4270. EBB & RB to William Allingham
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 271-273.
| [In RB’s hand] | Florence, |
Nov. 8. ’58.
Dear Allingham,
How good of you to write, & how glad it made us: first, let me say that I wrote at once to Chapman giving you full leave to take whatever you like out of the books: then, using your advice, I made bold to beg William Rossetti to choose an engraver and overlook his performance: so the man who did for Frederick won’t undertake(r) my wife. And now—we left Paris under good auspices and reached Mâcon easily: next morning we got to Chambéry late and unpleasantly—having been kept many an hour at Culoz the frontier village, a wild, beautiful place. [1] Next morning, we went to Rousseau’s les Charmettes—finding the way there and the house and garden, much as he left it. I found his very harpsichord with a ghost of a voice left—and made it give us Rousseau’s Dream, and the Che farò senza Euridice? [2] which used to move him so: there’s his watch too hanging on a nail—over the chimney-piece, a long invalid-chair, and other remains. We saw the surrounding country a little, and I spent the day in going about with Peni—our best sight being that of a little monkey in the Botanical garden, who, when we laughed at him, fairly mocked us, caricaturing my movements as he had a right to do. Next day we started for Lanslebourg, at the foot of the M. Cenis and reached it with great difficulty and fatigue on the part of my wife—she had tasted no food for fourteen hours—save a crust bestowed in charity by a good woman—there was no stopping on the road: when we did begin to eat, I was amazed at the profusion of victuals, and when, after desert, a leg of mutton cold was shot down on the table, asked why was this? “A Russian Princess had left these good things yesterday, and what she could not consume, we, if a little complaisant, might[”] &c &c. Next day we crossed the mountain, I, Peni & Annunziata trudging it, and my wife dosed up as well as shawls & pillows could be made to serve; there was snow on the top but none actually on our road—we got to Suza [sic] happily,—left it next morning for Turin, and Turin, again, next day for Genoa—there one breathes in full & true Italy, we always think: the following evening we took steamer for Leghorn, and reached it after a vile passage: next day brought us here. And here we only stay till the steely cold weather, sheathed in the yellowest sunshine, is withdrawn from our throats: we shall then proceed to Rome: this beginning of absolute winter, snow & all, a good six weeks before its time, cannot be for earnest—we expect a few warm days by help of which we mean to get away. Tom Taylor is here—spent last evening with us and I wait his ringing while I write,—we go out picture-seeing. Munro, the sculptor, comes daily to make a charming bust of Peni, [3] —very like, we all think, and very pretty, his mother thinks. Other friends come in of nights,—so will you, one time or other. We had a letter from Ruskin two days ago, [4] —rather in a depressed mood, but most pleasant and affectionate, as his use is. What a regale of news, you give us in your own good & dear letter! Rossetti’s face ache is not so well,—but he don’t forget us, you say, nor does Hunt, nor Brown, nor Morris,—nor Carlyle with all his glories about him. Morris’ Houses, Tapestry, and Press [5] are greatly conceived, indeed. Let me tell you a thing—a friend of ours, Mr Boott, an American, composes music—has written many good things: Peni besought him to put one of these in his Album, [6] and the result is your “Wishing” [7] —(Ring-ting, I wish I were a primrose, &c) I daresay he has set other songs of yours, and will enquire. I will not keep my wife from talking to you any longer. Good bye, dear Allingham; truest thanks for all your goodness & sympathy– I can honestly give you back again this last: both of us here will look forward joyfully to our next meeting in France or elsewhere. Ever yours affectionately, Robert Browning.
[Continued by EBB]
Let me add to Robert’s word, my dear Mr Allingham, first of Mr Boott’s music, that his putting the song on your verses into Penini’s album, he had no idea of the poet being our friend– So it was an harmonious coincidence,—& rang musically on my feelings, if, I may speak of mine when I might speak of Robert’s.
You were very good in bearing with my bad housekeeping in Paris, dear Mr Allingham. I often think how you consented to be starved, for the sake of our make-believe dinners, by our wicked French cook who had been used to cook for Barmecide & to put the money in her pocket [8] —and then I sigh & consider in myself how in spite of your good nature you must have softly moralized on a certain friend’s unfortunate destiny in having married a mere rhyming woman instead of an “angel in the house” [9] capable of looking to the chops– Now did’nt you?– Ah, I divine.
We are so glad now– We have Mr Tennyson here .. Frederick .. who came from Pisa on purpose to see us, hearing that we were leaving Florence for Rome. We are always so glad to see him– But, as to Rome, I am beginning to fear for the possibility of our journey, though we hold ourselves prepared for it. We dropped here upon the summer,—and five days after, the winter dropped upon us, .. dropped cold, & bleak & white, .. in snow, real snow,—think of that, in Italy, early in november. Now, if the warm weather does not return, I cant get out into the air, of course—& it will be a grievous disappointment, seeing that we had made up our minds & our plans so completely.
Do you know Mr Monro, the sculptor. He proposed making a sketch of Peni’s head in clay, because the head struck him—& it came out so exquisitely, with such a pure spiritual look, that I could not be pacified without having it in marble–
Happy I am to find myself back in Italy– It feels like being lifted up to the plane of ideal life– This, in spite of the snow. We found it hard to get here too– First the Mt Cenis cold—& then by the sea, from Genoa to Leghorn, which tormented us for eighteen hours, with a whirlwind thrown in.
—Do write to us, dear Mr Allingham, directing always, Poste Restante, Florence– Affectionately yours Elizabeth B Browning.
Publication: Letters to William Allingham, ed. H. Allingham and E. Baumer Williams (London, 1911), pp. 98–102.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. On the west bank of the Rhone river, which at that time separated France from Savoy, a province of Piedmont (Kingdom of Sardinia).
2. “What will I do without Euridice?”; a song from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) by Christoph Willibald Gluck. RB transcribed the opening musical phrase for EBB in letter 2026.
3. Alexander Munro (see letter 3732, note 14) had arrived in Florence on 27 October after a visit to Naples and Rome. Pen’s bust, which, at the Brownings’ request, Munro executed in marble the following year, sold as lot 1262 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H265). The marble bust is illustrated facing p. 273.
5. See letter 4259, notes 11 and 12.
7. First published in Household Words, unsigned (11 February 1854, p. 564), “Wishing” was later collected in Allingham’s Day and Night Songs; and The Music Master (1860). RB quotes the first line. Francis Boott contributed two songs to Pen’s album; the other was “Sweet and Low,” a lullaby from the third edition of Alfred Tennyson’s The Princess (1850).
8. In “The Barber’s Story of His Sixth Brother,” from The Arabian Nights, a rich man invites beggars to dine at his table, but he feeds them upon invisible and imaginary food and drink. The wealthy host was of the house of Barmaki; hence, his banquet was a Barmecide feast.
9. A reference to Coventry Patmore’s poem “The Angel in the House” (1854).
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