4130. EBB to Eliza Anne Ogilvy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 32–37.
[Florence]
[early February 1858] [1]
My dearest Mrs Ogilvy I have seemed almost to lose hearing of you in this long silence. You were good to write first– I know I did not seem to deserve it. For a year past I have been very slow, nay unwilling to write a line,—and you and others might well have given me up for what was less my fault than my misfortune after all– After some blows, one takes up the burden of life again, but one staggers a little at first, and then creeps– Then the nerves strengthen, and one walks nearly as usual perhaps. The end is not so far.
You see I mean to behave better in writing,—and, to prove my sincerity, I answer your letter by return of post– So glad I was to hear what I call a good account of you all, upon the whole. That you should not have suffered more from the misfortunes in India, is very pleasant to know: and since you told me of having two brothers there, [2] I have been able to measure your anxiety. May God preserve yours for you, & bless you to them–
But dear Mr Ogilvy should not overwork himself,—neither should you. What would become of me (& of the house) I wonder, if I had a house to manage! Its a priviledge on my part & an advantage on my husband’s, that I have never ordered dinner once since my marriage. A positive blessedness is the smooth fashion of continental life,—yes, I do think so. The two ends meet somehow, by means chiefly of paying the week’s bills & having done with them. Now, through the kindness of our dear friend, [3] we are much less pinched & trammelled than in the old days– We dont increase our establishment, & so we have more money left for pleasures & embroideries of life. I can remember when I had to think of it, before I bought gloves– As for you, you pay for the jewels in your caskets, out of the purse in your pocket—& economy with you is a proof of riches. When “your ends meet,” you must be overjoyous I should think– Observe how covetous I am of children! Always, always! I shall hanker after little girls to my dying hour. And poor Peni echoes me. When he reads Grimm’s story of the “twelve brothers” he sighs, “I wish I had twelve brothers.” And then he asks how soon he may be “married,” in the hope of having “a boy.” “Perhaps in twelve years, dear papa & mama”? We answer, “By all means, but that he must get a great deal of wisdom into his head in the course of those years, because so much is necessary in the married & parental state.”
He is a funny child. A few nights ago he came in to me in very low spirits——sate down on my knee & threw his arms round my neck & confessed himself “very unhappy”—saw everything ‘en noir’ [4] & was inclined even to perpetual celibacy. “Dear mama, I dont think I shall ever marry myself. If I do ever, I will take an Italian—(perhaps an Italian princess) but no, I dont think I shall marry myself ever.” When I came to enquire tenderly—after the right quantity of kisses administered to spoilt children,—why the world looked so black to him, I found that his nurse wanted to hold him by the hand in the carnival, betraying to the whole world, who was behind the mask, in the domino– “Dear mama,” he repeated, “think what my position is!! do think.”
He has a rose-coloured domino, &, having got over the difficulties of his position, is enjoying the carnival immensely– I cut the knot, by giving another domino to his attendant– Poor Peni–
He is not, in the least a “young person,” but rather quite a young child still,—with the same face & look & ways– His cleverness is a curious contrast to his babynesses of various kinds,—& his matrimonial schemes dont tend to mature him. You will cry out perhaps, but he still wears his embroidered short trowsers—high blouses of course, but of a lighter material than cloth—velvet, say, or merino– Even the gastric fever he had at Lucca last summer which kept him a fortnight in bed, & frightened me out of my wits, did not touch a ringlet of his head, dear darling. But he improves in the power of attention _________________.
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Florence
March 1– So far had I written as far back as you see– Alas. Rose-coloured dominos wont decide the colour of life. I broke off there, & before I could begin again, both Robert & Peni were siezed with ‘grippe,’ Peni catching it from his father,—& during the last week of the carnival he was shut up in the house, (domino & all, if he had’nt lent it to a small friend) & so lost the bloom, the bouquet, the glory of the festa time. Poor Pen—he bore it beautifully till the last morning dawned, and then he lay in bed & declared his intention (the tears running over the poor eyes) of never getting up again in this world!—— The heart which had been getting bigger & bigger with grief, gave way at last ..
