Correspondence

4041.  EBB & RB to Emily Tennyson

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 132–133.

Toscana–

September 5. [1857] [1]

My dear Mrs Tennyson

We see in the Galignani that Mr Tennyson is not well [2] .. by the side of threats of the fall of our Indian empire & other disasters; and it disquiets us to the point that I must write to ask you whether it is true or not, & how far– [3] The trade of newspapers is to blow bubbles, & a little breath more or less determines the size of the bubble– May this be a mere bubble!– Write one word to say so. Oh, may you be able to smile at my question from over the seas! But remember we have lost our friend, your brother Frederick, from whom we could always hear about you! He has devastated our Florence for us by going to live at Pisa; and now he is farther off still, at Genoa, while we are mountain-locked here at Lucca with no news from anybody.

The spring & summer have been heavy to me from a family grief, [4] but we three are well, I thank God, living quietly in the shade till the sun shall have done its worst (and best, alas!) in this beautiful Italy. Little Penini is very happy, gossipping with the contadini, among whom he passes for ‘un vero Fiorentino,’ [5] though he talks English inside the house as fast as Italian out of it– I hope that one day he may know your boys– [6] How sorry I was to leave England last year without seeing them or you … or King Arthur. [7] My husband made me envious by the advantage he had over me in having listened to a certain exquisite music [8] .. of which I could only dream.

Just before we left Florence to come hither, we saw your brother Frederick who went there for a day or two; we thought we never saw him looking so well. It was provoking to hear, very provoking,—but he maintained that he slept at Pisa as he never could at Florence. [9] I was very cross & inclined to retort that at Pisa one slept by day as well as by night, the place was so dull. Think of our loss in having to lose him!——

Dear Mrs Tennyson, will you send me just a few words? Really we are anxious– Being in all affection to both of you, his & yours

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

& RB. [10]

Publication: BBIS-22, pp. 25–26.

Manuscript: Tennyson Research Centre.

1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Galignani’s Messenger (see note 2 below).

2. Galignani’s Messenger of 27 August 1857 reprinted from The Kendal Mercury the following: “The Poet Laureate, Mr. A. Tennyson, we regret to hear, is not at the present time in very good health” (p. 1). The lead article, reprinted from the “Herald” (presumably The Morning Herald), speaks of the recent Indian mutiny as a “disaster” and mentions other “disastrous events.”

3. Emily Tennyson confirms her husband’s poor health in letter 4046.

4. Her father’s death on 17 April 1857.

5. “A true Florentine.”

6. Hallam Tennyson (1852–1928) and Lionel Tennyson (1854–86).

7. Tennyson was at work on Idylls of the King (1859–85); see letter 3104, note 4.

8. RB probably heard “the exquisite music” in the first week of July 1856. Other than a brief visit to London from the end of June (see Tennyson, II, 153) to the beginning of July (see letter 3812), Tennyson had no opportunity to meet RB during the Brownings’ stay in England in the summer and early autumn of 1856. From mid-July to the beginning of October, the Tennysons were in Wales, after which they returned to Farringford (see Tennyson, II, 156–161). In a letter to Tennyson of 5 April 1859, RB recalls “the exquisite poem you read me two years ago [actually, twenty-one months ago], with a company of such poems, may be ready for printing just now” (ms at Tennyson Centre). It is likely that RB heard him read Vivien, the only one of the four idylls published in 1859 that was completed by the summer of 1856 (see Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 1949, pp. 299–303). But he may have also heard part of Enid, as indicated by Mrs. Tennyson in letter 4046.

9. In letter 3958, EBB noted that in Florence “Mr. Tennyson & others have complained of the climate telling on the nerves, and preventing sleep.” To Mary Brotherton on 4 June 1857, Frederick Tennyson reported that within the past four months, he had fled to Pisa because the “irritating atmosphere” of Florence “rasped the nerves like a file” (ms at Lilly).

10. Final line is in RB’s hand.

___________________