4311. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 12–15.
Rome. 43. Bocca di Leone.
Jany [5–] 7– [1859] [1]
You have been ill, both of you, my dearest friends—that wakes me up at once. Otherwise perhaps in spite of the season I should be putting off, putting off, & getting into a scrape through idleness– But now I want to hear presently how your convalescence goes on & that you are able, dearest Mrs Martin, to get out & enjoy the open air again. It is true that I understand your being happy in the house, seeing that I myself can be happy in the house. But then I am I: I am used to chains & dungeons: I am perfectly acclimated. While you have lived always under another order, & would be apt to suffer in some ways even if you gained in others, from a deprivation of air, light, & variety. May God grant that you may recover the power of going about with dear Mr Martin very, very soon, & that I may have a satisfactory letter before long to say so–
For ourselves we have been fortunate. Here at Rome where prices are exorbitant to have dropped into our old nest, .. which is on a healthy branch & flooded with sunshine whenever there’s a sun to be seen—and this at a not much dearer rate than we paid four years ago. Our padrona swears to us that she does it for the love of our beautiful eyes .. that is, of Penini’s .. which she adored four years ago & does the same thing now,—and that any other persons presenting themselves as occupiers of her apartment would be duly robbed & skinned as is the manner this year in Rome– The drawback to the rooms is that they are up high, on a third floor, & that my chest is not good at climbing– Also they are not large, & when we “receive” ever so little, we can scarcely contain, & there’s a narrow margin for crinolines– Still, we bear it—& I like it– There’s silence & there’s sun,—& I have a corner of our sunny bedroom for Peni’s crib, so as to keep him with us on the unshady side of the house. Shade in houses is a fatal thing in Rome. Mr Hawthorne through neglecting to provide himself with sunshine, has had his young daughter & her governess both down with fever: [2] and yet the season is generally healthy. The gaieties meanwhile are incessant. Robert has not been disengaged I think one evening for the last fortnight except once or twice with people at home,—& as I said yesterday when he did me the honor of sighing for a quiet evening with me & Pen, “all such things had grown to be matters of history .. or prophecy–” In fact, I am rather glad that he should be carried about & amused well– It is good for him,—& when we get back to Florence there will be quiet enough & to spare perhaps. As for me, there is tramontana—& if there were not, going out at night at this season would be perilous for me– I go to bed early, keep a candle by me on a table & read Carlyle’s Frederick, Swedenborg, the Galignani, .. or (cover your eyes) now & then a “spiritual” newspaper,—Peni sleeping & dreaming of angels perhaps in one corner of the room. I am well, & cough little in spite of tramontana. Aurora Leigh I despatched to England by a Queen’s messenger three days since, all except the last two books which are not quite finished. I have worked as hard at it as if my conscience were in my eyes & fingers bodily,—and though probably I have not removed much which you wish away, I have put out a few expressions trenching on coarseness .. as far as I could, without affecting the life of my own conception.
Now, what is it you ask about Montalembert– You hope I “take his part”—you hope? Then you dont know what I know of Montalembert. No indeed. I wash my hands of taking his part. I leave that to the Times. [3]
Observe– I know this of Montalembert:—I know it of knowledge– If Louis Napoleon had not refused to do his dirty work for him, he would have been kissing the emperor’s slipper instead of palavering the English parliamentarians at this hour. I know of knowledge how in private & public he expressed his satisfaction at the coup d’etat, at the way of it, & at the fact: & I know of knowledge how after a personal explanation with L N, in which he (your martyr) became aware that the emperor would never become an instrument of the ultramontane party to degrade France, he went home in despair, & lay in bed two days through vexation– “We never shall make anything of this man,” said he. And for this reason solely he turned against his government,—and as a shipwrecked man will make a flag of a dirty stocking if he can get nothing better, so he uses the flag of “English free discussion” to sign himself in danger & wanting help– I do wonder how sensible people like you & Mr Martin cant see through this, as nearly all France does, happily. If there’s a man for whom I feel a profound disgust, it’s Montalembert. As to England, we have license to “talk” there certainly, but as long as out of our great population, only one million & two hundred voters have expression in our parliament & government, so long shall I disbelieve our boasted “political liberty”– I like free newspaper discussion & presently they will have more of it in France [4] —but in the meantime I do hold that there is a broad popular foundation in France which we have not in England nor are prepared to demand. Also there is free discussion in books. Also there is a provision for the education of the people beyond anything achieved actually by us. England had better look to her own shortcomings. I observe that she is quite as sharp as her neighbours upon “secret societies” & such things whenever vexatious to herself.
