4445. EBB to Sophia Eckley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 217–220.
[Florence]
Sunday. [17 July 1859] [1]
Ever dearest Sophie, you will wonder at my silence. The cause is’nt that letters take ten days in walking from Lucca to Florence– No– Pietro [2] was wrong there. And I am not right in not having answered yours till this moment–
But I have been miserable about public affairs, could’nt keep the tears from my eyes for days & days, was’nt fit to write or sleep or eat or do anything–
I was in despair in fact– Now I feel better again, & begin to understand, or to hope to understand, that things & people are less bad than was feared at first.
Russia failed France at a crisis—& the alternative to the peace was a general war. Napoleon therefore snatched his opportunity, & did what he could—and we who think much on the question, are inclined to believe that his sagacity will save Italy in the rebound .. & that there are, besides, special silently agreed upon clauses between him & the Emperor of Austria about Venice. [3]
But Florence has been in great grief– The disappointment, when we were looking forward to absolute triumph & emerging from Austrian influence, struck cruelly.
For me, it made me quite ill– We are going to make a struggle for the fusion now– [4]
It was supposed there would be an outbreak both here & at Leghorn– We have patrols every night– Arms have been given out to the citizens. But we are all calmer now & have taken up hope again.
Dear dear Sophie, how are you? May you be enjoying your chesnut woods & the shadows & airs belonging to them. The heat in Florence is frightful– Still, at this time of crisis, it seems scarcely possible to live away from the place of action & information.
Robert is not here .. think of that!. He is at Siena–!!!!.
Thus it happened. Mr Landor, a week ago, gave up his family for good & all, & came into Florence, [5] —& ever since has been spending the greater part of everyday with us– At last he comes to a decision to go to Siena. Robert could’nt let him go alone & set off in company with him at seven this morning, in order to settle him as comfortably as the circumstances admit of his being settled, & then of course to return quickly—but he cant be back till tomorrow at soonest– The Landor family made a stormy attempt to besiege their Head in this house—but Mr Landor having stated, that, if his beloved wife [6] entered the door, he would throw himself out of the window, [7] she had nothing to do but to go away without further attempting to see him.
I congratulate dear Doady on his magnanimity– Pen’s best love– Pen is good at lessons & otherwise– How does the music go on?– Pen goes to his music-lesson at eight in the morning .. I mean to his master [8] in this street .. & returns to breakfast.
Mr Landor left some seeds for you which I keep for you, & repeated that he liked you, & Mr Eckley very much.
We were at the villa last night– It was Mdme Peruzzi’s reception night, but I had not the heart for it: & we went rather to the villa, [9] where there was a little air, & a copious moon—such a moon!– And there I saw Dr Grisonowsky [10] who, being a liberal rather after my pattern, said certain things which I could consider with satisfaction .. or hope rather. He looks to a better end than is apparent–
I am enraged with the whole world, meaning England, Prussia & Russia. Selfish, wicked policy, which has undone us!–
You see I cant help harping on it. My heart is sore–
Dearest Sophie, I had thought of & explained to myself before, the experience you had before leaving Florence– Very probably it was an attempt at communion. I hope you may have something to tell me soon.
Robert has sat for his picture, tell dear Mr Eckley, & with great effect he thinks– I am to see it soon. It is a companion picture to mine. [11]
May God bless you, dearest Sophie—& teach you His own idea of Love– If we had not a cushion somewhere to lean on, this world would be too hard. As for me, I have grown very bitter, very sceptical, very fierce. One does’nt fall down from a star with impunity.
I have a letter from Miss Heaton. Think of Fanny Haworth giving her a letter of introduction to Mrs Milner Gibson’s!—how strange.
Through this, she has been attending spiritual seánces, & living with mediums– There’s a Lady Barker [12] who sees & hears spirits just as she sees & hears people in the world. The sunday meetings continue .. which Miss Heaton “regrets”: she seems to consider them rather scandalous for the holy day.
Best love to you all—to dear Mr Eckley, dear Fanny, dear Do. Forgive what I cant help .. this very dull letter–
I am yours in true love
as ever—
Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to RB’s accompanying Landor to Siena. In a letter dated 6 August 1859, William Wetmore Story writes: “Landor has been staying with us … for the last three weeks” (see SD2277).
