4603. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 179–182.
28– Via Tritone
Friday– [10 February 1860] [1]
My dearest Fanny, set me down as a wretch, but hear me– I have been ill again, in the first place,—then as weak as a rag in consequence, & then with business accumulated on impotent hands .. proofs to see to, & the like– You may have heard in the buzz of newspapers, of certain presentation Swords .. subscribed for by twenty thousand Romans, at a franc each, & presented in homage & gratitude to Napoleon III & Victor Emanuel– Castellani of course was the artist .. & the whole business had to be huddled up at the end, because of His Holiness denouncing all such givers of gifts as traitors to the See– So just as the swords had to be packed up & disappear, some one came with a shut carriage to take me for a sight of these most exquisite works of art– It was five o’clock in the evening & raining—but not cold, so that the whole world here agreed it could’nt hurt me. I went with Robert therefore—we were received at Castellani[’]s most flatteringly, as poets & lovers of Italy .. were asked for autographs & returned in a blaze of glory & satisfaction .. to collapse (as far as I’m concerned) in a near approach to mortality– You see I cant catch a simple cold– All my bad symptoms came back—suffocations, irregular heart-action,—cough tearing one to atoms. A gigantic blister however let me crawl out of bed at the end of a week—& the advantage of a Roman climate told, I dare say—for the attack was less violent & much less long than the one in the summer– Only I feel myself brittle, & become aware of increased susceptibility– Dr Grisonowsky warns me against Florence in the winter– I must be warm, they say. Well—never mind!– Now I am well again, & I dont know why I should have whined so to you. I am well, & living on asses milk by way of sustaining the mental calìbre—yes, & able to have tête à têtes with Theodore Parker, who believes nothing you know, & has been writing a little Xmas book for the young, just now, to prove how they should keep Christmas without a Christ, [2] —and a Mr Hazard, a spiritualist, who believes everything, .. walks & talks with spirits,—& impresses Robert with a sense of veracity .. which is more remarkable. I like the man much– He holds the subject on high grounds, takes the idea & lives on it above the earth. For years he has given himself to investigation, & has seen the Impossible. Curiously enough Robert met him & conversed with him, & came back to tell me what an intelligent & agreeable new American acquaintance he had made, without knowing that he was Hazard the spiritualist, rather famous in his department. He is a man of independent means– Through my illness I could not for some weeks receive or talk,—so that we have only just now met face to face—but I say, “Come, come,—let me hear you talk as often as you can–” By the way, we had some conversation about the Guldenstubbe whom he had not seen. But he told me that Mr Owen, the American minister at Naples, [3] who was a friend of his, had told him that he (Owen) went in company with your Baron to the crypts of St Denis [4] —that he (Owen) taking a note from his own pocket on that occasion, tore off the unwritten part, & laid it on a tomb with a pencil by its side .. & retiring a few paces off with the Baron—(he & the Baron together) while they kept the paper in view– The pencil did not stir,—but, after waiting a certain number of minutes, they found the paper covered with writing .. as if in pencil .. & his idea was that the lead of the pencil was used by the spirits, though the pencil was not used to write in the usual way– Mr Owen is about to print a book on the whole subject, & this detail will of course be in it. [5] So, you see, Guldenstubbe allows witnesses sometimes—as indeed his own work, (with various well known testimonial names in Paris) testifies– Dont fall out of heart, Fanny, with investigation– It takes patient investigation to establish the number of legs of a newly remarked fly– Nothing riles me so much as the dogmatism of people who pronounce on there being nothing to see, because in half a dozen experiments perhaps, they have seen nothing conclusive–
“Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.” [6]
Mediums cheat certainly– So do people who are not mediums– I congratulate you on liking anybody better. That’s pleasant for you at any rate– My changes are always the other way– I begin by seeing the beautiful in most people, & then comes the disillusion. [7] It is’nt caprice, or unsteadiness .. oh no!—it’s merely fate– My fate, I mean. Alas, my bubbles, my bubbles–
But I’m growing too original, & will break off. My Emperor, at least, has not deceived me—and I’m going into the fire for him with a little ‘brochure’ of political poems, which you shall take at Chapman’s with the last edition of Aurora when you go to England–
Thank you a hundred times from both Robert & me for the interesting relation of Cobden[’]s sayings on him– [8] If Cobden had not rushed beyond civilization, I should like to offer him my little book– I should like it. Self love is the great malady of England—& immortal would the Statesman be who could & would tear a wider horizon for the popular mind. As to the rifle-cry, I never doubted (for one) that it had its beginning with “interested persons.” Never was any cry more ignoble– A rescues B from being murdered by C, and E cries out, “What if A [9] should murder me!” That’s the logic of the subject– And the sentiment is worthy of the logic–
I expect to be torn to pieces by English critics for what I have ventured to write.
But dear Fanny, I dont venture to advise you about the disposition of your money. What you know of Scammon, does not carry you high or fix you deep, I think—and I should be wary if I were you, of railways in general, and of American securities without excellent testimony. A Scammon’s would not be sufficient for me– I am glad you are at work. And I am glad you went to the Tuileries & saw what was so much worth seeing. Have you marked how your friends the Spurlings, [10] have distinguished themselves in Florence? And since then, M. Tassinari has been arrested & gone to prison (through a plot of some fellow of the Guardia nobile, [11] in which he was implicated, being found out)– In prison he is, & not allowed to see his family—only on his promise to leave the country, he will be let out– A terrible condition!—for a man of his means & villa!—— You are better safe out of Italy, for we shall have more disturbances according to the expectation of all the well-informed. Write me one of your amusing letters, & take our love, especially
Your ever affecte
Ba’s.
There is no Roman news, people are so scarce. The Storys have given a ball—Italians chiefly– We think of little but politics–
Publication: LEBB, II, 354–357 (in part, as [winter 1859]).
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference in her postscript to the Storys’ ball, which took place on 7 February 1860, a Tuesday.
2. Parker did not live to complete the work.
3. Robert Dale Owen (1801–77), eldest son of Welsh social reformer and philanthropist Robert Owen (1771–1858). The younger Owen travelled to the United States with his father in 1825 and helped organize the experimental community of New Harmony, Indiana. Eventually becoming an American citizen, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana (1843–47) and was later appointed chargé d’affaires at Naples (1853–55), then minister (1855–58). It was while living in Italy that he developed an interest in spiritualism (ODNB).
4. Medieval Gothic abbey and basilica (cathedral since 1966), located in the Paris suburb of St. Denis. Completed in the thirteenth century, it is the burial place of the kings and queens of France.
5. Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (Philadelphia, 1860).
6. Tennyson, “A Character” (1830), lines 5–6.
7. Another allusion to her disenchantment with Sophia Eckley.
9. Underscored twice.
11. Described in Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy (1861) as follows: “The Pope’s Noble Guard … a mounted corps of 80 noblemen, is commanded by one of the Roman princes. It is their province to attend the Pope on all public occasions and ceremonies of the Church” (p. 235).
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