4535. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 55–61.
28 Via del Tritone, Rome
Decr 7– [1859] [1]
My beloved Arabel this letter should have gone to you before, though you have been rather naughty & slow in writing yourself, I must say—but I wanted to send you news of us before we plucked out the roots of us from the ground of Florence. We were kept there too late by the necessities connected with settling Mr Landor—& just as they ended the cold began—& there was I shut into two rooms, not even getting to the dining-room to dine,—waiting till the wind changed. Suddenly it changed—& then, were we to venture to go?– I assure you so close a thing was it, that Robert only signed a conditional agreement with the vetturino [2] last sunday week– If the wind changed again in the course of the night, we were to pay a napoleon & be free of our engagement: in which case Robert & I agreed that we would accept this as a sign of its not being desireable for us to go to Rome at all, & submit to the risks of remaining at Florence. Wind stood the trial, however; & we began our journey on a mild beaming monday, & ended it on a somewhat colder saturday without any sort of adversity, thank God. It was a very pleasant six days excursion, & I was never in the course of it over-fatigued—neither I nor the poney .. whose case was considered more perilous by certain of our Florentine friends. The poney was fastened by a rein to the other horses—& we half feared we might have to leave him on the road with Lazzari the groom, who with Ferdinando & Annunciata helped to fill our carriage. Not at all—poney came in fresh & in spirits at every stage, & would have travelled to the end of the world on the same terms. We brought all our establishment here, not out of extravagance but out of economy, Arabel– Servants cost just double at Rome what are the Florentine wages. Lazzari is a middle-aged cousin of Ferdinando’s, who has been a sort of hanger on of ours for years, .. winked at by us, but not paid, when Ferdinando chose to use him as a washer-up of dishes—only paid on some extraordinary job-occasion,—such as cleaning windows &c– Lazzari has a small independence (left to him by an old master) & is one of those pure reliable honestys, which you would trust your heart to as well as your purse on any rainy day & count on its being kept & kept dry .. there are such men even in Italy Arabel– Well—when Robert on his return from Siena was wondering what he should do about the poney, Ferdinando proposed that we should take Lazzari into our service– Lazzari was learned about horses—besides being excellent at cleaning, & not weak in cooking—& Lazzari would come to us for fifteen francs a month– Agreed to at once– Wages are much higher than that at Florence—but Lazzari having an independence, & his wife being in business, he would like to be with us to whom he was “molto affezionato,” [3] if he might return home to sleep. So we acceded—& when the talk was of coming to Rome, he was in an ecstasy, & his wife resigned– “To think of his living to see Rome!” I tell you all this that you might’nt think us running furiously into ruin at the tail of the poney. Certainly the expenses of said poney have been many & great—but we take them as economically as possible—and our travelling with three servants is a piece of prudence rather than of extravagance– Let me tell you, by the way, that the poney has grown more beautiful than ever, through the care taken of him– His tail was carefully packed for the journey, & he had knee-pads & body coverings, as if he were a racer. His skin has grown quite lustrous—& the learned say that if we had “two of them,” they would sell for a hundred napoleons– You cant think how lovely Pen looks on his steed .. like a small knight. Robert (not I, of course!) is very proud of his grace & fearless riding. Poor Pen was distressed to leave Florence, & used every argument against it, exaggerating all the exaggerations about the dangers here—“It certainly is better for mama to have some cold air in her chest than a cannon-ball in her stomach”– Poor Pen. Mama was more afraid of one than of the other. M. Del Bene was to give a concert & Pen was to play Schuloff’s Carnival de Venise at it,—& there were other splendid prospects, all given up for mama. I did’nt like to be the cause of such an unpopular journey—for even Robert would rather have stayed, as I myself would.
Well—the journey was pleasant after all—six days on the road: we entered Rome on Saturday, & met the Storys’ carriage: they had come out to meet us, & had done so for several days. People are very kind to us really– They had a list of apartments, & we went to the hotel till Robert could see & decide between Mr Cartwright & Mr Story. Mr Cartwright having rooms in his house, which he wanted us to go to– But there was a passage between the drawingroom & my bedroom—& so the Storys carried it & we came here to the Via Tritone the day after our arrival,—to really a beautiful apartment, full in the sun, two salons besides the dining-room, elegantly furnished, & carpeted even to the men servants[’] bed-rooms. We pay only what we paid last year .. fifty scudi .. (eleven pounds English) the month– Last winter these rooms let at sixteen pounds! But Rome is a desert– No English here scarcely, & very few Americans. I persist in not being afraid– I am afraid of nothing in Italy but the north wind.