Never mind– We get over our woes on the earth, in a surprising way– Grippe & despair are alike past,—a promise to go to two plays & a piece of five pauls having something to do with it as well as philosophy: and now we are all as well as usual– In a way, too, to be better,—for it is raining,—& I hope we shall soon have our arrears of heat paid up with interest–
In the meanwhile, let me tell dear Mr Ogilvy, that his business is in a way to be done,—only Robert cant get it well done for less than forty dollars, and as you mentioned thirty, he waits for instructions from you before he concludes the agreement– [5] Write & tell me what you wish–
I wont touch on politics– I too know something of the unfortunate Orsini– [6] I know indeed too much of that party altogether, & of the head of it, Mazzini the unscrupulous, who would crush the world inclusive of his friends & his enemies, under the chariot wheels of his One Idea, rather than it should swerve an inch– I know of the men, & I have even loved the women whom he has mesmerized to the most utter demoralization, .. ready to use the assassin’s knife at any moment– These things are hateful to me– Foreigners? Italians? No– Englishmen—Englishwomen. These things are hideous in my eyes– “Oh Liberty, what deeds are done in thy name!” [7] Oh Italy, how thou art undone by such deeds!–
So I stop myself– I wont talk politics. I know I disagree with you on this French question as treated in the House[.] [8] I know perfectly,—so it is better not to write of it– It is certainly glorious for “the French colonels” to have led an English House of Commons to stultify themselves, .. even if it is not glorious for England to have followed the great example of Naples [9] (held up before her by Milner Gibson!) [10] and to refuse to do right because she is asked– For my part I consider the vote & the discussion which threw out Palmerston, dishonored us all– I dont often quote the Times, but really “Brummagem blustering” is the very term for it.– [11] If Lord Derby stands, [12] he must bring forward an equivalent for “the bill”—so it must end,—for what you call “our freedom,” dear friend, must’nt be our freedom to murder. The world must’nt point its finger at us as if we were “afraid to do right”—— Let me remember to add that in calling Mazzini “head of that party” I dont mean that personally he has been mixed up with the late event in Paris. That may be or may not be– In fact there has been some late coolness between him & Orsini. [13] But indirectly he gives brains & heart to all their conspiracies– He is the apostle of assassination:—that, I know.
And one word of the “Right of Asylum”– [14] What should all we liberals say, if the Church of Rome insisted on exercising her old right of asylum to criminals at the altars?—— Civilization has ended such a state of things,—of possibilities even.
My dear friend, do tell me what books your children read—what, in English, what in French?—and who among them reads French? What in Italian too? It’s most difficult to get Italian books for children,—& Peni is now reading translations from the French of Mdme Guizot. [15] I like to hear all about your dear children. Have you taught any French to Alessandro, or does he keep steadily to Latin? Peni has’nt touched Latin yet– But I should have liked you to hear him read & translate a page of Grimm’s German just now in one of his good moods .. which makes an immense difference. He translated quite fluently– In French he has not finished Berquin [16] yet, who is voluminous–— I myself have done little lately but read German, & have nearly attained to the goal of getting on without a dictionary which is my ‘bête noire’– [17] Heaps of Mdme Hahn Hahn’s novels have been consumed in this endeavour– [18] Mrs Jameson who has lived in Casa Guidi all the winter, has read she says, & speaks highly of the ‘Christianity without Judaism’ [19] you speak of– It seems to me that Christianity stripped of its Judaism & its Scholasticism, would be a very different thing from Christianity as generally recognized.
Have you observed an advertisement of a new magazine, the Englishwoman’s Magazine, edited by Bessie Parkes. [20] It is chiefly supported by women—& the chief object is to raise the woman’s condition– If you liked to contribute I dare say they would be glad & the pay is said to be good. By naming my name to the editor she would give you an immediate reading, I venture to think– Perhaps you might not care– Mrs Trollope contributes. [21]
Publication: EBB-EAHO, pp. 135–140.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. The opening date of this letter is suggested by EBB’s implication in the fifth paragraph that the masking part of Carnival has begun. In letter 4124, RB writes that “the masking … begins to-day”; i.e., 31 January.
2. Mrs. Ogilvy had three brothers, all younger: William Abercromby Dick (1823–1906), Abercromby Robert Dick (1829–63), and Alfred Abercromby Dick (1834–74). William was then seeing action in the Sepoy Rebellion as a lieutenant in the 3rd Bombay Cavalry. He was promoted to captain in July 1858 and eventually achieved the rank of major-general (see The New Annual Army List, 1881, p. 563 and The United Service Magazine, March 1859, p. 469). Alfred was also involved in the rebellion, serving as a lieutenant in the 52nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, the rank and file of which had mutinied at Jubbulpore on 1 July 1857 (see The United Service Magazine, February 1858, p. 300*).
