4332. EBB & RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 55–60.
| [In EBB’s hand] | 43. Bocca di Leone. |
Febr 15. [1859] [1]
My ever dearest Isa, your letter, long waited for, is three times welcome. I see that you are very uncomfortable though, & I want you away badly. Dont be drawn or dragged to stay longer– And, Isa dear, accept Miss Cushman’s invitation & come to Rome. It seems clearer and clearer that we shall not go to Naples, but see our time out where we are, being very comfortable, & not restless. But you have it in your head that I have taken up a passion for Rome at last– No indeed—neither last nor first. I have had no painful associations this time, thank God [2] .. & we have all been well,—& I shall not object to coming again some day. But for a residence, give me my Florence, I reiterate. Of the unhealthiness to common constitutions, I am sure as ever—& then, though I have liked to see Robert so perfectly amused, it would be too much to give every winter even to a place of such reckless dissipation. It’s just that, Isa—it’s like a great roaring watering place .. Cheltenham or Baden Baden—nothing thought of but dancing & dining, & crowding in some way or another—& one is not greatly better for having dukes & millionaires for one’s company– How the Caesars can sleep through it is hard to fancy—but I cant work through it– Paris is quiet and solemn in comparison to Rome. Think of Hatty going out three times in an evening! She is quite other in this respect from what she used to be, when she vanished at ten, even if she appeared at all. And Hatty is not the stronger for these efforts, it seems to me—She has had an abscess in the glands of her face, & suffered much– But do not mention this unless she speaks of it– Her own belief is that she injured herself by remaining through the summer at Rome, & she has made up her mind never to do it again. Very dear she is, & you should be kind, Isa, & come to Miss Cushman, & take her (Hatty) back with you to Tuscany,—for a summer at the villa would be good for her. — Now .. I wont write a word more till I congratulate you on your excellent memoir of Mademoiselle de Fauveau .., which I consider, upon the whole, (and so does Robert) the best thing you have done—the best writing in it, & put together with most workmanship– We were both extremely pleased by it, and if the subject of it, is not, she must be really to blame. Give us more of such writing, Isa—careful as well as clever,—laying down our womanly faults of a loose & unspecific way of thought & expression, as you have done here so satisfactorily. — Do you observe how another Isa has won the laurel at the Burns festival? [3] But the poem was not worth a leaf of holly,—was it? If the six hundred & odd other odes were worse, I compassionate the judges who had to read them.
—But Lytton’s book is out—“The Wanderer”—& you observe how the Athenæum praises it [4] .. dont you, Cordelia?– [5] Rightly too—he is a real poet—only too sensual—with too straight a root of thought for such a broad outgrowth of flowers. Melody, imagery, sentiment,—he is a poet in all– The book is to come to us from the publisher, Mr Chapman writes to us—and he tells us also that the poet is to marry his Dutch love .. (the same, I suppose,) .. a “Baroness or something of the kind,” says the bookseller with a touch of satisfied awe– Is it good for him indeed, Isa?—and is it not bad for her, indeed?– Pray be humane, you who are magnanimous—or do the great virtues exclude the small? I speak of Lytton’s book, .. but have read nothing beyond the Athenæum extracts, understand,—nothing yet–
Mr Page has finished his Venus & sent her to Paris—& at the last moment I went out for the first time since Christmas Day, that I might see her completed & in the frame. A most gorgeous & wonderful picture, certainly—and if the face had a more divine & less sensual beauty, I should be all admiration– The nudity is absolute—but the only indecency seems to me in the face– The Storys arrived when I was there—the first time they had set eyes on the picture!—their first visit to Mr Page—!– If it has a great success in Paris, there will have been a mis-calculation on Mrs Story’s part– I dont think she has gone off in looks at all, for my part—nor come on in other respects. But I like him, with all his faults .. which so much make his misfortunes that one grows tender to forgive them. Edith looks good & intelligent. Gibson is to part with his Venus in the spring, I hear—and though his portrait (by Talfourd) is to go with it & to be hung up by it, the consolation will scarcely be successful. [6] But all this time my thoughts are not of pictures, nor statues, nor even poems—but of men & nationalities—oh my Isa!—think what I must be feeling about Italy—Pen & I are ready to kneel down & kiss the Emperor’s feet—and then again I stand up & in a fit of rage would tear the frontlet from my brows [7] (which writes me English) when I find what a dishonorable ignoble attitude English ministers & public men of all parties are taking in this affair. [8] To talk sentimental charity, & button up one’s pockets .... is this all England can ever do for the nations without? I am sick at heart– Never talk to me of patriotism. But for the rest, there is hope. The pamphlet Napoleon III et l’Italie was written by the emperor. [9] The sensation here among the priestly party is profound—& “what the pope is to do, Mdme Rio cant imagine.” [10]
Do you know that Sophia Cottrell has a real baby at last—a girl [11] —after thirteen months seclusion. I believed in it no more than Robert does in spirits—but improbability does not disprove truth. I am very glad for her. As to another Sophie .. Mrs Eckley .. you are very mistaken, Isa—she who never calls first on anybody (not because she is fine, but because she is shy, & hates strangers & mixed society) called first on you—and she has precisely the reverse of your impression—namely that you dont like her. Is’nt it true, conscience of Isa?– She thinks you passed her once or twice in the street,—she knows you were as cold as ice to her at Casa Guidi—and after all she wishes, wishes to be on cordial terms with you. She told me so! & bade me tell you. She is a very peculiar person, impressionable & susceptible to the last degree, .. but of a pure, sweet, & noble nature, which you would comprehend if you came near enough–
But I want to talk of yourself, dearest Isa. Come away from Madrid. I long to see you, & to know that you are out of that cavernous house, the plan of which (as Annette showed it) iced my blood. Everything you say too, sounds wretched, for body & soul. Oh, come back, come back, Isa.