Dearest darling Arabel, I had a letter from Henrietta just before I left Florence, & I longed for one from you. She tells me that my dear George complains still of his head. Are they nervous or stomach or circulation headaches, do you suppose? I do wish you would get him to try homœopathy, giving it a good chance. One homœopathic doctor is cleverer than another, just as it is among the allopathists– Robert has done himself & does himself such infinite good by these globules, that I know there is much in the remedy. Veratrum [4] is successful sometimes in nervous cases. Robert’s charm is nux vomica– He has taken no other medecine for nearly two years—he who could’nt get on without blue-pill, [5] & had such violent attacks of headache—that he talked of congestion on the brain & used to frighten me sometimes. I want to hear of George—& of you, how you get on, my darling. You would have done well both of you to come out to Italy, as I had a promise from George towards your doing—only that the state of the country hindered me from urging anything for fear of being responsible for this or that– The Perkins, our friends, were frightened at Perugia—& the consequence of that is, that poor old Mrs Do[a]ne Mr Perkins’s mother has just died mad at Florence: [6] —never recovered her reason from the fright–! Then people in England have such terrible ideas of the state of affairs here that I could’nt of course, press on you a promise made under different circumstances– Only, Arabel, I should certainly (besides the yearning of my heart towards you both) like to have you in comfort, & please you better than I could do at Havre or even in Paris, .. where we lived so wretchedly as to comfort– Such coffee we gave you! I look back disconsolately at everything. There was such a press—so little time to settle oneself & take breath for housekeeping arrangements. If you were here, where we are at home,—yes, even at Rome, .. we should do better for you– No, dont answer this. I know what you would say:—how the coffee was tolerable & how you did’nt mind, & so on. Only my conscience howls at me in pauses of the night.
What is this of poor uncle James? [7] Henrietta sent me a sad account of him, and I should like to hear. His loss would shock our dear Bummy I am sad to think how much.
This house is very warm– A blaze of sun all day– The drawback is a noise at night, but I suppose we shall get used to it as people get used to evils. <Dr Pantaleone> [8] has just been here giving me new life about politics. Not but what I lived before. I swore to myself on beginning this letter not to vex you with politics—& if I had’nt, the subject might be almost dangerous to touch on in any letter– The espionage is carried to an extreme, & even our Athenæum arrives clipped. None of our Florence papers (Italian) have reached us, though we had the precaution of having them addressed to Odo Russell who stands for the English government & has certain privileges. There is hope & more than hope—there is prospect. I left Florence with this feeling—& here is one of the most intellectual men in Italy who more than confirms it– I scratched out the name, for caution’s sake. I have a poem written in honor of Louis Napoleon: [9] it is in my desk at present: wait a little. The Times is doing its best or worst to set the world on fire, and my heart aches over it all, as if the end of these calumnies & fancies (rifle-clubs included) [10] might be a thing for tears, as well as for this present scorn & indignation. There is one public man in England whom I honor .. & his name is Duncombe– [11] He was the only man who said the right word in parliament at the beginning of the war: [12] he is the only man who says it now on the subject of the rifle-clubs– [13] Robert has just been down to the reading room to order a Galignani for us—& has seen a Times—& comes back saying, “It really is too bad”– Robert at least is not unEnglish whatever Ba may be. — Whatever feeling for Italy has been talked out by the English of late, is simply another form of English jealousy against France. The whole story about Garibaldi’s ‘dismissal’ as given in the Times, is a mis[s]tatement. [14] I know the facts. It is a temporary standing aside to make room for the congress, [15] & was rendered necessary by ..... I cant write here what, but I know. We are holding our breath, you see, before Congress– Afterwards we shall breathe loud enough, if it pleases God. Did I ever tell you of the letter I had from Ruskin? [16] If you read it you would consider my remarks upon England patriotic. He sent me a message by Mrs Stowe, who arrived in Florence just before we quitted it, [17] to the effect, that “he did not cease to believe in Louis Napoleon.” (He had met her in Switzerland as she passed.) “And you?[”] said I to Mrs Stowe– “Why,” she answered, “I am beginning to believe in him.” “That,” said I, “is the greater triumph”– Which it is, for Mrs Stowe was a strong Anti-Napoleonist, at one time. She remains two months in Florence & then comes to Rome.
