4210. RB to Charles Callahan Perkins
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 166–168.
Paris, Hôtel de Londres,
R. St Hyacinthe St Honoré.
July 11. ’58
My dear Perkins, [1]
How long we have been in making any acknowledgement of your kindnesses of so many sorts: there is the Music in the Album [2] —really happy and fresh to my ears, and far too good for Peni to receive though not for you to write: & then, that wish to hear our news so kindly conceived & expressed: well,—we had a particularly prosperous journey from first to last—no heat, no extreme fatigue, no accident or delay of any kind: the ship was overcrowded from Leghorn to Genoa and my wife passed the night on the bare deck and a shawl or two rather than try the stifling berths below—thence to Marseilles was a rougher business—but we rested a night got to Lyons next evening, Dijon the following midday and Paris on Tuesday night. There I found my Father & sister well to heart’s content—and nothing remains but to decide on a sea-coast town, and to find propitious weather for going thither—for the cold, actual cold is extraordinary: we wear winter clothing and might sit over a fire with advantage. Mrs Jameson is here: poor Lady Elgin is dying,—insensible yesterday: all the daughters are with her. Lady Augusta said there was no longer “immediate danger”—but the end cannot be long delayed. Mr Bryant happens to lodge in the Hôtel next door—which is pleasant to know–
And you—how are you all? Do you find those green hills & woods spoiled by the little stream of gay people going and coming between the Bridge and the Villa—or do you step aside for a few hundred yards and lose sight of them? Is it hot? Do you ride? Does the great Baby keep her advantages, and the lesser light [3] emulate them? [4] I wish we were with you on every account but two—my wife’s and my father’s—we shall certainly set our faces Southward in less than three months, and, I suppose, find you at Florence,—at least provisionally. For us, if we don’t go to Egypt, we shall winter at Rome—or so we say at present. We heard of Mrs Bruen from her fellow-traveller Miss Heaton—& very satisfactorily: pray tell her that her goodness is always in our memory and not seldom in our mouths.
Just before we left Florence I heard the notable first-performance of Pacini’s Oratorio [5] —no better nor worse than his ancient performances: the brass band of the Veliti [6] (don’t you remember some of them at Milli’s Improvisation?) doing remarkable justice to the soft love-breathings: I was glad that folks thought it all right, for the old fellow’s sake who thumped and jumped and put spirit and water into the whole, despite his seventy-five years. [7] My wife writes to Mrs Perkins. You must give her my truest regard and remember me always, my
dear Perkins, as
yours faithfully
Robert Browning.
Address: La Toscane. / Charles Perkins Esq / Bagni di Lucca, / Toscana.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
2. “Barcarole” by Charles C. Perkins, preserved in the “Album” presented by Anna Jameson to Pen on 1 January 1858 (see Reconstruction, A32). There are six other compositions in the album, including a “Fantasia” by Pen’s music master (see letter 4144, note 3).
3. Cf. Genesis 1:16.
4. The Perkinses’ children: Mary Eleanor and Edward Clifford (see letter 4134, note 4).
6. Italian form of the Latin “velites,” Roman foot soldiers of the second century B.C. The name was revived by Napoleon I for elements in his Imperial Guard and in his Italian regiments. Perhaps, RB is facetiously referring to Italian soldiers in the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to whom Pacini’s oratorio was dedicated.
7. Pacini was 63 years old at the time of the performance.
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