4026. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 113–117.
La Villa. Bagni di Lucca.
Tuesday. [11 August 1857] [1]
My beloved Henrietta except for the dear love in your letter it has somewhat saddened me– Dear, I am afraid Arabel was looking very unwell when you saw her first at least, and if she is so little strong really, what a miserable prospect for all of us, this resolution of hers to keep to London & the Refuge! There can be no real vocation where there is no possibility—and she cant work to any purpose without strength—that’s certain. The unreasonableness of it all vexes me to the soul—for I see plainly how it will be– I entreat you Henrietta to keep her as long in the country as you can. You know the notion of paying bills, of going to London to pay bills, is nonsense—nobody expects bills to be paid till Christmas—and a few weeks given to bodily refreshment, after all the agitation necessarily experienced, represent a debt to God’s providence which she ought to pay unmurmuringly. I am very uneasy about her & shall remain so until a farther account– Dear Henrietta, dearest dear Henrietta, it does not disappoint me in the least to hear your preparation for her not coming to Italy this winter. I was quite prepared to hear it– After just the first, I knew it would be exactly so. And indeed I do agree with you, Henrietta, that there’s much to be said against it, & Robert has always been saying it in my ears since the early letters on the subject. She would not like Italy I am sure—she would be constantly pining for London, and I should be miserable in the sense of this. There’s a great deal in the journey & in the country too, which would jar and be trying .. & be contradictory to all her experiences—& these things are not overcome where there is not a strong taste & desire– Then, in Florence, after november I might not be able to go about with her, & she might not like the people we saw, or the way we lived—it would be dull & jarring– And if she went with us to Rome, the journey would be longer still, & some of these objections wd hold. As to your proposition about the south of France .. it is as long a journey from England to Pau as from England to Italy—for us it is still longer—& the place is expensive, very. Still if we could see our way clearly .. if for instance, Arabel had reasons for believing that Pau or Nice or any other place would benefit her health, and if our going there would facilitate her going, and if she would be content to go and remain six or seven months there, I do not doubt that Robert would agree to do that, for her, dear darling, & for me in her. But my own belief, Henrietta, is, that she would not be happy in any such arrangement– I believe not. When she wanted us to go to England, she baited her hook with this proposition .. “she might, (she would not promise) but she might, go back with us to Florence for a month or two.” Now a month or two can do no good whatever, observe—it is simply absurd. She must go for seven months certain, or the harm risked (of returning to London & the journey) is greater than any good to be hoped for– If she had come here to Italy for two or three years, with a visit now & then in the summer to England, she would probably have renewed her health altogether—but now, that being all at an end, we must look to the next best thing to be done. She must not be put into a situation by the wishes of any [of] us, which she might find intolerable. I myself think (with whatever regret) that the best plan may be to wait quietly until the spring, & then that she should meet us in Paris– There we could stay as long as we pleased, and then go together to one of the many pleasant French summer-places, at Fontain[e]bleau or elsewhere, & have a quiet summer together. Who knows but we might draw you over to us, dearest Henrietta, & give an opportunity of talking French to Altham? Robert says he would go anywhere next summer that Arabel would fix upon, .. anywhere. We must be in Paris, you see, to begin with. And the journey to Paris can alarm nobody—it is less fatiguing than to Ventnor from London– Well—I have written. Against my own interests, I was going to say—but no, my interest is our darling Arabel’s interest. I wish simply for her happiness. As to being hurt in the least degree by her not coming to Italy this year, I am not so dull—I understand perfectly. I write all this to you, dearest, since it is you who have touched upon it with me, .. and you will be able to set her dear heart at ease as to its engagements to me. We love one another too closely to be fretted for a little. A darling she is– Perhaps if she resolves on staying in England this winter, Storm will have her for a few weeks now & then, (& if, as I hope, Storm will be not far from you, so much the better) & save her a little from that horrible London.
Oh yes—you will be quite right to pay her a little visit—it will be nice for both of you. If I were as you are, I would have caught at her invitation in its full folded generosity, be sure. But with us it is so very different– It would be so impossible– If you knew! There would be gêne [2] on both sides. The irregularities of our house are scandalous—not immoral, observe, but scandalous. From morning till night, people are running out & in .. all sorts of people—& when we are in London we cant help it. There are men who come & talk—talk, some of them did, last summer, till one in the morning—& the freest sort of philosophy is talked– Robert would be in agonies of annoyance even if Arabel could bear it—& then he must entertain his own friends, if it should be only with tea & coffee & room for cigars. Oh no—quite apart from the want of decency of a family of five settling down upon her for three months, there are reasons– Well—we need not talk of them. That dearest Arabel shall have more than enough of this whenever we go to London,—I do promise– Such dinners we will go to, and such teas, such sittings up at night, such gossipings in the morning. Robert would’nt go otherwise, however, to his own father’s house—and I do consider that he ought not. Fancy Mr Stratten elbowed on the staircase by Mr so & so whose “aim in life” is to “subvert christianity!!”—— Why Arabel shrinks at the idea from this distance. Ah—persuade her of it, that we will give her ample occasion to exercise her virtue of hospitality notwithstanding all–
Dearest dear Henrietta, you do not speak very cheerfully of yourself even—you go on but “soberly.” Use all your advantages, & dont tire yourself with teaching the children. Do you bathe? does Arabel bathe? that you say “we all bathe”?– Arabel might use the warm sea bath with advantage—might’nt she? I like to hear of your drives to Sidmouth & elsewhere. I like to hear some things—about the piano, for instance. Yes, that was well– May everything be well at last– Is it not true Henrietta, that this great evil of India & the calling out of the militia, will be an excellent thing for Surtees? [3] I have been calculating on it, like the devil rather.
