4497. EBB to Henry Fothergill Chorley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 313–317.
Siena.
Sunday. [2 October 1859] [1]
Thank you, my dear Mr Chorley– I submit gratefully to being snubbed for my politics. In return I will send to your private ear an additional stanza which should interpose as the real seventh but was left out. [2] I did not send it to you the day after my note; though sorely tempted to do so, because it seemed to me likely to annul any small chance of Athenæum-tolerance which might fall to me– Would it have done so, do you think?——
“A great Deed in this world of ours!
Unheard of the pretence is.
It plainly threatens the Great Powers,—
Is fatal in all senses.
A just Deed in the world! Call out
The rifles! [3] —be not slack about
The National Defences.”
Certainly if I don’t guess ‘the Sphinx’ [4] right, some of your English guessers in the Times & elsewhere fail also, as events prove– The clever “Prince-Napoleon-for-Central-Italy” guess, for instance, has just fallen through, by declaration of the Moniteur– [5] Most absurd it was always– At one time the prince might have taken the crown by acclamation– He was almost rude about it when he was in Tuscany. And even after the peace, members of the present government were not averse—were much the contrary indeed– At that time the autonomy was still dear—we had not made up our minds to the fusion. Now, è altra cosa [6] —& to imagine that a man like the French emperor would have waited till now .. producing, by the opportunities he has given, the present complication, [7] in order to impose the prince, is absurd on the very face of it–
While standers by guess, the comfort is that circumstances ripen– We are in spirits about our Italy– The dignity, the constancy, the calm, .. are admirable, as the unanimity of the people is wonderful– Even the contadini have rallied to the government, and the cry of enthusiasm to which the cross of Savoy [8] was uncovered in the market place of Siena yesterday, was a thrilling thing. Also we will fight, be it understood, whenever fighting shall be necessary. At present, the right arm of Austria is broken: she cannot hold the sword since Solferino, at least in central Italy– Let those who doubt our debt to France, remember where we were last year, & see what our political life is now .. real, vivid, unhindered! Our moral qualities are our own,—but our practical opportunities come from another, & we could not have made them by force of moral qualities,—great as those are allowed to be– And how striking the growth of this people since 1848– Massimo d’Azeglio said to Robert & me—“It is forty eight over again with matured actors.” But it is even more than that: it is forty eight over again with regenerated actors.
All internal jealousies, at an end—all suspicions, quenched—all selfish policies dissolved. Florence forgets herself for Italy. This is grand. Would that England, that pattern of moral nations, would forget herself for the sake of some thing or some one beyond. That would be grand.
I wish you were here, my dear Mr Chorley, since I am wishing in vain—though we are almost at the close of our stay in this pretty country. We have a villa with beautiful sights from all the windows: & there, on the hill opposite, live Mr & Mrs Story—and within a stone’s throw in a villino, lives the poor old lion Landor, who being sorely buffeted by his unamiable family at Fiesole—far beyond “kissing again with tears,” [9] (though Robert did what he could, ..) took refuge with us at Casa Guidi one day, broken-hearted & in wrath. He stays here while we stay, & then goes with us to Florence where Robert has received the authorization of his English friends to settle him in comfort in an apartment of his own,—with my late maid, Wilson, (who married our Italian man-servant), to take care of him—and meanwhile the quiet of this place has so restored his health & peace of mind that he is able to write awful Latin alcaics, to say nothing of hexameters & pentameters on the wickedness of Louis Napoleon. —Yes, dear Mr Chorley, .. poems which might appear in the Athenæum without a disclaimer, & without injury to the reputation of that journal–
Am I not spiteful?– I assure you I couldn’t be spiteful a short time ago, so very ill I have been. Now it is different, and every day the strength returns. What remains however is a certain necessity of not braving the Florence wind this winter, and of going again to Rome, in spite of probable revolutions there. We talk of going, in the early part of november– Why wont you come to Rome & give us meeting– Foolish speech, when I know you wont. We shall be in Florence probably at the end of the present week, to stay there until the journey further south begins– I shall regret this silence– And little Penini too will have his regrets, for he has been very happy here—has made friends with the contadini, has helped to keep the sheep, to run after straggling cows, to play at “nocini” [10] (did you ever hear of that game) and to pick the grapes at the vintage—driving in the grape-carts, (exactly of the shape of the Greek chariots,) with the grapes heaped up round him,—and then riding on his own poney, which Robert is going to buy for him .. (though Robert never spoils him .. no, not he .. it is only I who do that!) galloping through the lanes on this poney the colour of his curls. I was looking over his journal, (Pen keeps a journal) and fell on the following memorial which I copy for you– I must–
“This is the happiest day of my hole (sic) life,—for now dearest Vittorio Emanuele is really nostro re–” [11]
Pen’s weak point does not lie in his politics, Mr Chorley, but in his spelling. When his contadini have done their day’s work he takes it on him to read aloud & expound to them the poems of the revolutionary Venetian poet Dall’Ongaro, to their great applause– Then I must tell you of his music– He is strong in music for ten years old,—and plays a sonata of Beethoven already (in E flat—opera 7:) and the first four books of Stephen Heller; to say nothing of various pieces by modern German composers in which there is need of considerable execution. Robert is the maestro, & sits by him two hours every day, with an amount of patience & persistence really extraordinary– Also for two months back since I have been thrown out of work, Robert has heard the child all his other lessons– Is’nt it very, very good of him?
