4316. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 22–25.
[Rome]
[7 January 1859] [1]
Dearest Isa,—Your letters came a few days after Christmas-day & New year’s day: but we thought of you all the same, then & now & ever, with the old affection. Ba is writing for herself and will say all that is in her mind: for me, I wish you all good & happiness—you know I do. From your dear, kindest of letters to me, I collect that Madrid is abominably cold, that you see very beautiful pictures, and that you will not find yourself impossible to translate to Florence, in spite of them: come back as soon as you can, & as well as you can. Now of our own news: we are capitally off in these little “poky” warm rooms; Ba’s health so decidedly the better—I don’t think it comes from Rome, particularly—but that she gained so great a stock in the summer, & above all, on the eight-days journey hither (when she was all the time in the open air,)—that it is not easy to exhaust it by the few weeks winter here: at present, & since a couple of weeks the cold has been intense– I saw a fountain this morning one shagginess of huge icicles, and the others are similarly metamorphosized, I am told. But the sun makes amends for every thing. Peni is very well save for a cough he got in playing late on the Pincian a week ago– Ba made him keep the house lest it should harden itself into a habit: he is very happy otherwise, & continues his music with me satisfactorily. Of friends—we see very little of Annette—she & her uncle are inseparable, & he has nothing else to do but to see sights in her company from morning to night—they evidently agree to perfection, so it is all right: I go & draw twice a week at Mrs Mackenzie’s & see her then, not otherwise, except for a minute’s call while “Uncle William” [2] is waiting at the door—as was the case just now. She has had a cough, of which she takes far too little care. Mrs Mackenzie came twice to see us, & will repeat her visit when the bitter cold abates—she is much better, I think—has been making some exquisite copies of the Guido called “La Speranza” [3] & a picture of Bellini’s [4] —you know I don’t care for copies—but these are admirable of their kind. Hatty is the old dearest little creature—she has been suffering from boils, & last of all, from an abscess on the glands of the neck—which Pantaleoni had to operate on: it is vexing to see her with her poor neck tied up—but there is the old darling funny face: her tomb-figure, [5] I forget the name, is most successful—a beautiful thing really, and her Zenobia [6] which I have been privileged to see (the new one, with great alteration from the sketch you may have heard of) will be her best work, I hope. She is not in her new house yet, tho’ the delusion was strong in her that it might be inhabitable by Christmas. [7] Miss Cushman is good & kind as usual—I see her from time to time. The Storys are very attracting—have been here some twice, I think,—give a great dancing party next wednesday [8] —perhaps I shall go in at the end: the Hawthornes are horribly off—Una suffering from Roman fever,—changed so that you would not recognize her,—she that never was ill before, her mother says: Miss Shepherd has the gastric fever,—with Franco to help! [9] Mrs Macpherson has been given over—so dreadfully has she suffered from rheumatism & other horrors besides child bearing—she would seem to be better at last—but till some good angel burns the house over their head & drives them from that pestilential Ripetta, there is small hope of eventual cure. [10] Gibson is very kind—called here—looks better than when I saw him first—but is so changed! He, too, had his abscess, last year, on the arm. Page has got a babe—we see him & love him as before: he has painted a Venus & other pictures in his peculiar, and remarkable way. His wife adores him & he is wrapped up in her, so that things mend at the worst. We have had Ristori here for three nights only—I went, & saw “Camma” & disliked it & her, “Giuditta”, [11] —with fine things in it—& “Medea” [12] wherein she continues to be at her best, I think: Salvini is playing every night but in his stupid little French comediettes—when he begins his great performances, I shall go– His name reminds me that I see by the papers that Lever is appointed Vice Consul at La Spezzia!! [13] What a dignified rise in the world for a gentleman of such pretensions! I suppose Lytton did all he could: now I’ll tell you what I’ve heard of him, with my authority, not even adding whether I believe it or not: Odo Russell, [14] our new agent here, to succeed Lyons, [15] a nice fellow, told me a week or ten days ago that Lytton had been at Florence three weeks since, having previously, he knew, been at Paris,—“not wishing friends to know of it”—that he was going to be married to a Dutch lady, [16] having written for & obtained his father’s consent, & that he meant to leave