4318. EBB to Mary Hunter
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 27–29.
Rome. 43. Bocca di Leone–
Jany. 9– [1859] [1]
My dearest Mary, I cant let the new year go any deeper without thanking you for your letter & wishing you from my heart all the good that comes in years and beyond them– I hear vaguely through Miss Browning that you have grown dissatisfied with your old quarters & are looking out for others, & I am anxious to hear something distinctly from yourself. What has happened?—— You seemed to be desireably situated in certain respects, [2] & there must be a change indeed to force you to go elsewhere. Your letter was pleasant to me in many ways, dear Mary. And though I cant sympathize with you about Ezra [3] so much as about Miss Fitton, and though you seem to me to take quite a wrong view about when & how the “dead in Christ” [4] rise, still you & I may agree enough to interest one another– As to work, dear Mary .. “whatever the hand findeth to do” [5] may be the law of action—but that hands find generally nothing to do, remains the habit of life: and when we look round on the lives of the persons we know, who get up in the morning with no sort of object but how to pass the time till they go to bed again,—when we look round on all these dim, heavy, weary, dull lives .. (for observe, I dont in the least refer to worldly dissipated people, who at least seek pleasure) one comes to attribute a happiness & honour to any sort of work—any sort!—— For my own part, (away from all theories) nothing has saved me under certain trials, from madness or death, but an object out of myself & settled habits of work– Therefore I have reason to speak. But apart from such experiences, let us see among the hard-working persons of our acquaintance how work ennobles– How good it is to have a thing to do,—for women especially .. if women are to be distinguished from human beings,—and for single women, most especially. It seems to me that the cry for work does not come from a restless ambition but from a yearning for rest– In the very old times, women had less accomplishment & more occupation with an end: if they made pies & worked with their maids, it was a work, to order their houses aright—an end, if a low end. But when the fashion of refinement came up, & young ladies were to be taught to draw & play & read foreign verses, with no real artistic air, but as poor puny amateurs, then corruption & misery fell upon women at once. Oh, if I had a daughter, she should be educated to stand by herself and work: she should learn nothing that she could not turn to use. I would rather have her a good housekeeper & cheapener in the market, than a fritterer away of time at the piano & painting & reading .. in an amateur fashion. Our grandfathers were wiser than we in some things—but I trust that our sons will be wiser than our grandfathers. For women now-a-days (taking the mass) are educated for the intellectual seraglio, no otherwise: & when the time for seraglios is past, & they remain unmarried, or with too small families of children to fill up their whole time, they are miserable—they cease to grow in their souls, the time hangs on them till it crushes them, .. there is no bright colour for them in the world.
If the injury were only in this world, it would signify less. But I believe in a necessary relation between the natural & the spiritual. Every attitude & action of ours here involves a corresponding counterpart there. [6] Therefore I cry & will cry to all who <hear> [7] me, & loudest to those whom I best <love:> work, work—any kind of work—<nothing> degrades except empty hands.
Here is my child playing on the piano two hours & a half a day. It seems out of proportion to the time given to his education generally—but he has a decided musical faculty, & perhaps he may turn out a musician– So I encourage my husband & he encourages me—we wont have him an amateur—he shall have the chance of excellence. The child has quite an artistic nature, & will be an artist somehow I think—either in music or painting or literature perhaps: or, if not, he shall be a plain working man. He shall do something, if prayers avail anything.
The somnambule seems to have failed, Mary. Twenty failures are not an argument against two successes.
As to the evil spirits, I don’t believe in evil spirits in your sense, you kn<ow>, & I dont at all believe in the pos<sibility> of a door being open through whi<ch> only men five feet four can enter. Through such a door a man of six feet could enter by simply bowing his head. What shall we say then to a rent in the wall? What, of the rent in the Veil? [8] That crowds of unsanctified spirits come, I know very well,—more than the sanctified probably, seeing that there are more of such spirits in the body. [9]
I had a letter from Bryngwyn yesterday, from Henrietta. Arabel had arrived in good spirits, & looking better than had been expected .. for she has suffered much in London lately from the glands of her face, poor darling .. Occy’s marriage with Charlotte MacIntosh was declared & had been received benignantly by the brotherhood; & the bride elect had been sent for, for the Christmas festivities. Occy has taken a cottage near Bryngwyn which he is furnishing <in> quite a cottage way: it must be <…> pretty, I fancy, with creepers & <…>– They all like a country life <…>. Lizzie’s confinement was not yet heard of, & she was staying at Leamington waiting for it. [10] They had been giving a ball for the tenantry & servants, at Bryngwyn, with charades acted by Henrietta’s children & fireworks & such things. Storm insists on returning to Jamaica in february notwithstanding,—promising to come to England again next summer. It is painful to me that he will live on the sea in this way.
Arabel told me in a late letter that Miss Dowglass [11] was thinking of taking a house near Delamere Terrace, & that Mrs Butler [12] (Mrs Owen’s sister) meant to do the same, leaving Ireland for good & all—so that Arabel will end by finding herself by no means in a solitude after all. Too little so, perhaps!
As for us, we are in a crowd, Mary– My husband is engaged two or three times deep a night for a fortnight together—from which I am saved by being imprisoned in the house by tramontana. Very cold it is just now—yes, indeed– And the transition between the scorching sun, & tomblike draughts of air makes the danger of Italy .. to say nothing of the exhalations more peculiar to Rome. Mr Hawthorne’s daughter & her governess <are> both ill with fever, & as even Flore<nce> disagrees with himself he is anxious to <get away> either to England or America. We are <well><***>
Publication: W.H. Griffin and H.C. Minchin, The Life of Robert Browning (London, 1910), p. 214 (in part).
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Octavius Moulton-Barrett’s impending marriage to Charlotte McIntosh (see letter 4311, note 7).
2. At Sarah Fitton’s residence in Paris, 9 Rue de la Ville l’Eveque.
3. Presumably the book of the Bible or the Biblical character. Ezra is believed to be the author of I and II Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
4. I Thessalonians 4:16.
5. Cf. Ecclesiastes 9:10.
6. A Swedenborgian concept; see letter 3195, note 10.
7. A corner of the page has been torn away, affecting text here and below. Some of the text has been reconstructed from a contemporary copy at the British Library.
8. Cf. Matthew 27:51.
9. Cf. II Corinthians 12:2–3.
10. With her aunt, Mary Williams (see letter 3972, note 15). Lizzie and Alfred had left Bryngwyn for Leamington in November 1858 (see Surtees, 16 November 1858). Their first child, Edward Alfred Moulton-Barrett, was born at Leamington on 17 January 1859.
11. Fanny Dowglass resided at Fulham Place, close to Delamere Terrace, where she died, aged 50, on 17 January 1859.
12. A cousin, Emily Butler (née Bayford, 1806–76), Angela Owen’s sister. Her husband was Charles George Butler (1793–1867). The Butlers moved to 5 Pelham Crescent, Brompton—a considerable distance from Delamere Terrace.
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