4209. EBB & RB to Sarah Bayley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 163-166.
| [In EBB’s hand] | Paris– Hotêl de Londres |
Rue St Hyacinthe. St Honoré
Sunday. [11 July 1858] [1]
We cant be in Paris and so near you, my dear friend, without putting out a hand to touch yours. We are not going to England this time. I have been weaker & more out of health than usual this last spring, & am sent to the seaside,—which piece of prudence we combine with the duty & pleasure of passing a few months with Robert’s father & sister who accompany us to the coast, & with whom we shall return to Paris for a week or two before we leave them again for Italy at the end of September.
I am so much stronger through medical discipline & change of air, that the sea scarcely seems necessary—but it is right, I suppose, to go, & little Peni will be the better for bathing, well as he is now– Also, Arabel & George promise to come & find us when we have fixed the place of our summer tents,—& very undecided we are between Etretat, Trouville & five or six other salt-water paradises. Meanwhile we linger, not loth, at this comfortable & by no means very expensive hotel, close to the Tuileries—but how cold it is! We left Florence in the fires of June, and have had suddenly to translate ourselves into flannels & warm dresses. But the rain is over today .. “an irritating rain,” says Penini, “when one is thinking of Punches and of going out to be happy” .. only very good for the crops, say the Parisians––and now the sun is out, & we poor Italians may cease to shiver perhaps. Let me have some words from you; & tell us how you are, & that the rheumatic affection is in proper abeyance, & what you are doing & thinking this summer. I am under temptation to write a little note to dear Mdme Braun, of whose painful state I hear with tender & anxious sympathy through Arabel, from time to time,—and have only been restrained by some fear of troubling her, .. by a feeling that even affectionate enquiries may sound to her in her suffering, like the vain buzzing of flies .. who shall say?
We had a most luxurious journey from Florence .. except the sea-part of it which cant be smoothed by ducats—travelling by express-trains, & sleeping three times on the road from Marseilles, because Robert was resolved that I should’nt be overtired .. which I was’nt– Continually we named & blessed our dear dear Mr Kenyon, who had given us the power to do & enjoy so much. [2] In fact the whole pressure of external life is removed from us by the consequence of his liberality—we have life-room I mean—and all the more that we have not changed our way of living since our increase of income–
You would be surprised as we were, if you could see the development of architectural beauty in Paris– Even to our eyes full of Italy, this is a wonderful city–
Also, it is fair to mention, considering some late statements in the ‘Times,’ [3] that nothing could exceed the courtesy & liberality of French officials & non-officials to us travellers– Our passport was not glanced at or asked for after Marseilles .. and of all our luggage only one box had its lid lifted. Robert said we did not smuggle,—& the courteous reply being, “Je vous crois, Monsieur,” [4] examination ended at once–
Have you read ‘Theism’ [5] by Francis Newman– The form is professedly poetic, and a mistake therefore, because the man is no poet. But he is subtle and earnest as a thinker, and the book is remarkable and well worth your reading– In certain respects it will be more after your measure than mine—for he does not see what I believe I see .. but I like much in the book & get much good from it suggestively, in spite of all differences. Miss Cobbe[,] the author of ‘Intuitive Morals,’ [6] a personal friend of his & as much a rejector of Revelation as himself, brought proofsheets of it to Florence, & Robert & I were a good deal struck by certain thoughts–
What is this sad story about Dickens & his wife? [7] Incompatibility of temper after twenty three years of married life! What a plea! Worse than irregularity of the passions, it seems to me. “The wound is great because it is so small”– [8] Parents should endure more for the sake of their children, I do hold,—to avoid stripping off the leaves of natural household joy from the green branches over their young heads,—taking the mother from one child & the father from another, & the sense of family love & union from all. Thinking only of my own peace & selfish pleasure, too, I would rather be beaten by my husband once a day than lose my child out of the house——yes, indeed– And the Dickens’s have children younger than Penini—. [9] Poor woman! She must suffer bitterly—that is sure–
Have you seen Adelaide Procter’s poems? [10] The writer was always interesting to me. And how are the Procters?—how is dear Mr Procter?– Do you see many of your old friends?
Write to us—we shall be here yet a few days. Otherwise (that is, if you wait to write) direct under cover to Arabel (7. Delamere Terrace Harrow Road) because it will be known there where we are–
May God bless you– Remember in love your affectionate
& grateful Ba–
[Continued by RB]
It seems strange and sad that we should look away from London as we do now—but there are few in it whose greetings do not reach us as warm across the sea as if we were nearer to take them: dearest Miss Bayley—how the old times come back! It is pleasant, and one of the few pleasant things left, that you are there—in earnest of all that used to be just there. Plenty of kind and affectionate people spring up, but the old days stay by themselves, and nothing will be like them. Ba will have told you we have got thus far prosperously: we felt our friend’s goodness in every shortened railway-passage and lengthened stay on the road,—just as he intended. Her health has been more affected last year than I ever knew it to be—she did not recover strength in the summer, so that winter gave a redoubled blow at greater advantage: and but for the strict order of the doctor [11] I should never have run the risk of the journey for even the probable advantage of change of air—but it is dared and done, thank God: my father is wonderfully well—he completed his seventy-sixth birthday the day we arrived: and on his account it will be better to stay here than go elsewhere. After all,—who knows but you too may incline to the smooth sands and gay country about Fécamp, Trouville and the others? I wish it might be so.
We find Mrs Jameson here—on the point of departure however: you know, probably, how much we have seen of her this last year. Mad. Mohl is in England, it seems—poor Lady Elgin dying. We are at the first Hôtel whose name caught our eye in a chance “Galignani”—and they make us comfortable enough: we have only an Italian maid with us—the voyage has all but killed her, she declares—tho’ she does not travel for the first time: our boy is always well and good.
Now, will you not tell us something of yourself in retaliation for all this? We shall be all but alone, and a letter from you will give us pleasure indeed.
Ever yours very affectionately
& gratefully
Robert Browning.
Publication: Studies in English, 21 (1941), 149–153.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Dated by the Paris return address, where the Brownings resided from 6 July to 19 July 1858, and by EBB’s uncertainty about their seaside destination. 11 July 1858 was the first of two Sundays that the Brownings were in Paris. By 18 July 1858 they knew they were headed for Étretat.
2. EBB refers to Kenyon’s bequests to the Brownings totalling £10,500 (see SD1993 in vol. 23).
4. “I believe you, Sir.”
5. Theism, Doctrinal and Practical; or Didactic Religious Utterances by Francis William Newman (1805–97) was published by John Chapman on 23 January 1858.
6. Frances Power Cobbe, An Essay on Intuitive Morals (1855).
8. From an anecdote attributed to Francis Lockier (1669?–1740) by Joseph Spence (1699–1768): “In one of Dryden’s plays there was this line, which the actress endeavoured to speak in as moving and affecting a tone as she could: ‘My wound is great, because it is so small!’ and then she paused, and looked very much distressed. The Duke of Buckingham, who was in one of the boxes, rose from his seat, and added, in a loud ridiculing voice: ‘Then ’twould be greater were it none at all!’” (Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men, ed. Samuel Weller Singer, 1820, pp. 61–62). The Dryden play has not been identified. A copy of Anecdotes sold as lot 1110 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A2186).
9. Of the Dickenses’ nine surviving children, only one was younger than Pen: Edward (“Plorn”) Bulwer Lytton Dickens (1852–1902). Henry Fielding Dickens (1849–1933) was older by a little over two months; Dora Annie Dickens (1850–51) had died at eight months.
10. Legends and Lyrics by Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–64) was published in May 1858 to glowing reviews.
11. James Harding.
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