4222. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 192–194.
[Le Hâvre]
[1 August 1858] [1]
Our dearest Isa I have two letters from you .. & am very glad & grateful– We left Paris under a whirl of contrarious influences, everybody speaking up for every place—at last so bewildered we were, I half wonder we did’nt set out to the sea-coast of Bohemia: [2] it would have been nearly as wise as what we did. For we went to Etretat, your Etretat, expecting to find sands & seclusion & civilization & cheapness, everything, in fact, we could’nt find,—pretty as the scenery is round, & picturesque as the rocks are. We landed at a primitive hotel where we might have stayed at six francs & a half a head, (not so dear), & been well treated—but on trying for private apartments our case was hard. Robert went out & took “in a fine frenzy”, [3] .. observe, took .. a suite of rooms with windows on a potatoe patch & leave to empty jugs & basins &c out on it .. there was no other way– No access, except from one room to another, beginning with the kitchen, then the salon, then the bedrooms one two & three– There was something allegorical about the arrangement, I think,—otherwise how people could be supposed able to live so is a mystery. Furniture equal to that of retired places in Italy. A shaving-glass in the best bedroom, the solitary piece of luxury. Quite out of the way of the sea, and said potato-ground unaccidented by a turnip even. On this, I rebelled– Robert thought me extremely unreasonable at first, but admitted afterwards that it would have been miserable if we had attempted it—so we paid something to be free of our bargain, & what we paid was the only cheap thing in Etretat. Still, there were better apartments to be had, & we found them out before leaving the place,—only what we did not find was the promised seclusion– The bay being very narrow we were gathered there into a focus, & not a step could be taken uncommanded by all the windows of the hotel & other houses,—so that primitive as the place is, one’s “intuitive morals” [4] were under the direct surveillance of anybody having nothing better to do than stare .. meaning exactly everybody– So seclusion was delusion—added to which the whole of our party including the good innocent “signor padre” who is scarcely susceptible of a dislike, had taken a sort of feeling against the place—and we decided on coming away to this great honest ugly commercial Havre where we have fallen into a roomy house in a small green garden close to the sea, though not facing it– Our two families have separate apartments under the same roof, & meet at a four oclock dinner in our dining-room– We have a woman-cook, and as Annunziata is supernatural in energy & goodnature, cooking[,] sweeping, sewing, & laughing off all difficulties, we get on very well indeed & dont pay too much for it. The Madame of the house wishes to all her gods that she had an Italian servant!—so Annunziata is in high representative repute—you see. Little Peni takes to the water like a fish .. or a merman. He has a little dress made of black stuff trimmed with blue, .. very pretty .. (understand that males & females wear dresses here, on account of the advance in morale on the low English scale) [5] & with his hair all floating, he is very pretty too, as he takes his swimming-lesson from the guide who pays him quantities of compliments– And he would like to live in the sea day & night, he says, & never certainly come out to read French with the young lady [6] we have engaged to give him a pure accent through a daily half-hour’s hearing of reading. As to Robert he has not yet begun his baths—he will tomorrow—& has just bought a costume for the occasion. He has had recourse to nux frequently since our arrival here,—the sea-air seeming to affect him as a ship would .. is it association or smell, or what? But now he seems acclimated & prepared for his plunge– For me I have a hip-bath of luke warm sea water & use it every morning with excellent effect, it seems to myself & others– I was better before leaving Florence, still better before leaving Paris, & now am best—best, best– So much for me– Arabel & George are coming, they say, in about a fortnight, & Arabel half promises to return with us to Paris “for a few days–” We shall try to get rooms for them in this house–
I understand that if you walk far enough into the country, it is pretty here—but only by faith can I believe it– What we undeniably have however is a fresh open sea, much animated by shipping, & excellent bathing– Then I have a sofa,—& chairs one can sit in—& there are newspapers & books—and there’s nobody to look at one, unless one went into the streets on purpose for it .. which we dont do–
Dearest Isa, how good & dear you are to write so often—keep up the ball, I entreat you. You cant write too often. I love you dearly,—& if wishes out of the heart could help, you would feel mine in every sort of blessing– Dear Isa, did you like that letter of Lytton’s about his father & mother? [7] I did not, I own to you– One must be just & admit that it was a difficult letter to write—but when all’s admitted, still I do not like it. Before we read it, Forster wrote to beg us to suspend our judgement till we heard as much as could be told of the provocation,—some parts of which, he said, could’nt be told to Mrs Browning– [8] I wonder what they were. Of course I am particularly bent on knowing– Since this letter from Forster he has been silent.– You are aware that the lady’s lips are sealed by her debts being paid & her allowance doubled—so Father Prout told us. What a … misfortune .. (shall I say, as I am not to judge?) that that was not done long ago, before the very … questionable step, of a siezure on the ground of madness, had rendered the concession necessary rather than generous–
You cant know how I lean back & yearn after my Italy– The weather is bright just now, but we have had it cold for a French summer & full of storms– Robert wrote a man & woman just after his arrival, [9] —& we have been reading Grillparzer, [10] lent to us by Archer Gurney, poet & puseyite in Paris– ‘Doit et avoir’ is a real ‘piece de resistance,’—& very clever & Balzacian– Kind love to dear Annette to whom Robert writes– No room for more. Write, write—and love me, love me, dearest Isa, & long to see us, that we may come– We shall, if we live. May God bless you. Remind of us such friends as Mr Jarves, Cottrells, Crossmans, Trollopes &c. How pleasant your history is of Mlle de Fauveau. [11]
Ever & ever your loving
Ba
Publication: B-IB, pp. 157–160.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. This letter was enclosed with letter 4223, which provides the date.
2. Cf. The Winter’s Tale, III, 3, 1–2.
3. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, 1, 12.
4. An allusion to Frances Power Cobbe’s An Essay on Intuitive Morals (1855).
6. Mlle. Augustine.
8. See the first paragraph in letter 4214.
9. i.e., two poems. One of these may have been “A Likeness” (Dramatis Personæ, 1864), which contains a reference to John S. Rarey and the horse Cruiser (see letter 4213, note 4).
10. Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872), Austrian dramatist and poet.
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