4221. EBB to Sophia Eckley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 189–192.
Maison Versigny
2. rue de Perrey
Le Hâvre– France
30th July– [1858] [1]
Darling, how good & pleasant your letter is to me! Your letter .. not your letters—for I have lost, do you know, one of them. To what address did you send it? [2] to the Poste Restante at Paris?—anywhere where we can get it? There was a Cæsar who lost a day– [3] But to lose a letter, such a letter, .. (if Cæsars get such letters, ..) would have been a worse loss to him, had he been twice Cæsar.
We want to know, too, how you liked the picture, [4] and though a word just drops, in this saved letter, to seem to intimate that you liked it, we should have liked to know what you thought of it exactly, how it struck you, what were the faults you found– Certainly I must love you, or I would not have sate for it with the patience of a monument (which is’nt meant, if you please, for a misquotation from Shakespeare) [5] I who hate, so, sitting, except in an easy chair––(which is’nt meant, if you please, for a way of asking for thanks, but simply as a way of proving love–)
And let me tell you– When it was settled that I should sit for you, Isa Blagden asked me to sit for her .. to somebody else– [6] So I could’nt choose but sit– I would’nt have vexed her for the world– Also I have a true affection for one who has been a true friend to me– But mark how the spirits ruled it to be. The picture was to be a water-colour sketch, and the artist had the reputation of being uniformly successful. The first day, thus it happened. He drew & drew .. took his brush & painted– At the end of an hour & a half of sitting, he rose up in wrath &, to the astonishment of all beholders, annihilated his work. The second day, thus it happened. He would paint in another room—& for an hour & a half (or more) he painted,—and at last rose up in wrath, annihilated his work & went home with the expressed determination of painting it over again up to that point from memory– The third day, thus it happened,—he came back with what he had painted from memory .. and it gave no hope: he sate down however and painted, painted, for half an hour—& then rose up in desperation & gave it up for the summer. How was it?– Were the spirits troubling him, do you think? Had they fixed it that only Sophie should have what she was so kind as to care for having?
The truth is,—Robert holds that no other picture was ever like me, & that your’s is like–
Like or not, it flatters—it gives a freshness & roundness which I no longer see in my looking[-g]lass. A size too large also. Suitably for you, whose eyes always enlarge me, you know.
Dearest Sophie, it is’nt the way of sisters that one should’nt know where the other lives—but I would wait till I heard from you before I wrote, to avoid that vexatious cross of crossed letters. Now I must begin to tell you how we left Paris behind us after a roar & conflict of advices about various bathing-places, & went to Etretat—found it, as described, very pretty as to scenery, rocks, green hills, bosky trees, but miserable in accom[m]odation, & a mere delusion as to quiet & solitude– For the bay is narrow, a sort of spy-glass for the whole small world gathered there, & one could’nt take a step anyhow without the searching analysis of all the people at all the windows, who had nothing whatever to do but to stare. Then, as to rooms—Robert (in a fit of fine frenzy) [7] took a sort of pigstye, with a view into a potato-patch, from which I recoiled when I saw it—yes, in conjugal rebellion—and the only cheap thing in Etretat was the price paid for getting off our “most filthy bargain.” [8] (This time, it is Shakespeare.) Dear, we had to go through the kitchen into the salon & from thence into the bedrooms, one after another—yet, it has been suggested, there were facilities of emptying jugs & basins &c out of the windows .. on to the potato patch– Oh, nothing tempted me, nothing– I was hard, that day—and we set off for this ugly commercial Hâvre the next morning, where in a sort of desperation we fell upon & into this somewhat roomy house on the coast, quite out of the streets & all but in sight of the sea– “All but” misses everything: still one has liberty here, & air, sea-air, & there’s a piano in this room, and a green garden outside of it—& the bathing is excellent .. & one can get books & newspapers—&, above all, there’s nobody to stare– But dearest Sophie, I think of my Italy, & long for your chestnut woods & you– How happy you look to me at this distance, and how dear you are always– I love & think of you in the walks, in the drives—dear, dear, you remember me So!–
But we are to meet, you remember, also, we are to meet. Observe how the days float on– And you are stronger—that is so pleasant to hear—and I too am stronger: I use hip-baths of salt water every morning in my room, & am able to creep down through the houses on Robert’s arm, down to the sea where I can sit & look & breathe the wide lavish air– Robert has his father & sister in an apartment of this house—& they are happy, of course– Also I expect my sister Arabel & my brother George in a fortnight—so that we shall make up a sort of colony– Tell dear Dody that Pen is enchanted with the sea, & has begun to bathe—looking, in his little black dress trimmed with blue, & all his hair floating, like a small merman– He is learning to swim, too, & would like to live in the sea, he says, night & day– But I make him come out to do his lessons, tell Doady, like the tyrant I am—yes, and he has to come, and I have engaged a young French lady to visit him in the morning to hear him read French, [9] so that he may catch the accent purer than he could from mouth of mine–
Dearest Sophie, would not a stranger get your darling into harness more quickly than you yourself are likely to do? Robert & I observed, with Peni that the mere change of hand (in music) the mere sending him from Robert’s teaching to have a lesson at the end of the street, quickened his attention & excited his interest—. For Peni too requires quickening, at times– I dont complain of him always– After all, if your child is learned in God’s love, the rest, all that is necessary, shall be added to him tenfold– May God love him & bless him–
You will like Miss Haworth in much. [10] She is really accomplished, really has many gifts, and is besides a most gentle & amiable woman– I have much affection for her–
Dear Mr Eckley—how good & tender he is! “Not cooled yet”– But sisters may be excused for sisterly heats—and so mine shall have leave to love me twice as much as I deserve & prize me twice more than my worth .. shant she? And we wont “cool,” Sophie, will we? Not till I have done all your commissions in Paris—no, indeed.
Meantime give my love to Mr Eckley & your Doady—& my cordial regards to your mother– And to you .. what to you?– This word, that I shall never cease to love you–
Your EBB.
Address: La Toscane. / à Madame, / Madame David Eckley / Aux soins de M. Fenzi / Banquier / Florence.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Mrs. Eckley may have sent her letter to the “Hotel Hyacinthe,” which EBB mistakenly used for her return address in letter 4203.
3. It was said of the Emperor Titus (39–81) that on one occasion, “remembering at dinner that he had done nothing for anybody all that day, he gave utterance to that memorable and praiseworthy remark: ‘Friends, I have lost a day’” (Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe, VIII, 2, 8). In this and subsequent quotations from, or references to, Greek and Latin classical authors, citations are from the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise indicated.
4. Gordigiani's portrait of EBB (see letter 4195, note 5).
5. Cf. Twelfth Night, II, 4, 114: “She sate like Patience on a monument.”
6. Unidentified.
7. Cf. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, 1, 12.
8. Othello, V, 2, 157.
9. EBB calls her “Mademoiselle Augustine” in letter 4234. We have been unable to trace any further identification.
10. Sometime in August, Fanny Haworth travelled to Bagni di Lucca, where the Eckleys were spending the summer, and returned to Florence in September (see letters 4232 and 4236).
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