diplomacy: I did not feel interest enough to enquire further on the subject: his book is advertised but not “out”, I believe. [17] I see a great deal of Cartwright, & Leighton: & something of Mottley, Perkins [18] & other Americans: I called a few days ago on Mrs Crawford [19] —in order to show her how much I despised her sister Mrs Howe [20] who has written a couple of poems to Ba & me beginning “I have heard you do not praise me, Barrett-Browning, high inspired! Nor you, Robert!” &c and ending with saying Ba’s poetry all comes of her use of a “nameless drug” & plenty of similar abuse—because we didn’t praise her! Mrs Story seemed to think we must be writhing under such awful blows—but I find out people soon enough & know just what they will do one day to us, if they have the chance. Mrs C. looked black & disconsolate enough, poor thing. Miss Haworth & Miss Heaton were to arrive last night—but as we hear nothing of them, I conclude there has been one meander the more. The Eckleys are kind as ever—I get up every morning in the dark at ¼ 6. & go out with Eckley for a good hour before breakfast—we go all about Rome, up & down, in & out, the worst & best of it, so that I see it thoroughly on the outside—& like it so much—so much more than last time: this practise, moreover, improves my health remarkably—I am far better & stronger than last year—tho’ sufficiently bothered by a cold I caught at the theatre the other evening—which is getting better. Here is an end of my paper—none of my loving thoughts to you, dearest Isa, my true & dear, dear friend: God bless you & return you safely to
your ever affectionate
Robert Browning
Publication: B-IB, pp. 184–187.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This letter was evidently written about the same time as letter 4315 and enclosed with it.
2. William Bracken (see letter 4280, note 7).
3. A painting by Guido Reni (1575–1642); it hangs in the sacristy of the church of San Pietro in Vincoli (“St. Peter in Chains”).
4. A work by one of the Bellini, a family of Venetian painters, among whom were Jacopo (ca. 1400–71?), his two sons, Gentile (1439?–1507) and Giovanni (d. 1516), as well as their cousin Leonardo (ca. 1443–90).
5. A monument for the tomb of Judith de Palezieux Falconnet; see letter 4291, note 13.
6. “Zenobia in Chains” (see letter 4135, note 1).
7. Harriet Hosmer had accepted an invitation from Charlotte Cushman to live in rooms that the latter was furnishing at 38 Via Gregoriana for herself and her companion, Emma Stebbins (1815–82), an American sculptor. The rooms, which faced west towards St. Peter’s and overlooked the Piazza di Spagna, were ready by 19 January (see Dolly Sherwood, Harriet Hosmer: American Sculptor, 1830–1908, Columbia, Missouri, 1991, pp. 168–169).
8. According to entries in Sophia Hawthorne’s diary, the Storys’ “ball” was held on Wednesday, 12 January, and “300 people” attended (12 and 13 January 1859, ms at Berg). Letter 4320 indicates that RB made an appearance.
9. Dr. G. Franco, who treated Una and other members of the Hawthorne household (see Hawthorne, 14, 617–669 and 853–854).
11. Plays written for Adelaide Ristori: Camma (Paris, 1857) by Giuseppe Montanelli (1813–62) and Giuditta (Milan, 1857) by Paolo Giacometti (1816–82).
13. Charles James Lever (1806–72), Irish novelist, had been living in Florence since 1847. His appointment at La Spezia came with the Conservative change of government, and it provided an income of “somewhat less than £300 per annum” (ODNB).
16. Lytton was at this time engaged to Carolina Frederica Groeninx van Zoelen (1836–1911), daughter of Baron Groeninx van Zoelen, whom he met soon after being posted to the Hague in 1856. The following year Lytton proposed to her but was refused. In the autumn of 1858, with the encouragement of her family, he proposed a second time and was accepted. In May 1859 she broke off the engagement because of difficulties arising from negotiations between her father and Lytton’s. On 6 January 1859, Lytton had received an appointment as attaché to Austria, and he had gone to Vienna to find a house. There is no evidence that Lytton had been in Florence “three weeks since.” Family papers with Lord Cobbold place him at the Hague from early November until 5 December, when he went to England to spend Christmas at Knebworth.
17. In The Athenæum of 11 December 1858 (no. 1624, p. 776), Chapman & Hall ran a full page announcement of new publications, in which The Wanderer is listed as “nearly ready” with a release date set for 20 December. However, it was not until The Athenæum of 22 January 1859 that the book was announced as published “this day” (no. 1630, p. 125).
18. Charles Callahan Perkins (1823–86); see letter 4126, note 2.
19. Louisa Cutler Crawford (née Ward, 1823–97), widow of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford (1814–57).
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