4557. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 105–108.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 29 December 1859]
You will see on the other side that I have not been quite idle. It was daring to write again on Abelard and Heloïse, [1] who have occasioned the most exquisite piece of poetry that ever fell into couplets, and which alone was wanting to place Pope beyond Dryden. How immeasurably has the Epistle done it! [2] But the hand of Heloise herself guided his, and her words are reported by him. I hope the young Heloise and the young Abelard will escape the watchfulness of an uncle Fulbert, [3] or find one less vindictive. I wish Pope had thrown away his last lines, as much as I wish Gray had done the same with his superfluous and irrelevant Epistle [4] —to say nothing of the owl, who certainly was silent, and in no ivy tower at that time of evening, [5] but flapping along the hedgerows and looking with her broad round eyes for unwary mice. This is, however, the last poem of a language that will be spoken the last of any upon earth. If our rulers had cared about it as much as Cæsar did about the latin, India, America, and Australia would have been speaking it before the close of next century—not indeed universally, but as widely as french was in the last, and more widely than german in the present.
I doubt whether you recieved the letter I wrote to you a few days ago. It contained a short poem beginning “The grave is open”. [6] Miss Blagden called on me late in the evening last week. I returned the visit next day, but in the cold I dropt my card. She invited me to tea, it seems. But I can accept no invitations, and I must be more mad even than I am if I hazard the night air in this season. Kind Miss Field made me the present of a nosegay; I dare not use the word bouquet, which the French, who distort and abuse everything have formed out of boschetto. [7] We have bush from the same quarter, but do not carry it in the button-hole or hand. Nothing can exceed the kindness of Mr Eckley, who came to see me yesterday, and promises to make me another visit on newyears day. My friend Carbonel [8] has just returned from Garibaldi. Good Mrs Romagnoli told him I was at breakfast; most unluckily, so away he went, but promised to return. The Countess Baldelli [9] is determined to mount my stairs. No stronger proof of friendship could be given. She has levees every morning and conversazione at night, yet she will come. Do not omit to offer the compliments of the season, with every kind wish, to my good friends the Storys, and tell Edith I shall expect her next latin [sic, for letter] to be in latin; I could quote ladies who wrote it admirably, but I am no pedant. —What a blessing it is that Mrs Browning has weathered what I trust is the worst of the winter. I am confident it has not “chilled the genial current of her soul” [10] in poetry. Whatever I write you shall have—I care nothing for the Public, nor am I anxious to recieve my last work—but I do regret that it has been withholden from Napier. [11]
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 28 Via del Tritone / 2ndo Piano / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 15–16.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
Enclosure:
Abelard and Heloïse.
Abelard. Why are you looking so gravely and timidly at me? This is no question of theology: there is nothing in it to puzzle and perplex you. Come, come; speak it out. Do not turn away your head, or I may be almost tempted to bring it toward me, drawing it down by that si[l]ken braided tress which is casting from the right temple a shadow on the shoulder. Thanks, and thanks again, for preventing me from an act so audacious.
Heloise. Did not uncle Filbert [sic] say somewhat to you about me?
Abelard. Much lately; but nothing at any time which ought to make you hesitate and blush.
Heloise. May we not blush (if looking red (as perhaps I do) is blushing) when we are very glad.
Abelard. I have never seen you otherwise. Now question for question. What magic wand has been bringing out a fresh spring of joyousness?
Heloise. Uncle Filbert told me he hopes to persuade you …
Abelard. We never argue. He doubts his strength in argument: he is a good uncle and a good friend, a less perfect logician.
Heloise. Alas! I sadly fear you will never be able to teach me more logic than uncle Fulbert could, who never tried.
Abelard. Nor will I. We have other and pleasanter studies.
Heloise. Certainly there is nothing of the kind in those two delightful volumes which you permitted me to carry up into my bedroom, and which I often read in bed, Ovid’s Metam[or]phoses and the Epistols of Heroides. I wonder how any man could have found entrance into the hearts of so many women. As for the men, I have heard frequently how false they are.
Abelard. Heloise! Heloise! there are hearts containing more of true love than Ovid could invent or comprehend.