Fanny Haworth is here in the honeymoon of her matrimonial alliance with Ellen Heaton. The union of four hundred (or less) a year with eight hundred, presents certain advantages– There are great receptions, & a going to and fro—and glory of all kinds is increased. Still, “monsieur le mari”, [12] with many excellent qualities, never ceases talking, & seldom ceases moving, throws Trautchen into a state of despair & sets everybody wondering in what age of antedeluvian society ‘he’ was bred. There’s a degree of social deconsideration in exchange for the pecuniary advantage. Still the good humor & real kindness (joined to the rest) and besides, the genuine admiration for Fanny, will prevail, I do hope—unless Trautchen proves revolutionary. Guess what I am reading, Isa—“The Dutch republic” in three closely printed volumes– It’s that, dear, which makes this letter so dull.
Robert curses and swears over Carlyle’s Frederick—which is a relief to my own mind too. Never was there a more immoral book, in the brutal sense– For the rest he has taken to visiting cardinals [13] & such corrupt practices– I am only afraid that our Florence will strike into him with a chill of silence & death after all this noise & brilliancy– May God bless you my dear dearest Isa– Love your
ever loving Ba–
[Continued by RB]
See what a little space is left me, dearest Isa! Shall I use it to tell you what you know already of my true love and constant remembrance of you, or the news, infinitesimal tho’ it be, which you don’t know? Yet Ba will have exhausted our stock of all that—& told you how I waste time & time wastes me: [14] no, that isn’t true, neither: for I believe I get some good for future lonely or quiet hours to digest: and then it will be over soon. I daresay you will be glad enough to be back again presently: we shall not go to Naples—to what good, when Rome itself is hardly more familiar to Ba than would be Amalfi or Sorrento? We shall return to Tuscany and be as solitary as possible all the summer. So we lose Annette—she will have told you, of course—& Mrs Mackenzie is to eventually gain her. Hatty is quite well for the moment—those horrible boils being subdued since I wrote last—I saw her in great spirits two evenings ago: her “Zenobia” is quite another thing now,—not the plaster sketch which Mrs Jameson admired so much,—and far better. I see other friends of yours, at least the faces of them from time to time—Freemans, [15] Chawner, [16] Hooker [17] & so on. I hear authentic news from England about Lytton at last—he is to be married to a Dutch Baronness of some sort—whom I wish joy of her choice. His book is out, & highly commended by the “Athenæum”– I am to receive a copy by a Queen’s messenger who ought to have arrived ere this and may be expected tomorrow; some extracts about “Cordelia” made my gorge rise, you know why: there was merit otherwise in what I read, music, picturesqueness & facility, and I wish the whole of it into the cess pool,—as Carlyle would say with less reason. [18] But let us forget all foolish things & worse, and only be improving to the end. I heard Manning [19] preach the poorest, most illogical, most impudent of sermons, last two Sundays. Our little Prince [20] is the target of all English eyes here– I saw him at a concert three days ago & thought him simple and boyish spite of the nonsense he is inevitably steeped in. Ferdinando is coming-going impatiently, wanting this letter & must have it. Good bye, dearest Isa—not for very long, I trust. You must write to the last minute—make the truest assurances of the affection of yours
ever RB
Publication: B-IB, pp. 188–193.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library and Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the review of “Lytton’s book”; see note 5 below.
2. EBB alludes to the death of Joe Story on the day after the Brownings’ arrival in Rome five years before (see letter 3292).
3. A festival celebrating the centenary of the birth of Robert Burns (1759–96) was held on 25 January at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham. A prize for the best poem commemorating the occasion was awarded to Isabella Craig (1831–1903)—see letter 3773, note 2—for her “Ode on the Centenary of Burns.” The Times of 26 January 1859 (p. 9) carried a report of the celebration and printed the prize poem in full. The following day, the newspaper noted that there had been “621 male and female competitors” for the prize (p. 10).
4. In The Athenæum of 5 February 1859 (no. 1632, pp. 180–181), the reviewer writes of The Wanderer: “No one can open the volume without feeling that the author has established his title to rank as a poet upon distinct rights and merits of his own.”
