4297. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 314–318.
43. Bocca di Leone–
Christmas Eve & Day [1858] [1]
I have been full of good intentions about writing to you my ever dearest Arabel, & not a word have I written. By this time you are at Bryngwyn. And I am at Rome,—both of us keeping Christmas. May God bless you, & dearest Storm & everyone under his roof dear to the quick of my heart. You will have a great deal of merriment, I dare say– I am more “in society” and less in gayety, (Robert says I spell worse & worse!– Probably out of sympathy with my Pen!) Mr Cartwright has been “at me” these three weeks to go with Robert to dine with him on Xstmas day, in order to meet Odo Russell the nephew of Lord John, [2] the new responsible diplomat appointed here, & two or three other persons of mark– I knew I should not be able to go, on account of the weather, which though fine has not admitted lately of my going out—but only today was my apology accepted. Robert goes—which makes more than amends. Peni is invited to dine at one at the Storys, to meet a party & a Christmas Tree afterwards. He was at another Tree today, at the Perkins’s (Americans) and is going again at six to the German Coffee house [3] to look at something gigantic in the same way. Anunziata & I have been very busy dressing him out, & he looks beautiful, I must say. Never did his hair look so lovely as just now, and there is the brightest rose in his cheeks,—so that people are constantly asking whose child he is. Anunziata answered this question to a Roman gentleman a day or two ago, who exclaimed on hearing the name of Browning—“What—he is English? Why he speaks exactly like an Italian.– Can he speak English too?” Peni goes everyday with his hoop to play on the Pincian with David Eckley & seven or eight other boys & girls who there meet & congregate– A few of them speak French, he says, so that he has to talk it with them. The eagerness is great to get over his lessons in time for setting out at one–
All this talk of Peni because he comes so into my ideas of Christmas. Christmas is nothing to me, or worse than nothing, except for Peni– You understand that–
But you dont understand how anxious I am about you, darling Arabel, that you dont expose yourself to any cold with those glands of yours. It would have really been wise, however hard on dear Storm, if you had avoided the journey at this time—but do, as you have dared it, take care of your precious self, & have a fire in your room, Arabel. Write to me. Let me hear how you are—& also how you found everybody looking. I suppose Alfred is not with you. Tell me what they all think of the photographs– Miss Fox’s portrait of me is, so far, not satisfactory to Robert—but we shall see. In the meantime, it’s a horrible bore to me.
There are heaps of people here—& we have “soirées,” I assure you of as many as can be packed in our rooms– I pour out the tea in a corner, & Ferdinando carries it round on a tray—so as to combine the domestic with the “receptive” as far as can be—but I have not a fixed “evening”: that was too much for my weak capacity. In two days we are to have Eckleys, Motleys (the historian), [4] Brackens, Marshalls (she was a Miss Spring Rice, a very refined graceful woman) Cartwrights, Odo Russell, Leighton the artist, Storys, Lady Oswald, [5] &c. And the room not very much larger than our Paris salon!– But people get warm (in other than a physical sense) by rubbing up against one another. At least I hope it may prove so.
Christmas Day. Let me touch your lips through the air, yours Arabel, yours Henrietta, yours Storm .. every dear face of all my dear ones,—and may God bless & love you better than the tenderest of my aspirations can. Yet I love you, dearly!– Perhaps you may see my “nerve-spirit” [6] sitting at your Christmas dinner!—yet dont, because you will see tears in the eyes of it, though a true loving smile on its lips.
Let me tell you. This morning all tramontana brightness had disappeared from the atmosphere, & it was warm enough to admit of my going out to St Peters to hear the grand mass. It was very fine, the spectacle (two Kings present besides pope & cardinals) & the music was most affecting. The blast of silver trumpets thrilled through my bones. Sophie Eckley & I got into the reserved seats for women, by grace of our black dresses & long lace veils—(no bonnets!) & Peni in his black velvet, although a male, was admitted to sit by me. Now that I have come back I am very very tired– That, of course. The very emotion of it is tiring—but, I should be glad I went, if more tired still. Robert & Mr Eckley stood in the crowd, which I could’nt have done, of course. The Kings were .. of Prussia & Bavaria. [7]
Let me tell you of Pen’s presents. We have given him a large wooden cannon, a brace of pistols, a new hoop, & a writing case complete with pen, inkstand, knife, seal, paperknife, & paper—with a lock & key too, & elegantly got up– He made such a pretty little speech– “You are a great deal too kind to me, dear papa & its much too beautiful for me, and I am so very, very much obliged to you.” He was extremely pleased. He has been entirely good lately, & Robert wished to please him, as a return for the application to music, in which he is developping more & more, Arabel. If you were to hear how quite brilliantly he plays that Third Reverie of Rosellen, the long one (he had just begun in Paris) in five flats. [8] But the “Studies” [9] have made his chief business lately—& that is excellent for progress. He practices two hours & a half a day, & takes real pleasure in it. But Christmas gifts—they have grown to be more expensive with us than in England, that [sic, for than] I can remember at all. Pen has had from the Eckleys & other quarters a magnificent illustrated edition of the German popular tales in German—a soldier’s hat, a box of soldier toys, a pop gun &c &c– I cant recount. Then I have received (on Christmas Day) three most expensive brooches, from different people– Oh, I wish they would’nt do it! Tell me, Arabel, how is one to accept gifts from persons one does’nt love, & how is one to refuse them to persons one would avoid quarrelling with? I am in a strait. But Sophie Eckley gave me one brooch, [10] & I love her enough to receive it without absolute vexation. Also she & Mr Eckley gave a beautiful bronze inkstand to Robert– It’s too much– She comes to me every day just as you would yourself, & if there’s a chance of warm enough air, she is there in the carriage to take me out– Now write & tell me everything as I tell you. Tell me of Henrietta’s darlings– Tell me of her—& of Storm & of all of them. Tell Storm how dearly I love him, mind. And speak of yourself—say how you are, dearest dear Arabel. I leave Pen’s note which he wrote all alone to show how badly he spells still– [11] Always Robert’s love.