For the rest, when we come to the point of helping the nationalities in the liberal sense, the French government is always inclined to go farther than the English. Mark that. The Principalities lost their object because of the objections of England [5] .. who I am sorry to say, preserves a too tender feeling towards Austria– At this time, when it is plain that Napoleon is prepared to do much for Italy .. as much as he dares, .. the talk is everywhere that England will not suffer this & that—– England, who has talked so much & so loud, so much sentimentalism about Italian patriotism & liberty at public meetings & committees–!!! “But the balance of Europe, gentlemen”—“If France & Russia join to do this, England cant allow Austria to be constrained ....!”
I was saying to Robert the other day that after all I felt content to be a woman. If it had been otherwise & I had been drawn into public life, it would have gone hard with me in my fits of disgust at the injustice & chicanery of men– Not only should I go to bed like Montalembert, but go to bed & never get up again. Upon which, you would draw the curtains & say good night & a good riddance– Now would’nt you, dearest Mrs Martin?
So you have a Double of me in Pau (poor people!) & she has a pretty house of her own & does’nt live in a street!– Still I am satisfied with Casa Guidi, though a garden would please me. Does my Double give only twenty two pounds English a year for her pied-a-terre? That’s an advantage of mine you see– Then we must go north sometimes to see to certain duties there. And meanwhile & in order to travelling expences we get five & a half percent for our money, [6] which is better than if we sunk large sums in land or houses– Is’nt it, Mr Martin?–
I try to bring up my Peni without national prejudices, as a citizen of the world—but he will call himself a Florentine. Thank you for bearing with me when I praise him. Just now he is reading an Italian translation of Monte Cristo, & cries out in ec[s]tasies every now and then “Oh magnificent, this is”! Dearest Mrs Martin, may God bless both of you!– I am so glad you went to Pau after all,—having been under the impression that you had resolved on remaining in England.
Your ever attached
Ba.
I have a letter from Bryngwyn now! They are all there. And the bride elect of Occy, Charlotte MacIntosh [7] —a long engagement & an amiable girl. No pecuniary advantages, but what is better<?>
Address: France / Madame Martin / Turençon / Pau / Basses Pyrenées.
Publication: Sydney Musgrove, “Unpublished Letters of Thomas de Quincey and Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” Auckland University College Bulletin, 44 (1954), 31–36.
Manuscript: Auckland Public Library.
1. EBB’s reference to sending Aurora Leigh to England “three days since” indicates that she began this letter on 5 January 1859 (see RB’s part of letter 4305).
2. Una Hawthorne (1844–73) had contracted malaria (Roman fever) in late October 1858 (see letter 4291, note 17). According to Sophia Hawthorne, Una’s governess, Ada Shepard (1835–74), came down with gastric fever on 28 December, “last Tuesday week” (letter to Kate Shepard, 8 January 1859, ms at Ohio State).
4. Since the coup d’état of 2 December 1851, freedom of the French press had been limited, particularly in regard to criticism of the government (see letter 3006, note 7).
5. The “Principalities,” Walachia and Moldavia—known as the Danubian Principalities—had been placed under the protection of the allied powers at the 1856 Treaty of Paris. A year later, representatives of the two principalities voted to form a union to be named Romania (EB). This union was opposed by England and Austria. Napoleon III, who had at first supported it, as did Russia and Piedmont, later “agreed to the continued separation of the principalities; but in 1859, when they, by their own efforts, joined together … he insisted on maintaining the union” (“Victoria, Queen,” DNB).
6. Doubtless, this was the return on the Brownings’ investment in “Tuscan funds,” from which they were receiving “five hundred & fifty a year” (see the second paragraph in letter 4005).
7. Charlotte McIntosh (1829–61), daughter of John McIntosh and his wife, Frances (née Watson). The family were members of Paddington Chapel, Marylebone, as was Arabella Moulton-Barrett. Charlotte and Octavius Moulton-Barrett were married on 19 March 1859.
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