Do write to us & tell me how your sister is, & also how you are in spirits & towards the things of the world?– Give her my love—will you?–
I had a letter some time ago from poor Jessie Mario, from Bologna– Respect her– She hindered her husband from fighting with Garibaldi for his country, because Garibaldi fought under L.N.—which was so highly improper– Her letter was not unkind to me, but altogether & insanely wrong as I considered– <(Not more wrong though, & much less wicked than “the Times.”)> [12] I was too ill at the time to answer it, & afterwards Robert would not let me—but I should have liked to do it: it’s such a comfort to a woman (and a man?) to sfogarsi, [13] —as we say here– Also, I was really uneasy at what might be doing at Bologna,—so in spite of friendship, it was a relief to me to hear of the police taking charge of all overt possibilities in that direction. [14]
Is it really true that Adam Bede is the work of Miss Evans–?– The woman (as I have heard of her) and the author, (as I read her) do not hold together. Here’s a long letter in little pages. [15] May God bless you, my dear friend– Robert shall say so for himself–
Ever affectionately yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
My dear Mr Chorley, reading over what I have written I find that I have been so basely ungrateful as not to say the thing I would when I would thank you. Your Dedication will be accepted with a true sense of kindness and honor together: I shall be proud & thankful. [16] But perhaps you have changed your mind in the course of this long silence–
And now where’s room for Robert?——
Publication: LEBB, II, 334–338 (in part, as [September–October 1859]).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Dating based on EBB’s including “the real seventh” stanza of “A Tale of Villafranca,” which she also sent to Isa Blagden in letter 4498, and on EBB’s mention of the imminent purchase of Pen’s pony, Stella, which had occurred by 5 October (see letter 4501).
2. This stanza, with minor changes, was included in “A Tale of Villafranca” as published in EBB’s Poems Before Congress (1860).
3. EBB alludes to the Volunteer Rifle Corps (see letter 4417, note 18).
4. A reference to the editorial note that accompanied “A Tale of Villafranca” in The Athenæum of 24 September 1859. It began with an extract (misquoted) from letter 4488: “‘The good and true politics of this poem you, being English, will dissent from altogether. Say so, if you please, but let me in. Strike—but hear me. E.B.B.’ We need not say how much we respect the poetess—for we insert her tale—nor, though we give it circulation, how far we dissent from her present reading of the riddle of the Sphinx” (no. 1665, p. 397).
5. The Moniteur’s “declaration” appeared in The Morning Post of 30 September 1859 in a report filed by their Paris correspondent on 28 September: “To-day the Moniteur has put an end to the inventions of certain writers who of late have declared that the Emperor was working to put Prince Napoleon on an Italian throne. The note in the official journal … is thus worded: ‘Some foreign journals have asserted in a positive manner that the solution of the affairs of Italy has been retarded by the desire of the Emperor of the French to found a kingdom in Italy for a Prince of his House. These reports do not stand in need of refutation. To deprive them of all their value, it is only necessary, without speaking of the engagements entered into at Villafranca, to call to mind the acts and declarations of the Emperor Napoleon before and since that period’” (p. 5).
6. “It’s another thing.”
7. The complication being that Tuscany, Romagna, Parma, and Modena had all voted for union with Piedmont, which Piedmont refused to sanction because to do so would have violated the terms of Villafranca.
8. A white cross on a red field, the flag of the House of Savoy, the ruling house of the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont). The celebration coincided with the one held in Florence (see letter 4498, note 19).
9. Cf. Tennyson, The Princess (3rd ed., 1850), II, 5.
10. A children’s game, consisting of throwing a walnut at a pyramid of four other walnuts.
11. “Our king.”
12. Passage in angle brackets was added as an afterthought.
13. “Vent.”
15. Written on small sheets of paper, this letter is twelve pages long.
16. Chorley dedicated his 1859 novel, Roccabella: A Tale of a Woman’s Life, published under the pseudonym Paul Bell, to the author of Aurora Leigh, “one whom I have long held to be the most distinguished of women gifted for poetical authorship whom England has ever produced” (p. v).
___________________
