4100. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 220–223.
Florence.
November, 22. [1857] [1]
My ever beloved Arabel, I am afraid of our letters crossing again, & so make haste to write mine. Thank you for yours, dearest—it was very soothing & pleasant. By this time you will be certainly tending towards London again,—& how accompanied, I wonder?– I wish Henrietta could have spared you little Mary, only I confess I am not surprised that she cant– Your alternative makes me doubtful– Dearest Arabel, I would & could give you no other advise [sic] about the proposed adoption of Sam Barrett’s child, [2] than to urge you to consider the question on all sides before you decide on it. You know nothing of the character of the child—and children are very different. Supposing the little creature to be amiable & pliable, not too stupid & not too ill tempered, she would be a comfort to you in many ways I have no sort of doubt– There would be drawbacks however: You would be a little under constraint– Your movements would be less facile & more expensive. These are things to think of & to weigh something against the pleasure of a domestic interest & companionship, and the satisfaction of doing a good deed & lightening the burden of the poor Barretts. Consider, dearest– Dont be overpersuaded to this without being sure of your own mind– I would far rather you had one of Henrietta’s children, of course– Apart from other reasons, you could always send her home, if you cared to go anywhere without carrying her on your back. But what can one say against poor Henrietta’s wishes? It’s impossible. Only again .. the child’s being with you, would .... Almost I could beseech dearest Henrietta & Surtees to consider!– People send their children to school,—& this would not be worse as far as regards separation, & how much better otherwise?–
We are not gone to Rome, you see; but Robert still talks of going possibly .. As for me I am quite passive—ready to go, willing to stay .. never was a more perfect balance of the scales. Peni is getting on beautifully with his music and his German too,—and moving about ploughs up the smooth ground for us, of necessity. I would rather, on the whole, I think, stay. Yet Hatty Hosmer (the American sculptress[)] has been urging us. She has just gone to Rome, having remained here a fortnight,—dining & breakfasting with us almost every other day—a great favorite with both of us. She thought Peni looking very well .. which he does really! .. he has grown fat, & looks prettier than ever, it seems to me. His particular pleasure just now is Wilson’s baby [3] .. Wilson has a baby!—and Peni’s enchantment is as if he were the papa & mama, both in one. Two hours after the birth he was off to see it—not waiting to have his breakfast– “Oh—such a very pretty baby! He knows me, dear mama. He holds my hand fast– I really think he loves me.” “Well[”]—said Robert, “if you are kind to him, he will be sure to love you.” “And I am very, very kind. I really love him just as if he was my bruzzer.” So everyday he is there, nursing the baby: Wilson lets him hold it on his knee—which seems to me dangerous work, though he is very indignant to hear me say so– The house is let at last,—not very satisfactorily .. that is, for only an uncertain time. I have been quite uneasy about this non-letting, & was relieved when Fanny Haworth arrived & took it for a month, she & another lady– [4] Neither Wilson nor her new boy, have I seen yet. We have had a cold tramontana which prevented my leaving the house, & has only just given way to rain. But little Pen has more than represented me, I assure you– He is very good just now, I must tell you. He means to be “very good” he says, & for the most part, keeps his word. The music is highly prosperous. The long piece from the ‘Traviata’ he plays well; and now he has undertaken another long piece from the same opera. He gives more time to music than to all his other lessons together, which I should be inclined to complain of, if it were not such a decided passion & talent with him. Then it does not, at this stage, when he has mastered the reading of the notes, tell so much on the brain: we have less to fear from it than from book-application. He gets on nicely with German, however, .. reading & translating easy passages in Grimm’s stories quite currently. And the French comes fluently of course. Altogether I am not dissatisfied—though he ought to spell better—& though he might know something of arithmetic (which he has’nt an idea about.) Never mind. There is time– And we cant do everything at once. I am glad I was not quite wrong about the collars &c. I had misgivings sometimes.