3. A reference to John Kenyon’s bequests to the Brownings: £6,500 to RB and £4,000 to EBB.
4. “In black.”
5. Evidently, David Ogilvy (by way of RB) had commissioned George Mignaty to execute a copy of a painting in Florence (see letters 4173 and 4183). At the current exchange rate, 40 Roman dollars was worth about 8 guineas. Mignaty’s final bill came to £9.17.6 (see letter 4183).
8. EBB alludes to the recent debates in the House of Commons over the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, which proposed raising the classification of such a crime from a misdemeanor to a felony. Introduced by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston on 8 February 1858, the bill was intended to placate the French after the assassination attempt on Napoleon III. Felice Orsini and his fellow conspirators had not only formulated their plans in England, the bombs they threw at the emperor’s carriage were manufactured there. The bill was considered by many a submission to French pressure. Menacing letters from “French colonels” and other commanding officers in the French army had appeared in Le Moniteur and were reprinted in the British press. The Times of 29 January carried two extracts, one from a Colonel Hardy, demanding “an account from the land of impunity where are the haunts of the monsters who are sheltered under its laws. Give us the order, Sire, and we shall pursue them even to their places of security”; the other from a General Gudin, calling for the destruction of the “infamous haunt where machinations so infernal are planned” (p. 9). Additionally, a dispatch, dated 20 January, from Comte Walewski (1810–68), the French foreign minister, to the Comte de Persigny, French ambassador to Great Britain, was posted in the House of Commons the day before the bill’s introduction. After referring to the recent attempt on the emperor’s life and where the plot had originated, Walewski asked Persigny to appeal to Her Majesty’s government for “a guarantee of security” against “the recurrence and the perversity of these guilty enterprises” (The Times, 8 February 1858, p. 9). The bill was defeated at its second reading on 19 February.
9. EBB refers to the Kingdom of Naples—or, as it was then called, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a repressive state ruled by the brutal Ferdinand II (see letter 3003, note 29). Appeals had been made to him concerning his treatment of political prisoners.
10. Thomas Milner-Gibson (1806–84), was Radical M.P. for Ashton-under-Lyne, previously having held a seat for Manchester from 1841 to 1857. On the day of the second reading of the Conspiracy to Murder Bill (19 February), he introduced an amendment that censured the government for pushing the bill forward before replying to Walewski’s dispatch (see The Times, 20 February 1858, p. 6). The amendment narrowly passed after the House had voted down the bill, and the next day Palmerston offered his resignation to the Queen.
11. Not in The Times, but in The Morning Post of 22 February 1858 in an editorial defending Palmerston and attacking the men responsible for bringing about his resignation; namely, Lord John Russell, William Ewart Gladstone, and Benjamin Disraeli: “Fitting judges, who found in Mr. Milner Gibson a fitting executioner. For this gentleman—the very incarnation of Radical ‘funk,’ the apostle of peace at any price—it was reserved to stand up as the champion of Brummagem blustering” (p. 4). “Brummagem” is local slang for the town of Birmingham, where plated goods and imitation jewelry were manufactured; hence, as an adjective, “counterfeit, sham, not genuine; of the nature of a cheap or showy imitation” (OED).
12. Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (1799–1869), became prime minister for the second time on 21 February 1858. He formed a short-lived minority Conservative government after trying but failing to form a coalition.
14. In Walewski’s dispatch of 20 January (see note 8), he commended “the liberality with which England loves to practice the right of asylum towards foreigners, victims of political struggles” but questioned how England could protect those who “preached openly” the doctrine of assassination.
15. Pauline Guizot (née de Meulan, 1773–1827), who in 1812 married French historian and statesman François Guizot (1787–1874). The translations EBB mentions may have been either Moral Tales, trans. Mrs. L. Burke (1852), from Mme. Guizot’s Les Enfans contes à l’usage de la jeunesse (1824), or Popular Tales, trans. Mrs. L. Burke (1854) from Nouveaux contes (1823).
16. i.e., L’Ami des enfants (1782–83).
17. “Pet aversion”; literally, “black beast.”
19. Christianity without Judaism (1857) by Baden Powell (1796–1860), physicist and theologian.
20. The English Woman’s Journal (1858–64), the first feminist periodical in England, was at this time edited by Bessie Rayner Parkes and Matilda Hays. The maiden issue appeared on 1 March.
21. Theodosia Trollope’s poem “A Summer Night’s Dreaming” appeared in The English Woman’s Journal for August 1858.
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