Poor little Pen is “unhappy” as he calls it in these rooms, & set it down at first as “a most horrible apartment,” because there’s no bed for him in “mama’s room”, but only in papa’s dressing-room. An open door between us does not reconcile him to the separation. He really gets too old for sleeping in our room—& yet I am nearly as much hurt as he, at this exile. He is younger than his age in some respects, & has an awful amount of innocence—but, Arabel, I should like you to hear him play the Carnival de Venise (Schuloff’s)– It is really wonderful how the child plays it. We have a grand piano .. very good, .. for which we pay more than a pound a month—more than double what we pay in Florence. Then we are going to give him instructions in Latin & perhaps mathematics? under a Roman priest, [18] three times a week—two hours at a time for him & Edith Story together. He likes the idea of this, except that a priest should be the instructor! Pen has the horror of “priests” which people catch in the sacred precincts of Exeter Hall. [19] I really have to scold him & lecture him. Is’nt that strange? Here’s the child who used to cross himself in the churches a few years ago!. He is reading in French ‘Les Veillées du château’ [20] —& in Italian, the Orlando Innamorato of Berni– [21] Afterwards he will fall naturally into Ariosto. [22] It is beautiful to hear him read Italian poetry. Think of little Hal Cottrell having an English accent in his Italian. Sophie Cottrell is a little vexed about it, & attributes it to her speaking to him in English-Italian when he was a baby– But I did the same to Pen, who in spite of it is only too Tuscan in conversation. Perhaps Pen has lived more with Italians than Hal has done, after all.
Theodore Parker [23] has just been here to see us. You may have heard of him by reputation. He has eyes like light itself, and his forehead is as a mount of vision. An extraordinary man in many ways– He is here on account of his health.
Arabel, I travelled in your dress .. the one you gave me. Somebody admired it only the other day. You know I seldom wear anything out, and should be particularly scrupulous as to what came from you. Such a comfort I find in my merinos underwaistcoat. Henrietta says you would’nt wear it because it is flannel– Now nobody hates the touch of flannel more than I do– That you must be aware of– But this wool is as soft as silk. Oh—if you could be persuaded to come down to it.
How is Mr Stratten? My affectionate regards to him & Mrs Stratten– I have no room for Robert this time—no indeed– Write & speak of yourself & your health always dearest. Our tender love—Peni’s, Robert’s & mine.
Your Ba
How is dear Minny? My love to her. May God bless my own Arabel–
Address: Angleterre– / Miss Moulton Barrett / 7. Delamere Terrace / Harrow Road / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 432–437.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Pietro Gai, coachman and coach owner, as identified in a notebook containing signed endorsements and testimonials from customers. An entry by RB, signed in full and dated Rome, 4 December 1859, reads as follows: “I have been entirely satisfied with Pietro Gai who brought my family from Florence to Rome by the Perugia road. I shall be always glad to employ him for the future” (ms at ABL).
3. “Very attached.”
4. Veratrum viride (also known as green false hellebore, among other common names) is a member of the lily family and, like many homœopathic plants, extremely poisonous. It “spends the most of its action upon the pneumogastric nerves and the spinal filaments of the vaso-motor nervous system” (W.H. Burt, “Veratrum Viride,” The Monthly Homœopathic Review, 1 July 1872, p. 407).
6. Elizabeth Greene Doane (née Callahan, formerly Perkins, 1789–1859) died on 10 November. She and her son’s family had been terrorized by Papal troops at Perugia six months earlier (see letter 4435, note 2).
7. For several years, EBB’s uncle James Graham-Clarke (1791–1859) had experienced declining health (see letter 3051, note 5). He died at Tours on 11 December.
8. Obliterated by EBB.
9. “Napoleon III in Italy,” the first of eight poems in Poems Before Congress (1860).
