4240. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 226–229.
Havre.
Sept 12. [1858] [1]
Surely my dearest Isa, it has not been so ill of me as you say. Surely I have written to you at least seven letters during these little more than two months– [2] It seems, it seems so,—& thinking of you so constantly in affection, it could have scarcely been otherwise. For the rest, if you imagine me distracted with joys, .. sleeping among roses, .. you are wrong. One joy I count, in seeing my beloved Arabel with her good bright face, better as to health, cheerfuller as to spirits, & as tender to me as ever– God bless her. Now I am reconciled to her decision as to London. She is wiser than I, as she is better, .. & not less loving. That’s satisfaction. Then my kind brother George .. and Harry too have brought me pleasure– For what remains .. I will just explode & say that I hate Havre– It’s ugly, it smells—& the way of life here has been contrary to me in many particulars– To cry ‘implora pace’ [3] is the business of my poor soul in my poorer body,—& here the cry is vain. Dear deceived Isa, dreaming of me in an ec[s]tasy by the sea. True, that I sit by the sea—only the ectasy does not follow! I creep through smells & shingles to the sea, & sit there. Also I am much stronger for the summer & sea-water, though there’s room still for improvement. I have been stronger after some summers–
And now, you, dear! I am so sorry, so very very sorry for your trial about dear little Fro—recognizing it for a trial, feeling what you must have felt, wishing I had been there to kiss you & hug some of the grief out of you, dear dear Isa. To remind you of common consolations .. common to dogs & men .. consolations referring to age & its necessary infirmity which would have been heavier on the beloved creature day by day––this is more useless to say than the kiss would be– Consider yourself kissed, Isa—there’s a kiss gone from me to you, & do believe that I sympathize with you deeply, deeply .. in this as in worse trials. Yes, I do, I did .. though you have sometimes thought me hard, because I would’nt admit that your destiny & neck were absolutely ripe for the guillotine or any other crisis of despair. If the angel who measured the new Jerusalem brought his measuring-rod to the griefs of men, some who are called happy would show their cubit to your quarter of a nail [4] —& he would smile at your considering yourself unfortunate, as fortunes go in this world. Some carry the wolf under the cloak, some only see it in the field. [5] May God bless you & love you, my Isa– Every rent in your life up to this time, can be repaired, .. and as long as that is so, you are not ripe for the guillotine. Be happy, and understand that to be so is a duty. I wish for you a lap-full of good– And now, let us see–
As to ourselves, we are coming back in time,—but as to you, where are you going to? You let your villa just as you expect Miss Alexander [6] to spend the winter? An apartment in Florence, observe, will be considerably more expensive. As to Madrid .. can you compass that expense? and as to London, there you will have to pay both in purse & in health perhaps. Nevertheless you are the best judge of your own desires & possibilities—& perhaps it may be as well for you to go to England & have it out .. that is, satisfy yourself whether you can or cant live there more sympathetically than you can in Florence. Otherwise there may always be a hankering—& I have not the courage to reason in the face of it. For me & Robert, we shall spend the most of our time in Florence, & therefore by remaining in Florence you get the most of us,—but we are only two, & I am humble about us. Otherwise I might enquire why Rome is’nt as near & as cheap as Madrid or London. As it is I wont.
Your letters, dear Isa, are very amusing. Robert & I snatch them from one another to tear their hearts out– Go on writing—let us have your details– I will go to the Tentation, [7] & look at your Grisailles [8] for you. Do tell me what else you care for in Paris—let me do what I can for you—and direct on your letters to Havre on the faith of the forwarding post. We are grieved about Gibson– [9] It is late indeed for Hatty to leave Rome– We may catch her perhaps before she recovers breath from your kissing, to go back again. Poor Mr Page– Another page of horror! [10]
Your Florentine spiritualism seems faint & far. The writing mediums never are satisfactory unless supported by simultaneous manifestations of another order. Writing without the bodily hand, is what I care for. Mlle de Fauveau “saw spirits white & grey”—what do you mean by that? That she heard—their raps perhaps. Mr Jarvis’s communication I am thirsty for of course– Would that you had told me how his pictures went at Christie’s, meanwhile. [11]
Miss Shepherd is probably a weak medium, &, with such, the involuntary intermixture of the medium’s individuality waters the wine to an uncomfortable degree. How striking Mr Trollope’s remembrance of Hume is! [12] And Hume remains in Russia? And the spirits give him up?—and so he is lost for ever?