your own Ba.
Darling Arabel, is not Delamere Terrace growing rather too populous with acquaintances? [12] —— Or do you like it so?–
Tell Storm he ought to come & see Rome—he ought. The prince of Wales is really coming, [13] —we hear—from authority. You were mistaken about our ship-money. We receive only (tell George) twenty one pounds four & nine pence!! [14]
Address: Angleterre– / Miss Moulton Barrett / Bryngwyn / Oswestry / Salop.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 381–385.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Odo William Leopold Russell (1829–84), later (1881) 1st Baron Ampthill, was the youngest son of George William Russell (1790–1846), and his wife, Elizabeth Anne (née Rawdon, 1793–1874). In November 1858 Odo was posted to Rome as an unofficial envoy to the Vatican, though ostensibly he was attached to the British Legation in Florence.
3. i.e., “Café Greco, in the Via Condotti, the rendezvous of the artists of all nations—almost all the artists of Rome may be found here” (Murray’s A Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy, 1856, part II, p. viii). Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the Cafe Greco was a popular meeting place for German artists and writers living in Rome. An article in The Foreign Quarterly Review of May 1834 noted that the Germans’ preferred evening haunt was “the Caffé Greco (Grecian Coffee-house), now generally called the Caffé Tedesco (German Coffee-house)” (p. 330).
4. John Lothrop Motley (1814–77), American historian and diplomat, was in Rome with his family during the winter of 1858–59. His best known work, The Rise of the Dutch Republic (3 vols., New York, 1856), was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Motley’s family at this time consisted of his wife, Mary (née Benjamin, 1813–74), and three daughters: Elizabeth Cabot (1838–1928), Mary Lothrop (1844–1918), and Susan Margaret Stackpole (1848–1918). Motley later served as minister to Austria (1861–67) and to Great Britain (1869–70).
5. Amelia Jane (“Emily”) Oswald (née Murray, 1800–96), second wife and widow of General Sir John Oswald (1771–1840), brother of Lady Elgin. Lady Oswald was the third of five daughters of Henry Murray (1767–1805), fourth son of the 3rd Duke of Atholl, and his wife, Eliza (née Kent, d. 1847).
6. According to Sophia De Morgan (writing as “C.D.”), it is through the nerve-spirit that the soul is “united to the body, and the body with the world. … The nerve-spirit is immortal, and accompanies the soul after death, unless when the soul is perfectly pure, and enters at once among the blessed” (From Matter to Spirit. The Result of Ten Years’ Experience in Spirit Manifestations, 1863, pp. 136–137).
7. Frederick William IV (1795–1861), King of Prussia, and Maximilian II (1811–64), King of Bavaria.
8. The third reverie, “Souvenir de Bal,” in Henri Rosellen’s “Trois reveries pour le piano” ([ca. 1849]).
10. The brooch is gold with a dove bearing an olive branch in the center, executed in miniature mosaic work, bordered by four large scrolls. Beneath the dove is the Latin inscription PAX (peace) in gold letters. In late June 1859, EBB wore the brooch when Gordigiani repainted her portrait, commissioned by Mrs. Eckley. RB later gave it to Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, who in turn presented it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see Judy Rudoe, “Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Taste for Archaeological-Style Jewelry,” Bulletin of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 85, Fall 1986, 22–32). A photograph of the brooch is reproduced facing p. 273.
11. Pen’s note is no longer with EBB’s letter.
12. In a 9 January 1859 letter to Mary Hunter, EBB writes: “Arabel told me in a late letter that Miss Dowglass was thinking of taking a house near Delamere Terrace, & that Mrs. [Emily] Butler (Mrs. Owen[s]’s sister) meant to do the same” (ms at Berg).
13. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (1841–1910), later Edward VII, was in Rome from 3 February to 2 May 1859.
14. The return on EBB’s shares in the David Lyon.
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