2. Presumably the Eckleys’ manservant.
3. EBB refers to the armistice signed at Villafranca on 11 July by Napoleon III and Franz Josef, which ended the second war of Italian independence. It called for the cession of Lombardy to Piedmont (indirectly through France) but allowed Austria to retain control of Venetia. This latter provision was rejected by Cavour and other Italian nationalists as too great a compromise towards their aim of Italian unity. A report of a telegraphic dispatch, given in Galignani’s Messenger for 13 July 1859, included the following statement: “The Emperor of Austria preserves Venetia, but that country forms an integral part of the Italian Confederation” (p. 3). In a proclamation to the French troops, dated 12 July, Napoleon III stated: “Venetia, it is true, remains under the sceptre of Austria, but will nevertheless be an Italian province forming part of the Confederation” (Galignani’s Messenger, 15 July 1859, p. 2). Reports of this kind evidently convinced EBB that Napoleon III had a plan to include Venice in the unification of the Italian states.
4. i.e., with Piedmont.
5. The 84-year-old Landor had been living with his wife and children in a villa outside Fiesole. Sometime in early July, disagreements with them, and his own volatile temperament, caused him to leave the premises, vowing never to return. RB found him wandering the streets of Florence, invited him back to Casa Guidi, and immediately wrote to John Forster for advice (see R.H. Super, Walter Savage Landor, New York, 1954, pp. 468–469). Shortly thereafter, “Landor wrote to Story and proposed to take a house for a year in Siena. … Story was eager to act as his host: he first invited him to stay a day or so [at the Storys’ villa] until he found what suited him and then persuaded him to prolong his visit for three weeks” (p. 469). A few days after the Brownings’ arrival in Siena on 30 July, RB received a letter from Landor’s niece Sophia explaining her family’s predicament with her uncle’s finances and asking: “May we hope that you, assisted by some other friend, or alone … will kindly consent to act as his bankers?” (letter 4458). RB responded in the affirmative and in effect became Landor’s guardian. In early August RB arranged a separate residence for the old man near the Brownings’ own villa. The next month, Forster transmitted £50 to Florence, the first of the quarterly payments that RB would regularly expend and account for on Landor’s behalf until his death in 1864. For the complete text of Landor’s accounts kept by RB, see Appendix IV.
6. Julia Landor (née Thuillier, 1793–1879).
7. Many years later, in conversation with Daniel Sargent Curtis, RB recalled the incident: “His [Landor’s] wife, supposing that he had money, came to Mr. B. to propose his return to his family. Mr. B. said Landor wd. never consent to this. She said he wd. if not prevented by Mr. B. & proposed to come in her carriage as she returned from her drive in the Cascine and later take him home. Mr. B. sd. try it; but I will not answer for the consequences. The next day the servant announced Signora Landor. Landor was instantly furious & said, ‘I’ll jump out of the window if you let her enter this room![’] Mrs. L. was on the stairs exclaiming ‘the old brute! the old beast!’” (Diary of D.S. Curtis, 30 September 1881, ms at Marciana).
8. Giuseppe Del Bene.
9. Villa Brichieri.
10. Ernst Georg Friedrich Gryzanowski (1824–88), a Prussian physician with a practice in Florence, is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4) as “Dr. Grisanowski, 4185 Sta. Trinita.” His last name has been spelled any number of ways; we spell his name as it appears on his gravestone at Bagni di Lucca.
11. Michele Gordigiani completed RB’s portrait in July 1859. It appears to have been commissioned by David Eckley, who attempted to retain it and EBB’s portrait after the death of his wife, who had bequeathed them to Pen Browning. The portrait of RB sold in Browning Collections as part of lot 59 (see Reconstruction, G15). It is reproduced facing p. 208.
12. Mary Anne Barker (née Stewart, later Broome, 1831–1911), born in Jamaica, was the eldest daughter of Walter George Stewart, Jamaica's last island secretary, and his wife, Susan (née Hewitt). In 1852 she married George Robert Barker (1817–61), of the Royal Artillery, who was knighted in 1859 for his distinguished service during the Sepoy Rebellion. She and her second husband, Frederick Napier Broome (1842–96), whom she married in 1865, appear in RB’s address book (AB-5).
___________________
