4320. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 30–34.
Rome– 143 Bocca di Leone
Thursday– [Postmark: 13 January 1859]
My dearest Moña Nina, your letter is pleasant & painful together– Dearest friend, you seem out of spirits—more that, I fancy, than out of working order. Your work is clear & bright—(we read you in the Athenæum! [1] & I know you otherwise.) But you feel languid & so get self-distrustful. A long course of lying up at Brighton, even though solaced by the moralities of English Journalism, must be tedious & trying to you, I am sure,—& I do yearn to hear that you are with Madame de Goëthe even if you dont come my way—of which there’s a hope at the bottom of this box!——
Now of dear Gerardine. If I could have told you anything of her from direct knowledge, you should have heard from me repeatedly on the anxious subject, .. though I received none of your letters, none .. except the notelet which I answered in full. How is it that your letters miss me? But Gerardine .. I can tell you now at last that Robert has seen her, .. I myself being shut up here after my fashion through the bitterness of the weather. If I could have got out long ago, they would not have admitted me, I dare say, .. but for weeks (except just on Christmas morning) I have been shut up. Robert who has called there constantly to make enquiries, was admitted the day before yesterday, & found her convalescent, walking about from one room to another, & heard quite satisfactory accounts both of herself & the baby– Of course she looked ill & changed—“all the beauty gone” said he– But beauty comes back very quickly in such cases, & it is only surprising to me after what we have heard, that she should be as well & active as Robert describes her. She must look ill in rising from such a sick bed– For over & over we were told that every hope of her life was gone—& then, dreadful to say, it was reported that she must “lose an arm” .. because of the abscess which followed the low fever. And as to the baby nobody thought of the poor babe, except that there was not time to regret its being dedicated to the grave. [2] So when I heard all this at every enquiry, & could see nothing for myself, the temptation to write to you was not naturally so great as under other circumstances it might be– Mr Macpherson called here one night—but I was in bed & Robert out– I saw nobody who had seen anything. Let us thank God that the evil has come to an end at last– Dear Gerardine. Oh, if by any influence of yours you could move her away from that house near the Tiber, which everybody seems to agree in considering a pestilential situation.
Robert is caught from hand to hand like a ball, & engaged for a fortnight together at night, & by day I may add. His men & women are on the outside of the brain exclusively just now: [3] but it is good for him in some ways: he takes more exercise, eats more, & has been radiant in health till within the last few days when he has caught a cold rather– In spite of which, he dined with the Eckleys yesterday to keep their marriage anniversary [4] & went to Mrs Story’s ball afterwards—so that there is not a great deal to sigh over– Let me tell you while I remember it, that Hatty came in to me for half an hour when he had just gone, & that I made some amends to her for what she missed by reading straight through when [sic, for what] you wrote to me about her works. Which proves, I beg to say, not my indiscretion, but my high esteem for her– She took it like a Hatty, as I knew she would,—but she & I agreed after all that to paint a Puck (or anything else) with a “brush dipped in air & light,” was sooner said than done. Still, she understood—& so did I. Also, I dont think it necessary that Puck should be “Shakespeare’s Puck”—now do you, really?– The Will o’ the Wisp I feel much more clearly against. What you say of the monument is deeply true & beautifully said, more tuo [5] —you set Hatty’s eyes sparkling at it– And you will be borne out too in your hopes for the Zenobia, from what I hear through Robert.
Mr Page has a young male Page. Did I tell you that?—— He wants to send his Venus to Paris for the exhibition [6] there—did I tell you that?
If you would come you would like some of the people here– Miss Ogle, the young authoress of ‘Lost Love,’ which I liked so much. And I like herself much, besides. Then Lothrop Motley the historian of the Dutch republics, who though ten times an American, would please you as an accomplished man & a gentleman, & natural & simple, & full of reverence for the mother-country .. fuller than pleases me! Yet he is not impressed, nor will you find any foreigner impressed by the “high moral tone” of the Times &c. Ah, you & I shall never, never agree on such subjects. And I fear much that history will justify me rather than you—yes, I fear. Certainly the whole blood of me gets exasperated with whatever I read .. no, dont let me exaggerate by a line .. with a good deal that I read in these English papers—with the Times & Saturday Review chiefly—the low moral grounds taken, & the lofty arrogance with which they are maintained. The Principality question, [7] the Suez question, [8] even the Montalembert question in which they might have spoken on their own side with dignity & justice, but on which they preferred speaking most mendacious & conscious hypocrisies. And now, observe where our good ship of England is floating—! I seem to have seen dimly what the treason of these helmsmen have [sic] been, in misplacing or misconstruing the fog-signals– I see dimly what the game is .. to prepare the English public against the possibility of taking part on the generous & righteous side in the struggle impending between Italy & Austria. If such a thing should be, if England does as she most generally does in questions of foreign politics (as far as action goes) .. if she takes the hand of Austria against Piedmont, .. then I shall tear off this frontlet of my nationality from between my eyes [9] .. I shall have done with England– Forgive me– This has not happened yet—and here’s an admirable article in the Daily News which soothes me a little– [10] But even from this, I understand what may be apprehended .. & what the writer of this very article apprehends.
