4559. EBB to Mary Hunter
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 112–115.
Rome. 28. Via del Tritone
Decr– 31– [1859] [1]
My dearest Mary, I am very glad to get your kind little note, & I thank you much for your consideration in sending that old youthful poem [2] which comes back like the painful dream it represents. Perhaps you had a second thought, in sending it, about the spirits? Yes, I think you had. But I thank you none the less for that, dearest Mary.
Now let me write down my creed that you may see it with your two eyes clearly– If these phenomena be caused by spirits, I agree with you at once that evil spirits and uninstructed spirits are communicators. Only, granting that a door is open to evil & uninstructed spirits, I hold that by the same door must necessarily come the good and instructed– I dont believe in your theology about troops of devils coming in by miracle– My theory is simply physical, & has to do with ordinary nature. I understand by a medium a peculiar physical adaptitude [3] —simply that. All your Kardec books [4] & the like prove nothing to me except that disembodied spirits are as subject to fallacy as the embodied are—which scarcely wants proving, I fancy, since the finite must receive truth only according to their amount of receptiveness, even if they love truth. I could as soon believe in the pope here as in an entirely infallible human spirit anywhere– An opinion which of course sweeps me far among the heretics.
Here is my acquaintance Theodore Parker. If he communicated with some distant world, it would certainly deduce from his communication that there was no Christian religion in this—just as you conclude from Kardec’s spirits that they speak from a place dark of the Divine Countenance– If Malle Lemoine, [5] on the other hand, spoke to the virgins in Luna, they might deduce unpleasantly against us earth-women as the “fastest” in all creation. Now I say .. pray deduce. Only be satisfied with the particular deduction, without leaping to general conclusions on a subject so partially known– My general conclusion I dont leap at– I only stop at, as an affair of reason. If a door is open, A may come through it as well as B, & C as well as either– The only question with me is, .. Is the door open? ‘Spiritisme’ I have seen some numbers of– [6] But, my dear Mary, if you are “interested” in this subject & snatch at all the books on it (which simply proves you an intelligent being, as I think) I dont understand why you upbraid me for doing the very same thing– I am only interested– I only seek opportunities of satisfaction. Wherein am I more guilty than Mary? Now mind you tell me what you may pick up in Paris on this subject—every straw–
The mixture of imposture, & worse, which is undeniable in it, occurs in other things .. in the Xstian religion itself for instance; and is fetid in the politics of nations.
Which brings me to your charge the second. No, Mary—I have not “adopted” a country. What is native to one seems to me too apt to warp the conscience of a man. I hope I have attained to loving truth & justice more than I love Plato, .. or Plato’s country .. or Shakespeare’s: [7] it is at least this that I aspire to doing. For the rest, England’s public morality as avowed, her foreign policy, & bearing from the beginning of the Italian question, are most repugnant to me– I hate the selfishness, egotism, arrogance, .. & also this ignoble panic which agrees perfectly with the qualities expressed. I hear one or two exceptional English hearts say, “This is ignoble”—but the exceptions are so rare, that I sometimes wonder to myself if the circumstance of my being (I & my brothers & sisters) the first of our generation for centuries born in England, may not account for my own liberty from the characteristic insular warping– This perhaps, together with the artist nature which is rather Gypsey & wandering, than little Pedlingtonian & constrained, [8] (for my brothers & sisters are English enough & to spare) may combine to account for what offends you– Yet if you know how Ruskin talks & writes,—& even how my husband every now & then breaks the bonds of the flesh & explodes against things “poor spirited & ungenerous,” (though he is a patriotic person in comparison to me) you would wonder the less at any bearing of mine. Both he & I passionately have sympathized with Italy. So I did in 48 with France [9] .. I mean in respect to the good & the evil of that storm. Women dont generally break their hearts on these exterior subjects– But I am otherwise made; & whatever small worth may be in me (among my innumerable weaknesses and defalcations) arises exactly from this earnestness & thoroughness of thought & feeling upon subjects which dont personally touch me– Therefore avoid wishing it away, unless you would wish me out of the world altogether, Mary dear.
When you get your millenium, Mary, do you imagine that all these paltry “little Pedlingtonisms” are to be continued—these national jealousies—Jew here, Greek there, & Jesus Christ nowhere?– [10] I think more largely of the destinies of the world. The torrid sun which burnt for centuries over the head of my ancestors, has left a ray in me somewhere, dispossessing me of that island atmosphere, by help of which I might be qualified to write my name by “Lady Mary Thompson’s” at the head of the “female Carbines” in aid of the English ‘National Defences’– [11]
I am very happy about Italy just now—comparatively very happy– The people have behaved nobly, the French emperor loyally– Things come out day by day, clearer & clearer. May God help us, & continue what is.