5. In The Wanderer (1859), published under Robert Bulwer Lytton’s pseudonym, Owen Meredith, Cordelia is the subject of four poems: “Warnings,” “Cordelia,” “To Cordelia,” and “A Letter to Cordelia.” Of these, only “Warnings” was extracted in The Athenæum. This poem features a narrator who lingers in “the chambers of this Sorceress, the South” (that is, Italy), while dreaming of the ideal Cordelia, who evidently lives in the north. In spite of EBB’s teasing here, it is more likely that Carolina Groeninx van Zoelen (see letter 4316, note 16), “his Dutch love,” provided Lytton’s inspiration. Three of the Cordelia poems are placed in the section entitled “Holland.”
6. The colored chalk of John Gibson by Field Talfourd was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859. The original is now at the British Museum. It is reproduced in Browning Institute Studies, 5 (1977), 11. Gibson’s “Tinted Venus” was not exhibited until 1862 (see letter 3244, note 3).
8. Neither English party at this time considered supporting the Italian cause in alliance with the French, even when the principles of democracy and national sovereignty were invoked against what was seen as oppression by Austria. An editorial in The Times of 5 January 1859 is typical of the prevailing view. It declared that “the expressions which fell from the Emperor of the French on the first day of the year have accordingly produced no small uneasiness in Europe. … Our people may think Piedmontese ambition but natural … but they know that a French invasion of Lombardy under the pretext of liberating its people would be the overthrow of all that has been built up during 40 years of peace” (p. 8).
9. In early February, the pamphlet L’Empereur Napoléon III et l’Italie was published in Paris. Although written by Louis Étienne Arthur de La Guéronnière (1816–75), it was widely believed to represent the ideas of the emperor himself in regard to the Italian question. “One sentence was considered to have particular significance: ‘Napoleon I thought he must conquer peoples to free them; Napoleon III wishes to free them without conquering them’” (Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, p. 207). This was taken as a harbinger of French intervention on behalf of Italy. On 7 February, Napoleon III addressed the opening of the French assembly. In his speech, a translation of which was carried the following day in The Daily News, the emperor pointed to the cordial relations and the spirit of cooperation that existed between the government of his country and the governments of England, Russia, and Prussia. Austria was a different matter: “The cabinet of Vienna and mine, on the contrary—I say it with regret—have often been found at variance upon the principal questions … for example the reconstitution of the Danubian Principalities … if it should be asked of me what interest France had in those distant countries washed by the Danube, I should reply that the interest of France is wherever there is a just and civilised cause to promote. In this state of things, it was not at all extraordinary that France should draw more closely to Piedmont.” After commenting on the marriage of his cousin and Victor Emmanuel’s daughter as a sign of “the community of interest of the two countries and the friendship of the two sovereigns,” the emperor declared: “For some time past the state of Italy and its abnormal situation, which makes it impossible to maintain order except with the aid of foreign troops has justly alarmed diplomacy” (p. 5).
10. Apollonia Rio (née Jones, 1804–90); see letter 4273, note 9.
12. “The husband”; i.e., Ellen Heaton.
13. We have been unable to identify which cardinal or cardinals RB may have visited.
14. Cf. Richard II, V, 5, 49.
15. James E. Freeman (1808–84), American painter, living in Rome with his wife, Horatia Augusta (née Latilla, 1824–97), an Anglo-Italian sculptor best known for making christening fonts. Freeman was a close friend of Robert Macpherson.
16. Eloisa Chawner (1794–1867), daughter of Rupert Chawner (1750–1836), a physician, and his wife, Sarah (née Hind, 1770–1839), is described in Murray’s A Handbook of Rome and Its Environs (1858) as “an excellent copyist of the old masters,” living at “No. 6, Via Laurina” (p. xxii).
17. James Clinton Hooker (see letter 4291, note 12).
18. Perhaps, Thomas Carlyle would have wished the book in the “cess pool” simply because he favored prose over poetry as the best means of communicating ideas. He had counselled both RB and EBB to work in prose (see letters 822 and 1843). “Cesspool” was one of Carlyle’s pet words, and he had used it recently in a context that may have reminded RB of Lytton. In the first chapter of Frederick the Great, Carlyle writes: “How vain all cunning of diplomacy, management and sophistry, to save any mortal who does not stand on the truth of things, from sinking, in the longrun. Sinking to the very Mudgods, with all his diplomacies, possessions, achievements; and becoming an unnameable object, hidden deep in the Cesspools of the Universe” (History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, 6 vols., 1858–65, I, 18).
19. Henry Edward Manning (1808–92), an early supporter of the Tractarian movement, was in 1865 consecrated Archbishop of Westminster and in 1875 elevated to the rank of Cardinal. According to the DNB, between 1857 and 1865 “he was frequently at Rome, where he preached several times at S. Andrea della Valle and other churches” and “occupied himself … with the literary defence of the temporal power of the pope,” which would not have endeared him to either of the Brownings. Nevertheless, he called on them several times in Rome in 1860 and 1861.
20. i.e., the Prince of Wales (see letter 4330, note 3).
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