4731. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 122–123.
[Siena]
Monday [September 1860] [1]
My dearest Isa I like very much in your story, [2] —a good deal in the imagery & the reflections; & I am interested to know the end. If there had been time, however, I should have implored you to preserve the probabilities by certain changes which could have so easily be[en] made,—I mean, with regard to the hours .. Surely it was not necessary either to love or philanthropy, to make a woman select such hours as from one to five in the morning, every night for walking alone in disreputable streets– No woman would do such a thing– And no man would be so happy in dogging her footsteps as your hero– [3] And if she did it, & he did it, he would have had (at least four or five times) to pick her out of the gutter from under the fists or embraces of les habitués .. supposing the place to be really disreputable– No, I dont think you have preserved the probabilities the least in the world,—& when I’ve made that objection, all the rest must be praise–
Dear, I ventured to put in a stop or two, or even alter a word, as you will see—& I should have ventured more, if I had had an inkstand by me, when I was forced to go to bed in the middle of the reading– I like the sketch of your madame– As to your morality, cela depend, [4] on the conclusion– I like much when she turns round on the hero & lifts up her veil. [5] You will see I have put my pen through the note on Paul Feval. [6] I suppose you mean the description owes something to him– But if you borrow it, borrow it,—& dont commit yourself to the reader, spoiling the illusion– It is’nt like a poem, you know–
If you can use us, dear, in dining, use us, remember– Let us know in time, & we will give you the ‘fortune of the pot,’ [7] & save you from the misfortune of dining at home at twelve oclock,—any day you like,—day or days—both of you, [8] of course you understand.
Yesterday I did not tell you (in my haste & confusion) <***>
Publication: B-IB, pp. 361–362.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dating suggested by EBB’s references to Agnes Tremorne, which Isa Blagden was preparing for publication, and by the stationery, which matches another letter written during this period.
2. Agnes Tremorne (2 vols., 1861); apparently Isa had let EBB see some of the manuscript.
3. Early in Agnes Tremorne when the hero, Godfrey Wentworth, offers to escort Agnes one evening, the maid responds that her mistress would decline the offer: “She is used to walk about alone, and sometimes late.” Nevertheless, the maid would like Wentworth to see Agnes “safe out of that low place” (I, 27). That night Wentworth follows “the lady’s rapid footsteps through the alternate light and shadow of the almost deserted streets of Rome” (I, 53). Isa took EBB’s advice concerning the “hours” Agnes walked: there are no references to her doing so “from one to five in the morning.”
4. “That depends.”
5. Cf. a passage in Agnes Tremorne: “He [Wentworth] drew aside to let her pass, bowed, and noticed, as she raised her veil on entering, that she looked as white as a ghost” (I, 55).
6. Paul Henri Corentin Féval (1816–87), French novelist and playwright. The note EBB mentions does not appear in Isa’s novel.
7. A literal translation from the French idiom, “manger à la fortune du pot.”
8. Possibly Elizabeth Temple Hooker (see letter 4536, note 19), who was in Siena at this time. Her husband, James Clinton Hooker, remained in Rome.
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