Heloise. Our poets, of Provence and elsewhere, can only play tricks upon their instrument. There is ingenuity in several, but nothing more. Cupid is a child in Ovid, but he also is a God.
Abelard. The french language is fit only for songs.
Heloise. You must write some, and sing them to me.
Abelard. Easier to write than to sing …
Heloise. Yet what a sweet voice is yours.
Abelard. I would have said, than sang to you.
Heloise. Indeed I could not answer it tolerably. My music-master—tells me that I sing worse and worse every day; that I am losing my voice, or changing it, and am utterly incapable of a sostenuto.
Abelard. I too feel somewhat like it.
Heloise. False Abelard! I see you refuse me. Uncle Fulbert has a strong deep voice: he would accompany me willingly.
Abelard. Who would not accompany you, all day, all night, for ever?
Heloise. A little at a time, then to it again, but not late. So, you can smile, can you! Ah! the smile fades away. I did not mean to say that you would ever tire me. Well, I am sorry we must only read: singing is out of the question. You can persuade but can not be persuadest.
Abelard. We may converse, which is better than singing.
Heloise. Far better; for the sounds are not suddenly lost in the air, to make room for a succession of different ones. Often, in the pause of yours, I doubt whether it is you or I who have been speaking. O what a sounding-board is the heart!
Abelard. I wish my doubts could be solved as easily.
Heloise. What are they? let me help in the solution.
Abelard. They are these. How could ever a man addicted to study love so ardently, and so incessantly?
Heloise. You look serious and sad; surely you can not mean yourself! Fie upon you! As for that creature, be her beauty, her birth, her station what it may, how dared she aspire to touch or approach the loftiest, grandest, of God’s works? My breath fails me; else I could say .. no, I could not .. and you would not mind me .. I have heard before now that your sex is given to speak maliciously and falsely of ours. No such thing. Here is a proof of it; a proof how just is the very worst you can say.
Abelard. Do not cry, my Angel!
Heloise. Even Angels may cry over wickedness.
Abelard. Not every Angel.
Heloise. O gracious Virgin! do thou, O mother of purity and mercy, who seest from thy throne in heaven what is hidden in the darkest depths of the heart, purify mine, and comfort it at last!
Abelard. She too has loved, for she was woman.
Heloise. Why can not I think of her alone? Why must my thoughts fall back on that wicked creature? She is unworthy of mine and of yours.
Abelard. Darling of my soul! dont punish the guiltless by those cruel sobs.
Heloise. Guiltless! and dare you kiss me now? you never did before.
Abelard. Never shall my lips touch another’s.
Heloise. O Abelard! if uncle Fulbert should suspect this! what would he not do? He never yet was angry with me; with me never; he might (but he alone could) with you.
Abelard. Sigh we both may, but neither of us ought to tremble. How this heart beats against my hand, declaring it is mine!
Heloise. Take it off, else I must; it only makes it beat the faster.
Abelard. Cease then to fear.
Heloise. I fear no anger for myself. Myself did I say? Have girls any self who love?
1. See enclosure.
2. Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard” (1717).
3. Heloise’s uncle, Canon of Notre Dame Cathedral.
4. Sic, for Epitaph, which comprises the last twelve lines of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751).
5. See “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” lines 9–10.
7. Italian for “grove.” The French word is “bosquet.”
8. Capt. George Henry Carbonel (d. 1862, aged 42), a resident of Florence. He translated Memoirs and Adventures of Felice Orsini, Written by Himself (Edinburgh, 1857).
9. Henrietta Gertrude Baldelli (née Walker, formerly McDouall, 1814–1903), eldest daughter of Charles Montagu Walker (d. 1833) and his wife, Anna Maria Riddell (d. 1859). Her first husband, John Andrew McDouall (1805–39), died at Naples after being thrown from his horse. She married secondly Count Antonio Baldelli Boni (d. 1884) in 1849. Among her brothers and sisters were Mrs. Fleetwood Wilson (see letter 3427, note 5) and Arthur de Noé Walker (see vol. 26, p. 396n). Upon Landor’s death she adopted his dog, Giallo.
10. Cf. “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” line 52.
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