Poor Mr Garrow has died suddenly—that is, he was siezed in the morning with paralysis, & was dead at night. There are circumstances very painful about the event– His moral conduct had been by no means without taint—& he left everything to a wretched woman who was no more his than another’s– There was an illegitimate child of uncertain parentage. His death was very uncomfortable, I have heard .. painful to those who loved him, I should fancy. He professed to disbelieve in any sort of hereafter—the intercourse with Hume having shaken him for a time, but the facts being explained to his later reflections, as physical phenomena .. that is, emanating from the body of the medium, .. & not spiritual in any way. Mr Trollope was absent at Sienna, &, though sent for by express, returned too late– He says that Theodosia is tranquil. The elder Mrs Trollope loses her memory, but is otherwise in possession of her usual mental power. But it’s all over with the books [5] –– Mr Jerves has arrived from America, coming through Paris where he has seen Hume: Hume received him in a pretty apartment in the Champs Elysées & showed him splendid jewellery presented by the emperor & empress, & also the king of Bavaria. He goes to the Tuilleries four times a week—but talks notwithstanding, of the possibility of coming to Florence for some of the winter months on account of his health. He has been invited here by Major Gregory—but I doubt his coming, notwithstanding,—& if he does come, which for some reasons I should be glad of, I shall avoid seeing him– I wont irritate Robert, or give him occasion of irritation—is’nt it good of me?– Say nothing of this. Oh—Robert is tamer on the subject than in the days of old. But the name of Hume still means gun-powder. [6]
Mr Lytton is living up at Isa’s villa,—not well– He is very delicate, I much fear. Mrs Jameson lives in this house—(not with us, understand) and in a month or two will probably go to Rome. I grieve to say that Mr Hanna is ill—with fever, they tell Robert, who is’nt allowed to penetrate beyond the porter–
Write & tell me of yourself, my dear dearest Arabel. Mind you tell me of yourself. As to dear Storm, it really does seem to me what our Italians call “stravagante,” [7] that he should think of going back to Jamaica this winter– And Sette?– Will they indeed go?– It seems to me scarcely credible. As to Alfred I shall be heartily glad when he returns from that unhealthy climate where he professes to find no overwhelming advantages. [8] I did not imagine that Lizzy would remain long at Bry[n]gwyn, without any society except that of her husband’s family. Mrs Martin who saw her at Barton Court, calls her “pretty & fantastic looking”– What a good description! But to me she is exactly like Undine, [9] neither more nor less pretty.
I feel as if I had written a most stupid dislocated letter. The fact is I have run rather than written, & wanted to catch the post– <***>
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 327–330.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the birth of Wilson’s second child.
2. Emma Barrett (1848–91), fourth daughter and seventh child of Samuel Goodin Barrett (1812–76), EBB’s and Arabella’s second cousin, and his wife, Susanna Maria (née Bell, 1816–1904). Emma lived with Arabella for a number of years but was never officially adopted. In 1873 she married Sir Lindsay Wood (1834–1920), a wealthy landowner.
3. Pylades (“Pilade”) Francesco Romagnoli, born on 11 November 1857.
4. Miss W. (see letter 4095, note 2).
5. Frances Trollope’s final novel, Fashionable Life; or, Paris and London, was published in August 1856.
6. Because of the séance at Ealing (see letters 3587, 3605, and 3606) and the subsequent confrontation between RB and Home at 13 Dorset Street (see letter 3606, note 2), both of which events occurred in the summer of 1855.
7. “Odd.”
8. Alfred had been in China; see letter 3983, note 13.
9. In Undine (1811) by Friedrich Heinrich Karl de La Motte-Fouqué (1777–1843), the title character, a water sprite, falls in love with a knight, marries him, and thus acquires a soul. In a letter to Julia Martin, dated [?11] [January 1861], EBB again compares Lizzie to Undine “before the transformation” (ms at Wellesley).
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