4106. EBB to Sophia Eckley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 229–232.
Casa Guidi.
[ca. 20] December. [1857] [1]
Yes, I have your letters, my dearest Sophie,—four, are they not? and you have my poor one, I hope, to tell you how dear to me were such proofs of remembrance from you. How far away you look to me, in spite of remembrance and of letters—how far! Even this last letter, warm from the heart, says how far! and the spirits do not touch me softly to the conviction of spiritual closeness through all natural separation. Yet we have had here Mrs Crosland, the writer of that book [2] in England which we saw reviewed at the Bagni di Lucca. She brought her book,—and I did not like it much– It is not a wise book: (never is a wise book written on this subject,—) and does not prove anything except that she is a sincere courageous woman, which, of itself, is a phenomenon good to prove in this world & time. I do wish the deeper thinkers would take up the facts, & be sincere & courageous for their part. She told me some strange things which are not in the book, .. for instance of a medium in society, a young friend of her own, [3] for whom the ‘spirits’ come & make fruits & flowers, & precious stones, .. which things however are done without witnesses, .. this is only the medium’s word for it, .. we cannot build on such things. I think I am sorry you did not take with you your visionary from Malta. [4] You see I am so curious on this subject that I would fain look into every sort of unpromising box to see what may come out of it. You have had more experience– I throw out my hands on both sides to catch what I can. Is it foolish, or only natural?
It seems to me that we have forfeited Rome for this winter– I scarcely know whether I am sorry or glad. I sit by the fire here reading German & dreaming, & shuddering for the cold which we have had in bitter winds– And do you know I have regretted our not going with you eastwards? If I had gone I should have escaped some things vexatious, [5] besides tramontanas– Still and warm you are on the Nile,—safe from the noise of the world– May God bless the silence to you, so full & deep. Now I wonder if it will not grow wearisome to little Do, who runs forward too fast to understand looking back. Do you tell him stories about the crocodiles to reconcile him with the pyramids? Penini sends his love– Peni is rosy and well, & playing Verdi like a modern Italian with a triumphant joy, and thinking of the great sword like Do’s .. which he is to have at Christmas.
Our friend Mr Jarves has returned from America, & brought me heaps of papers, reports of the sittings of the Boston committee on spiritualism, & the like .. also a book of his own (not on this subject) which on the whole pleases me—a strange, earnest book [6] .. with drawbacks of want of taste [7] .. “Confessions of an enquirer.” There is to be a second volume on Art, and a third on spiritualism– [8] He tells me that the subject is taking a faster & faster hold on the public mind in America, & that the manifestations assume a higher, a more inward & less physical character. He visited Hume in Paris at his own rooms in the Champs Elysées, & saw the splendid gifts showered on him. Hume said he received no money, .. he refused to sell his gifts for fixed prices, but that benefactions were showered on him from persons unnamed, .. that, for instance, he found his tailor’s bills paid, & so with other bills– Mr Jarves observed heaps of visiting cards from the social sommités. [9] He observed, besides, that Hume’s manners were extremely improved, .. his whole bearing strikingly more refined– And, what is better, he has used his good fortune well. Mr Jarves ascertained in America that he had invested money there in a farm in which he had placed some relatives of his, .. I think, an uncle & aunt. [10] And he sent to Florence the amount of a debt, .. some sixty or seventy dollars, .. to a friend here, who certainly did not dun him. Therefore, let us hope he may be redeemed after all.
Dear Mrs Shaw has written to me & sent me a slender volume of poems by Maria Lowell [11] .. (her own copy,—) printed, not published,—& I accept it with gratefully touched feelings as a mark of her affection. [12]
Dearest Sophie, how vexed I am that you & Mr Eckley should have been so tried in the matter of servants & couriers. You have been royally generous, it seems to us—generous to an excess even–
You would be generous to me if you were here. You would come to see me, now that I am in prison for the winter—you would come & sit in that chair close by me, and I should look in your eyes & know that you loved me– May God bless you, dear & kind! My love to Mr Eckley, (if I may) and to Mrs Tuckerman, (if she will) and to Do, if he will or not. I take Robert’s too, to join it to mine–
Your very affectionate
EBB– called Ba.
Peni lost his hat from a railway once, just as Mrs Tuckerman did .. but he was in despair & shed bitter tears, .. sobbed himself to sleep, poor child, at having to suffer the humiliation of entering Paris without a hat–
May God bless you & love you. Go on to write.
Mrs Jameson enquires after you with much interest. She <went> yesterday to Pisa for some days, and <thinks> of Rome for afterwards–
Address: Mrs David Eckley / Cairo– / (Aux Soins de Messrs Fenzi & Co[)].
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Approximate dating suggested by EBB’s reference to the cold (also mentioned in letter 4105), to Pen’s anticipation of Christmas, and to “some things vexatious” (see note 5 below).
2. Light in the Valley: My Experience of Spiritualism (1857).
3. Perhaps a reference to Miss Andrews; see letter 4092, note 6.
4. Unidentified.
5. Two of which could be her disagreements with RB over spiritualism (see the end of letter 4102) and her growing disenchantment with Robert Lytton (see letter 4107, note 2).
6. Why and What Am I? The Confessions of an Inquirer (1857).
8. At the end of the preface to Why and What Am I?, Jarves proposed two further titles in the series: Art-Confession; or, The Experience of Æsthetic Culture in Life and The Religious Idea; or, The Link Between the Present and Future. The second instalment was published as The Art-Idea: Part Second of Confessions of an Inquirer (Boston and New York, 1864) and referred to the first book in a lengthy preface. There was no third instalment. A second edition of The Art-Idea: Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture in America (New York and London, 1865) removed the reference to the first book from the subtitle and completely omitted the preface.
9. “Prominent people,” or “leading lights.”
10. Doubtless, Adam Cook (né Pennycuick, b. 1805), a Scottish paper-maker, and his wife, Mary Ann (née McNeil, 1803–76), elder sister of Daniel Dunglas Home’s mother. The Cooks (then Pennycuicks) adopted Home in 1834 when he was a year old. They left Scotland for America in 1841, and the name Pennycuick was eventually changed to Cook (see Waddington, p. 52). We have been unable to confirm Home’s investment in a farm for his aunt and uncle. Years later he evidently bought a “cottage” for his aunt at Elwood, New Jersey (p. 543).
11. The Poems of Maria Lowell, collected and edited anonymously by her husband, James Russell Lowell, was privately printed at Cambridge, Mass., in 1855, two years after the author’s death. The volume, dedicated to Emelyn Story, Mary Lowell Putnam, and Sarah B. Shaw, is inscribed by the last: “To Mrs Browning—with much love from S.B.S. Oct. 23rd. 1857.” One of only fifty copies issued, it is now at Texas. The Lowells, who leased Casa Guidi from August to October 1851, met the Brownings in London during the summer of 1852.
12. Presumably, EBB mentions Sarah Blake Shaw (née Sturgis) because she and Sophia Eckley’s half-sister, Hannah Mason (née Tuckerman, 1805–59) were first cousins.
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