Not a word do you tell us of how Landor waxes or wanes in our righteous Florence– Robert & I mean to receive him into our embraces of course,—but I should like to know how people will do who love genius less, and virtue more [13] .. by profession. Gravely speaking, it was a dreadful & dishonoring trial. An unscrupulous temper will carry men down precipices. [14] And when such men are so unhappy as to be precipitated into the arms of a wife [15] at the bottom .. why, we need not increase their punishment. Also, the newspapers have been cruel. He is old & expatriated—he pays for his crime. I loathe the shout at the scaffold.
Peni can swim alone—that is without being touched by the guide. I gather laurels through my child, he is so much appreciated everywhere.
We went by steamer to Trouville the other day, & recommend all peoples to go there instead of to Havre. My love to Annette– If she leaves Florence so soon we shall miss her. How is it settled about her leaving you ultimately—and Louisa? Do you hear of Louisa? [16]
What a charming tête à tête Lytton must be having at Bordeaux. Which will strangle the other, do you suppose? Or shall we have a volume of filial lyrics—Poems chiefly domestic. [17] God bless you, dearest Isa– We love you– I love you– I am your true & tender Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 167–170.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. EBB’s reference to the death of Isa Blagden’s dog suggests that this letter was sent with letter 4239.
2. In the period EBB mentions, there are five extant letters from her to Isa, the present one and letters 4201, 4205, 4222, and 4226.
3. “Pray for peace.”
4. Cf. Revelation 21:15–17.
5. Perhaps an allusion to the legend of the Spartan boy who allowed a stolen fox to gnaw him to death under his cloak rather than reveal his theft.
6. Ellen Louisa Alexander (1816–94), Isa’s cousin, was the daughter of Josias Du Pré Alexander (1771–1839) and his wife, Mary (née Bracken, 1790–1867).
7. “La Tentation du Christ” by Ary Scheffer (1795–1858), who had died on 15 June. EBB may have seen it when she visited the Palais du Luxembourg in early October (see letter 4252, note 1).
8. A style of painting in grey monochrome, in which objects are made to appear in relief.
9. Probably a reference to an abscess on his arm, as indicated by RB in a 7 January 1859 letter to Isa (ms at ABL).
10. We are unable to clarify this remark.
11. James Jackson Jarves had evidently been selling part of his collection of paintings through Christie’s auction house in London. In a letter to Charles Eliot Norton, dated 26 August 1859, Jarves recounted that for some years he had been collecting Italian art “to initiate in Boston a permanent Gallery of paintings” and that in order to acquire certain pictures, he was on one occasion forced to buy an entire collection, “the unnecessary ones being sold at auction in England” (Francis Steegmuller, The Two Lives of James Jackson Jarves, New Haven, Connecticut, 1951, p. 171).
12. Presumably, Isa had repeated comments made by T.A. Trollope in conversation. Trollope’s recollections of Home were recorded in What I Remember (1887, I, 374–383).
13. Cf. Richard Lovelace (1617–57), “To Lucasta, Going to the Warres” (1649), lines 11–12.
15. Julia Landor (1793–1879), daughter of Jean Pierre Thuillier, of Geneva, later Bath, married Walter Savage Landor in 1811. The Landors had one daughter and three sons, but the marriage was never stable. A separation from 1835 to 1858, during which time Mrs. Landor and the children resided in Italy, ended in a brief reconciliation when Landor was forced to flee England.
16. Louisa Emma Alexander (1838–58); see letter 3076, note 4.
17. In mid-July, Lytton had agreed to take his mother to the continent. After a week in Paris, they travelled to Bordeaux, remaining there until 21 August, when they proceeded to Luchon. There Lady Bulwer-Lytton became abusive, and they parted. During her journey back to England, they met once more in Paris, after which Lytton never saw his mother again (see Louisa Devey, Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton, 1887, pp. 332–334).
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