Society in Rome is much restricted this year, & chiefly diplomatical. My husband met yesterday at a dinner of seven, the Neapolitan, Portuguese & English ambassadors, (English in an occult form you know) a chef of the Roman liberals, & a brother in law of the Princess Mathilde– [12] We know a great deal—more than we can tell. But things are going beautifully, I thank God– Italian things political, that is.
Not a word have I said yet of my health, which so kindly—you enquire about. I am very well just now, & though after such an illness as I had in the summer, & the tendency it proved, one must feel more than usually mortal, perhaps that’s rather an advantage than a disadvantage– People say I look well—& really I think the same–
As to little Pen, he looks radiant– He shall write his poney’s name for you, & you are very kind to wish it. We have delivered him over to the teaching, (four times a week by two hours at a time), of an Italian priest, yes & a Jesuit–! Is it worse than believing in spirits & blaming England, I wonder?– Not much, indeed. The child gets nothing but good. He wanted a little change of hand, & as it was necessary for him to begin Latin & arithmetic, we used our opportunities. He is a good darling child, & now that he has learnt to do sums in addition, must be considered generally forward for his age– Only American & English boys dont find him instructed in the ways of the world– A little American, very clever (as keen as a sword,) came to see him the other day– Pen had to stop him for explanations at every sentence– “Jawing! what do you mean by jawing?” “Henpecked husband—what do you mean by a henpecked husband?” [“]Why, a man led by the nose by his wife–” “But what do you mean by being led by the nose”?
Poor little Pen—he is defective in English idioms. On the other hand, his friend the priest compliments his Italian conversation as having “tutta la delicatezza della lingua Toscana.” [13]
Dearest Mary, I am very glad you are in Paris again, since Paris pleases you. Are you, too, in danger of adopting a country, I wonder–?
I have had rather a sad letter from my dearest Arabel– We have lost an uncle—and Mrs McIntosh, who never had a day’s illness, was found dead in her bed—a frightful shock to poor Charlotte who is expecting her confinement next may– She rushed off for comfort to Arabel .. who thus has had a very gloomy Christmas as sympathizer & consoler. May God bless you & keep you & make you happy through this new year Mary– My husband’s regards to you—& Peni shall write his own love.
Your affectionate
Ba–
Publication: W.H. Griffin and H.C. Minchin, The Life of Robert Browning (London, 1910), pp. 215–216 and 218 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address; 1859 was the only year the Brownings resided at 28 Via del Tritone in December.
2. Prossibly “The Little Friend” (1838), a fair copy of which entitled “To Mary,” sold as part of lot 112 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, D477, now at ABL).
3. EBB may have coined this word in “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets” (The Athenæum, 26 February 1842, no. 748, p. 190). Cf. OED, which cites an example from “The Book of Poets” (The Athenæum, 11 June 1842, no. 763, p. 521) as the first printed occurrence of “adaptitude.”
4. Allan Kardec (1804–69), pseudonym of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, was the founder of Spiritism, the belief that immortal spirits inhabit human forms in a succession of reincarnations. His first work on the subject, Le Livre des esprits (1857) distinguishes between Spiritism and other forms of spiritualism.
5. Angélina Lemoine (b. 1843), a French girl living in Chinon, a village about 30 miles S.W. of Tours. She and her mother, Victoire Lemoine, had recently been tried for infanticide in the death of Angélina’s unborn child. The trial concluded on 11 December 1859, and the results were reported in The Daily News: “The jury acquitted Angelina Lemoine, but found her mother guilty, with extenuating circumstances. The sentence was twenty years’ hard labour” (13 December 1859, p. 5). During the course of the trial, Angélina’s moral behavior was called into question. Evidently, she had seduced the family coachman (see Mary S. Hartmann, Victorian Murderesses, Mineola, New York, 2014, pp. 51–64).
6. EBB probably has in mind Revue spirite: journal d’etudes psychologiques, a Paris monthly founded by Kardec in 1858.
7. Cf. EBB’s “Preface” to Poems Before Congress (1860), p. v.
9. EBB refers to the revolution of 1848 that overthrew Louis Philippe (see letter 2722).
10. Cf. Galatians 3:28.
12. As indicated in letters 4563 and 4571, the dinner was hosted by William Cornwallis Cartwright and included the following guests: Paul Demidoff (1839–85), whose father, Paul Demidoff (1798–1840), was brother-in-law of Princess Mathilde (1820–1904), daughter of Jerome Bonaparte and wife of Anatoly Nikolaevich, Comte Demidoff de San-Donato (1813–70); Diomede Pantaleoni; Arthur Russell; his brother Odo Russell (unofficial envoy to the Vatican); Giacomo de Martino (1811-79), Neapolitan minister at Rome; and João Carlos da Horta (b. 1810), Portuguese minister at Rome. The last two are identified by reference to Cartwright’s journal (10 and 12 January 1860, ms at Northamptonshire).
13. “All the fineness of the Tuscan language!”
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