And I feel convinced in my own mind of what has been the policy lately of the Times &c in irritating by patent mis[s]tatements the public nerves against France– O wretched men!—how can we women wonder at their bearing to us, when they act thus among themselves!
The third volume of Carlyle’s Frederick [11] is very interesting, but a great deal in the first & second, the merest chaos to my fancy, though streaked with embryo worlds. And the moral tone is more repugnant to me than usual somehow, & the Carlylisms of opinion more offensive. Is it his fault or mine?– His power does not dwindle, but his soul does not grow–
Poor Isa Blagden writes rather sad letters from Madrid where the cold is bitter. She talks of returning to Italy, to Florence in March. Did you read her article on Mlle de Fauveau in the Englishwoman’s Journal? [12] I thought it well done. Mrs Mackenzie has finished an exquisite copy of the ‘Speranza’ of Guido—& is to do the B. Cenci, [13] I believe. My Pen has had a bad cold but is convalescent. May God bless you & love you, beloved friend!
Ever yours in love I am–
Ba.
Miss Haworth & Miss Heaton in their new marital state (& its honeymoon still) have arrived in Rome. How happy I am about Mdme Braun. [14] Robert’s & Pen’s love–
Address: Angleterre / Mrs Jameson / 16. Chatham Place / Brighton.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. EBB refers to Mrs. Jameson’s letter signed “A.J.” that appeared in The Athenæum of 1 January 1859. Dated Brighton, 24 December 1858, the letter admiringly describes “The Damen-Stifter in Germany.” Mrs. Jameson translates “Damen-Stifter” as “chapters or endowments for unmarried ladies” (no. 1627, p. 18).
2. Gerardine Macpherson’s infant, born in December 1858, died sometime in the early spring (see letters 4351 and 4404).
3. i.e., he is not writing poetry.
4. They were married on 12 January 1848 at Boston.
5. “In your way.”
8. In 1856 a French company formed by Ferdinand De Lesseps (1805–94) received approval from the Egyptian government for the construction of the Suez Canal. The project was opposed by then prime minister Lord Palmerston, who feared that it was “merely a device for French interference in the East” (EB). In April 1859 the building of the canal began in earnest, and it opened for traffic in late 1869. An editorial in The Times of 27 November 1858 declared that the canal was technically impractical, because of the shallowness of Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, and commercially unviable, because neither the canal (as designed) or the Red Sea (owing to its coral reefs) could accommodate “sailing ships” (p. 8).
9. An allusion to phylacteries, which were bound to the forehead or arm with leather thongs and contained scriptural remembrances of deliverance as referred to in Exodus 13:9 and 16 and Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18.
10. EBB may refer to an editorial in support of Italian independence that appeared in The Daily News of 3 January 1859: “The Italian question is one from which the adherents of Austria in the English press seek to lead us away by conjuring up fears and apprehensions of French aggrandisement and Russian ambition. They would condemn twenty millions of people inhabiting the fairest portion of Europe to present slavery and continuous misery, lest that artificial balance of power which rests insecurely on the maintenance of the worst of all human despotisms—that of Austria—should be disturbed. Independence and freedom must be denied the Italians, and the measures necessary to attain them must be averted by England, because it suits the personal objects of a set of worn-out soulless politicians on this side of the Channel to propagate old jealousies of France and old hostilities of Russia, when there is reason to believe a better knowledge of the state of Europe and a more accurate perception of the inevitable tendencies of events have brought the Governments of those countries to see that, in the interest of general peace and of permanent prosperity, something ought at last to be done to relieve Italy from the oppression of Austria” (p. 4).
11. Evidently, EBB was reading the Tauchnitz edition of Frederick the Great (13 vols., Leipzig, 1858–65); see letter 4259, note 1. Volume 3 in the Chapman and Hall edition (6 vols., 1858–65) did not appear until spring 1862.
12. “Felicie de Fauveau,” The English Woman’s Journal, October 1858.
13. This painting was long thought to be of Beatrice Cenci by Guido Reni. Both attributions are now widely disputed. The portrait still hangs in the gallery of the Palazzo Barberini, as it did in the Brownings’ time.
14. In letter 4148 EBB reported that Anne Braun was “suffering from a supposed incurable cancerous affection.” But in letter 4295, EBB wrote: “Arabel gives me wonderful news of Mdme. Braun’s restoration by mesmerism.”
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