2).
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