4252. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 245–247.
6. Rue de Castiglione. Place Vendome.
Tuesday– [Postmark: 5 October 1858]
I dont pretend to write letters, dearest Moña Nina, as long as I am in Paris– I neither read nor write nor think, & find it hard to say my prayers– If ever in this world I get an opportunity of rest, repose, silence, see if I shall not thank God for it– But perhaps not– We are not .. I am not .. so thankful for benefits.
Then, with this rush & roar, I shall lose my Arabel—and I shant like that, no, I shant like that– It will give me great, great pain– George has gone, and she goes the day before we do, and we go (or talk of it) next tuesday .. by the Mont Cenis route to Florence—and to Rome after a short interval, if our plans hold together–
I am much stronger & looking so—so I hear,—& have been to the Louvre, & the Luxembourg, [1] & shopping with a strong arm– One comes home half dead, but gets to life again somehow– I am much stronger certainly– Only I do hate Havre—set down that– Here we are in a pretty apartment crowded with delightful armchairs, & in the best situation,—for which we dont pay extravagantly, and have not to climb above a premier– The rooms are small & we are on a cour, [2] but these are scarcely objections–
Father Prout has found us out,—and Mdme Mohl has come, & invites us tomorrow to meet Villemain– (Robert goes) Mr & Mrs Twistleton [sic] are here too on their way through Paris. Mdme du Quair[e] brought a Mr Congreve [3] to us the other evening, late a pupil of Dr Arnold & clergyman of the church of England, now disciple & executor of Comte, to remonstrate with me on Aurora Leigh’s disrespect to his philosopher & to expound the philosophy– [4] I was not moved, otherwise than to moralize much on the want of logic & reason in thinking men– The “religion of Atheism,” and the “communion” on one side only, remain to me enormous contradictions,—the Athanasian creed perfectly easy & selfevident in comparison– As long as men (& such men as Comte was) enunciate such mad inconsistencies, I shall not be inclined to accept his dogma & fall down & worship Humanity per se.
And the Dickens question & such things do’nt assist the Comte doctrine, do they? What a dreadful letter that last was! [5] And what a crime, for a man to use his genius as a cudgel against his near kin .. even against the woman he promised to protect tenderly with life & heart—taking advantage of his hold with the public to turn public opinion against her–! I call it dreadful– Write & speak of yourself, dearest friend– Dont stay at Brighton—come into the sun. Robert’s love– Advise Mdme Braun to see Wilkinson because he will know much on the mesmerism question. If she does not give up common medical advice, surely Dr Fell would be worth consulting.
Your’s in true love,
Ba.
Lady Elgin remains better. Robert goes to read Keats every two days to her, & she lies in dumb ecstasy.
Address: Angleterre / Mrs Jameson / 16. Chatham Place / Brighton.
Publication: Anna Jameson: Letters and Friendships (1812–1860), ed. Mrs. Steuart Erskine (London, 1915), pp. 322–324.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. The Palais du Luxembourg, known as Palais du Sénat off and on since 1852 (when the French senate began meeting there), was built for Marie de Medicis in the early seventeenth century. It contained an art gallery that featured “the finest works of living artists, purchased by Government” (Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1856, p. 399). EBB may have gone there to see Ary Scheffer’s “La Tentation du Christ” (see letter 4240, note 7).
2. “Courtyard.”
3. Richard Congreve (1818–99), positivist, attended Rugby when Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) was headmaster. He continued his education at Wadham College, Oxford, and was elected a fellow in 1844. Ten years later, however, he resigned his fellowship after becoming a disciple of the French positivist Auguste Comte (1798–1857); see ODNB. In March 1858 Congreve published The Catechism of Positive Religion, a translation of Comte’s 1852 work Catéchisme positiviste.
4. In Aurora Leigh EBB specifically attacks positivist and socialist philosophers by name: “Fourier’s void, / And Comte absurd,—and Cabet, puerile” (IX, 868–869).
5. EBB refers to a statement from Charles Dickens regarding the separation from his wife (and rumors relating thereto) that had first appeared in the New-York Daily Tribune on 16 August 1858 (pp. 6–7). It was reprinted on 31 August in several London newspapers, including The Morning Chronicle and The Standard. Months before, Dickens had sent the statement in a letter to his friend and manager of his public readings, Arthur Smith. The letter accompanied the statement in the newspapers, but it is unclear how the Tribune obtained these items (see Dickens, 8, 568 and 648). In the statement, Dickens begins: “Mrs. Dickens and I have lived unhappily together for many years. Hardly anyone who has known us intimately can fail to have known that we are in all respects of character and temperament wonderfully unsuited for each other” (The Morning Chronicle, 31 August 1858, p. 5). Dickens went on to state that the separation had for “some years past” been forwarded by Mrs. Dickens, and that he had “uniformly replied that we must bear our misfortune, and fight the fight out to the end” (p. 5).
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