4571. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 133–137.
28 Via Tritone
Jan 12. [1860] [1]
My ever beloved Arabel, I have delayed writing more days than I meant to do,—for your letter made me very sad for you & fearful that you have spent a most sorrowful christmas– [2] Oh—I do wish you had been here instead. There’s no kind of danger here. In fact, although I heard of General de Goyon (the French military head) saying the other day to someone who enquired whether his wife would return soon from Paris, “Je ne sais. [3] We are standing at Rome just now on a volcano,” .. a profound quietude, very different from last year’s, is the drawback here for those who desire distractions. Society is still, except the diplomatical, which of course is at Rome upon duty. Robert dined last week at Mr Cartwright’s & met three ambassadors, the Neapolitan, the Portuguese, & our English Russell, [4] (il clandestino, as the Italians call him, because we dont avow a minister at the papal court) a brother in law of the Princesse Mathilde, & Pantaleone who is one of the first of the liberals of these States– Of course we know a great deal, & as it is in the highest degree satisfactory I devour it all–
But now you, my darling Arabel– How you have been tried & saddened this year. I want you to write directly & tell me of yourself, dear, dear. Tell me too of others– Poor Bummy .. how is she? Tell her that my heart has gone out to her in truest sympathy. But she must feel the obvious consolations through this affliction– Aunt Jane too. She must have suffered deeply. As to poor, poor Charlotte .. I cant wonder at her that she should have rushed to you to lean her poor head on your shoulder. And yet I am so selfish for you, that I am sorry she did. Do write & tell me that you are pretty well after it all. For her, it is of God’s mercy that the sudden shock did not break up all her prospects. [5] May God who has saved them for her, bless them to her with every comforting sunshine.
One happy point in your letter is that my dearest George’s headaches are better. I had just built to the first story of a dungeon in the air about them. Now tell me how you are, dearest—& in order to that, write soon. Meanwhile I send you a photograph of Robert. [6] Odo Russell had given him his own & begged for a return; & Mr Cartwright also insisted. [7] We all think it excellent. What do you think? We mean to have Pen’s done presently, & Robert threatens to have mine—but to that go two wills. I really have had enough of portraits– I shall put it off till I grow young again. I am well. I had a letter from Dr Grisonowsky the other day,—not upon medecine I beg to say .. & he seems to warn me against spending another winter at Casa Guidi .. which sounds horrid. People appear inclined to push me nearer & nearer to the south pole– I shall be sent to winter at Calcutta in course of time—and it’s clearly on that account that I’m angry with England about Suez. [8] (No diplomate believes in anything but personal motives.)
Yes, let me tell you that Odo Russell, [(]who took a very different view when with us at Siena last autumn) is now convinced that the Emperor Napoleon has from first to last meant well & nobly by Italy. “Everything that comes out,” said he to me, “proves it. He has acted rather as an Italian than a Frenchman. And whatever has seemed otherwise has arisen from the necessity of keeping on good terms with the kings & queens of Europe”– —Russell’s own words—& he said them before the famous pamphlet’s time, ‘Le pape et le Congrès’– [9] The effect of that pamphlet (.. so admirable.. with the emperor’s own mark on it ..) on the papal government, you can scarcely imagine—the pope’s rage is described as quite a painful & degrading thing to see. He wrote with his proper hand the violent article in the Roman Journal: [10] & when he received the French on new year’s day, his observations, on the emperor, (much stronger than what was printed) set everybody wondering, & various of the French officers most indignant, that Goyon did not retort on the spot. [11] Among other things the pope said that he had twenty letters from Napoleon in contradiction to the pamphlet. Which is not true. Odo Russell has seen these letters .. (for our English representative has been on excellent terms with the Vatican) & bears witness that there’s nothing compromising throughout them. It is not very likely that the emperor should compromise himself with foolish love-letters to the Pope, knowing as he did from the beginning & as we all knew last spring that he meant to do what he will & must do. Of course, great respect was professed to the head of the church: there were professions of love, but no promise of marriage. Why the very means of arming Romagna came out of the emperor’s private pocket: that is a fact. [12] But perhaps you are not yet converted to my point of view– The Times may be still too strong for you. Never talk of the English people being moral while they bear with the Times. The paper has one object; to produce a war between France & England: and, for me, I suspect Orleanist gold. I have a little thin slice of a book (call it a wafer) coming out directly I hope:—called, ‘Poems before Congress.’ You wont like it & everybody else in England wont like me because of it. They are political poems—lyrical—my ode to Napoleon among them [13] —a part of which I read to Pen the other evening. He melted into tears about Italy & dropped his head on the sofa– You cant think how I was flattered.