10. EBB refers to the Volunteer Rifle Corps (see letter 4417, note 18).
11. Thomas Slingsby Duncombe (1796–1861), liberal M.P. for Finsbury and supporter of the Italian cause. In 1844 he had petitioned Parliament on behalf of Mazzini and others whose mail was being intercepted on orders from the home secretary, Sir James Graham.
12. On 18 April 1859—eight days before the start of the second war of Italian independence—Duncombe declared in the House of Commons that “the state of Italy was a disgrace to Europe, and the peace of that country could not be secured until Austria was got rid of, and Italy made free and united” (The Morning Chronicle, 19 April 1859, p. 4).
13. Galignani’s Messenger of 1 December 1859 (p. 1) carried a letter written by Duncombe in “answer to an invitation” to help form a volunteer rifle corps at Clerkenwell. He explained his reasons for declining: “I hope that the requisitionists will not for a moment attribute any want of patriotism or loyalty to those who like myself decline the honour of enlistment, either on account of their having no confidence in amateur rifle corps as effectual national defence, or else believe that at the present juncture the call for their formation is impolitic, and more likely to create than to avert the very dangers they are intended to remove.”
14. A report filed by The Times correspondent in Tuscany (probably Antonio Gallenga), appearing in the issue of 24 November 1859, began: “The retirement or dismissal of Garibaldi has created here a sensation far easier to understand than to describe. I had already, more than a fortnight since, written to you that this Government were alarmed at the boldness of speech, and still more at the resolute behaviour, of the man they had trusted with the management of the Tuscan Division, and repented ever having conferred the supreme command upon him. The consequence was a summons of Garibaldi to Turin and his four hours’ interview with the King, at whose entreaty the bold guerilla leader seems to have abandoned his projected inroad into the Marches and the Abruzzi” (p. 10). The “dismissal” was in fact a resignation. In November 1859, Garibaldi was preparing to lead 75,000 troops in an invasion of the Papal States. Italian politicians, concerned that this would provoke Napoleon III, convinced Victor Emmanuel to intervene. The king persuaded Garibaldi to halt, and soon after their meeting, he gave up his command.
15. In November 1859, the five European powers and several other countries, including the Vatican, had agreed to Napoleon III’s proposal to meet in order to settle the affairs of Italy. According to Odo Russell, in a dispatch of 5 December, the meeting was scheduled for 5 January 1860 (see The Roman Question, ed. Noel Blakiston, 1962, p. 64). Originally planned to be held in Brussels, the venue was moved to Paris. Complications arose, however, after the publication of Le Pape et le Congrès on 22 December (see letter 4567, note 14), which infuriated both Austria and the Vatican to the point where they refused to attend. Consequently, the congress was indefinitely postponed (see Edgar Holt, The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, pp. 222–223).
17. Harriet Beecher Stowe, travelling from Switzerland with her twin daughters, arrived at Florence in early November (see Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, ed. Charles Edward Stowe, Boston, 1889, p. 348).
18. Abbé Maurice Venturini (b. 1826). EBB describes him in a letter to Mrs. Ogilvy: “Our abbé is a Corsican, & speaks French & Italian with equal purity from his two national relations—not knowing a word of English, of course” (15 June [1860], ms at Eton).
20. Les veillées du chateau; ou cours de morale à l’usage des enfants (1784) by Stéphanie Félicitié, Comtesse de Genlis (1746–1830).
21. Francesco Berni (1497–1536), Italian poet, whose fame rests on his revision (published posthumously in 1541) of Orlando Innamorato (1495). A copy of Matteo Maria Bojardo’s Orlando Innamorato, rifatto da F. Berni (Parigi, 1768), inscribed “Robert & Elizabeth B. Barrett Browning” in vols. 1 and 2, and “Elizabeth B. Browning” in vol. 3, sold as lot 408 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A272).
22. Lodovico Ariosto (1474–1533), Italian poet whose Orlando Furioso (1516) formed a sequel to Orlando Innamorato.
23. Theodore Parker (1810–60), an American Unitarian minister from Boston, ordained in 1837. In a letter to Mr. Lyman, dated 10 December 1859, Parker noted: “The Brownings came a few days ago, and I have seen them both. I like her much! He, too, seems a good fellow, full of life; intense Italians are they both” (John Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 1863, II, 390). Parker died in Florence on 10 May 1860 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, not far from where EBB would be buried a little more than a year later.
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