We have had some very hot days (not nights) in this place, .. but now it is cool, & the sight of the green chesnut forests & wonderful hills has strengthened my soul & my body already. We have rather a pretty house, with a beautiful garden .. lovely alleys full of oleanders, trees full of flowers, a peachtree like a forest-tree, .. laurel arbours & leafy walks.
There is an hotel elbowing us too near, but our Florence friends Isa Blagden, Annette Bracken, & Robert Lytton are in it, having followed us from Florence. Lytton has an attack of nervous fever, I am sorry to say, & we are all rather anxious—otherwise it had been very pleasant & quiet, driving out together & passing most evenings together. He exposed himself to the sun in Florence, & not having been acclimatized suffered accordingly. The heat has been excessive indeed. Penini bore it like a Florentine, & never once lost his roses. I am certainly stronger since I came, & they all say I look much better. I go about with one of those great hats like umbrellas– I had a brown one dyed black at Florence for the purpose.
How I shall think of you, dream of you all—my dearest Storm—may God bless him– My heart will be with him, bleeding, when he comes.
Wednesday.
Yesterday I broke off in this letter– I grieve to say that dear Lytton is not better, & we are beginning to be anxiously uneasy about him. This moment I have been over the way to see him– Confined to his bed, & ordered to take nothing but liquids .. such as currant jelly water &c .. so weak he can scarcely move. But the pulse is not very fast yet, not above ninety, which is little above the normal pulsation of many. Only it is so full—& the skin is burning—& who knows what may be?– Isa Blagden is devoted to him—& she & all of us are very sad. He himself began to be alarmed about himself, when Dr Trotman was making very light of it & when we none of us were too anxious—the doctor seeming to think there was more nervous irritation than anything else– Lytton called to me yesterday to speak of the “spirits” (he knows much on the subject), & Christ’s work—he has been reading the scriptures whenever he could read anything. Dr Trotman is not yet uneasy, he says—only he apprehends the setting in of a regular fever– “A very fair pulse now,” he says—but it may rise. Lytton seems so heavy—heats followed by perspiration, scarcely able to turn in bed—it strikes me—& a burning pain in the head & back– Think how little anybody cares for the mountains now.
May God bless you all, precious ones– Kiss Arabel for me many times, & then the darlings– Best love from Robert .. & me of course, to dear Surtees– I write in the greatest haste. Do get strong yourself, my beloved Henrietta, & love me, dear.
Your Ba.
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs Surtees Cook / Seaton / near Lyme Regis / Devon.
Publication: Huxley, pp. 278–281 (in part, as 15 August 1857).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 12 August 1857, a Wednesday.
2. “Constraint” or “discomfort.”
3. EBB refers to the Sepoy Rebellion, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny and Indian Mutiny, which began at the British garrison in Meerut on 10 May 1857, the day after 85 native Indian (sepoy) cavalry soldiers were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for refusing to follow orders. Those orders included using rifle cartridges that the sepoys believed were greased with the fat of pigs and cows. Rumors had been spreading through the ranks in northern India that the recently introduced Enfield rifles employed such cartridges, and part of preparing the gun to fire involved biting off the end of the cartridge (which was made of paper). If the grease was made from pig fat, it was an insult to Muslims; if from cow fat, it was an act of defilement for Hindus, resulting in the loss of caste. On 10 May, a large contingent of sepoy infantry at the garrison freed the prisoners and killed some of their British officers. In the ensuing conflict, native soldiers and civilians, Muslim and Hindu, joined in isolated uprisings against the British. Both sides committed atrocities; the most infamous occurred on 15 July 1857 at Cawnpore (now Kanpur), where some 200 women and children were hacked to pieces and dumped in a well (news of which did not reach England until mid-September). The rebellion, which continued until April 1859, though it was decided in the colonizer’s favor by June 1858, led to the administration of India being transferred from the East India Company to the Crown in August 1858.
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