He gets on beautifully with his Abbé. No, I am not in the room. How can I be when the lessons take place at Mr Story’s? Edith is the fellow-pupil. Pen was rather offended at the idea of your considering my presence necessary, & begged me to tell you that he “could take care of himself, and knew what the truth was.” Robert properly corrected,—that “he ought to say God would take care of him”– But, in fact, Arabel—the Abbé is innocent of any desire to make it a Mortara case– [14] Pen has learnt the whole multiplication table in French, sums in addition, & is now in subtraction. He likes arithmetic, he says, & complains of not having the sums made hard enough– Then in Latin, he gets on with the grammar, & translates out of an epitome of Sacred history into Italian. The lessons are rather long, but he comes home laden with praises—& the other day with a piece of cut paper (as a mark of diligence) which he considered beautifully– That’s well: but I have been frightened about Peni lately. The poney, which was a sheep, has turned to a tiger, kicking, plunging, bucking– Pen has been thrown three times—the third time, when Robert was riding with him, the poney throwing himself on the ground with rage .. Peni thrown under his feet, with the bridle twice round his body– Robert disengaged him out in time, & scarcely could believe that the child was perfectly unhurt. We had recourse to the English groom here, John, [15] huntsman & oracle for horses. He attributed the whole evil to a mare in the stable, & has taken the education of the poney into his own hands. There was something wrong in the bridle too, & there had been too much corn. John takes Pen out with a long rein till good habits are reinstated. On Robert in our first anxiety proposing to sell him, Penini with tears in his eyes observed that “he loved him like a brother.” Also ‘John’ declares there is no need—that it is only ‘accidental irritation’. So beautiful the little creature, that the Duc de Grammont [16] (French minister) stopped in the street, to admire him. “There wd be plenty of buyers,” said John.
I am glad you have heard from poor Emily– [17] Our love if you write. Pen’s music makes sensation wherever heard. My best love—tenderest love—& Robert’s he says. A short letter because of his photograph. Thackeray writes for poems for his periodical [18] —so also, the Editor of Once a Week in connection with which, Millais who is an illustrator writes to entreat a subject from Robert– [19] So also the Atlantic Monthly. [20] We are told to ask what we please. Tennyson asked a cool hundred—which was cool. [21] May God keep you beloved– You are all in my prayers–
Your own Ba
Love to Minny. How does Emma get on?
Address: Angleterre. / Miss Moulton Barrett / 7. Delamere Terrace / Harrow Road / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 442–446.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Owing to the deaths of their Uncle James (see letter 4535, note 7) and their brother’s mother-in-law (see letter 4558, note 12).
3. “I don’t know.”
5. Charlotte Moulton-Barrett was pregnant with her first child, Charles Graham Moulton-Barrett (1860–1925), who was born on 18 June.
6. Produced in early January 1860 by Fratelli D’Alessandri, whose studio, located at 65 Via del Babuino, was founded by Antonio D’Alessandri (1818–93), a Roman Catholic priest, and his brother Paolo Francesco D’Alessandri (1824–89). Father Antonio was appointed “the first official photographer, fotografico pontifico, to the pope and the Vatican court with world-wide distribution of Papal imagery,” which naturally guaranteed the firm’s financial success (Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, ed. John Hannavy, New York, 2008, I, 373). Murray’s A Handbook of Rome and Its Environs (1862), recommends Alessandri as one of “two artists at Rome who are very successful in their photographic portraits” and adds that “his small card likenesses are very beautiful” (p. xx). The present whereabouts of the photograph sent to Arabella is unknown. A copy of the photograph is reproduced facing p. 144.
7. The photograph given to William Cornwallis Cartwright is now at Northamptonshire.
10. In the Giornale di Roma for 30 December 1859; see letter 4567, note 15.
12. Unconfirmed.
14. Meaning that the Abbé Venturini will not try to convert Pen to Roman Catholicism (see letter 4305, note 6).
15. We have been unable to trace any further information about this man.
16. Sic, for Gramont; see letter 4390, note 5.
17. Emilie von Eisendecher; see letter 4245, note 6.
19. Bradbury and Evans launched Once a Week in July 1859 with Samuel Lucas (1818–68) as the first editor. Numerous artists had agreed to provide illustrations for the new journal, but “the only well-known painter … was John Millais, probably engaged to provide Once a Week with instant credibility” (G.H. Fleming, John Everett Millais: A Biography, 1998, p. 185). Neither Lucas’s letter nor Millais’s letter to RB has surfaced. For RB’s replies see letters 4577 and 4578.
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