4616. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 209–213.
28 Tritone–
Tuesday. [6 March 1860] [1]
Dear dearest Isa, your French letters are worth heaps of “notes” from Rothschild to me. I read & read again. Who can have written those letters? [2] It must be, I feel, a deep secret. Such a strength of authority as well as proofs of insight & comprehension. Is it some one from the right hand of Prince Napoleon? I do thank you for writing them out,—& Dall’Ongaro, for letting them be written out for us. Try to give us any shred more from the same quarter.
“Why cannot the English & Italians have such large ideas,” do you ask. Because Isa, every public man in England keeps his mind in a box–– But I dont think it is the same with the Italians, except of those among them (of whom there are many) educated & clipped on the English constitutional pattern– Massimo d’Azeglio, for instance, has a remarkable largeness, & freedom from official bands of red tape. And in the public documents & journals of Italy, there is little cramped or small, it seems to me. Many think (you among them sometimes) that I have prejudices against England—but I speak simply after my experience in intellect & sentiment—& never has the shrewdest or most liberal of English politicians spoken before me, but my whole soul revolts, & the conviction rises up that the world is wider to me than to that speaker.
I was much pleased however yesterday with an Australian Englishman (it makes a difference) a Mr Wilson, [3] who has come to Europe to study the governments & social questions– He is up to new ideas, & not “insular” in the least– A plain bluff man, who says ‘Good Day’ in coming & going—but a man with an open brain, & great influence, we hear, in the place he belongs to. You should have heard him call political freedom in England, … a “great delusion”—& it would’nt have hurt Kate to have been by while he talked of America– He complained & wondered at the narrowness & ignorance he found in London, generally, & at the colonial office in particular, on colonial affairs–
I have seen Mrs Stowe only once, & she mentioned Mrs E[ckley]. very cursorily– She is coming however to talk to me, she told Robert—& then I shall hear, I suppose, of the visions,—when certainly I shall not refrain from expressing my doubts of the reliability of the seer– But it gives me deep pain to be forced to scrawl over a past so full of sincerely affectionate & trustful feelings on my part. If you see her & she speaks of me .. mention me as not at all strong, & giving whatever strength & attention I can give, to political subjects– Say, they absorb me—& I care for little else—& that wont be very untrue. I have not written to her. Long ago I promised her a copy of Aurora—& three copies having at last reached me, I must give her one [4] —shall send it by Hatty, I think, .. & perhaps write in it ‘after long promise’ to prevent misunderstanding. Here’s your copy—if you have’nt forgotten to care for it through this pause– [5] Hatty goes to Florence for a while, & returns– I shall hope on distractedly that she may bring you yet. Robert was at a party at Miss Cushman’s the other night– Very full rooms & pleasantly filled, but Hatty not there!! There had been a small emeute in the house, & Hatty had retired behind the barricades into her own bedroom. She never comes to see me—that is, she has come twice, which is nearly never. I fear she is not very strong & that her work this winter gives sign of it– Mr Story is enchanted with the news he has, that his ‘Cleopatra’ is introduced & made much of in Hawthorne’s new novel. [6] Also the new English consul here, Mr Newton, [7] a man of much accomplishment, has been lavish in his praise of the statue– I was very much struck with it,—& though my opinion is not of worth on such subjects, I am glad to have it supported– The Storys are to give Sunday breakfast parties “throughout Lent–” [8] The ecclesiastical division of time makes a funny complication. But last sunday it was very pleasant, Robert says– Mrs Stowe talked a good deal & interested everybody. No—Robert is not absorbed by the Storys. I think not. Edith is very nice– Has Mrs Eckley her proofs yet? [9]
What I would give if some sudden whirlwind would sweep that family out of Italy, back to America!–
As to Miss Cushman, you did not like her message,—but if there was anything unpleasant in it, I believe it was simply that she has felt unpleasantly through her great disappointment at failing to get & hold you. She was impatient, & wanted to bring you to a point,—sceptical of your intentions to her, & pained in proportion to her desire of having you here. Dont be vexed therefore about the message. She & Hatty have had an idea from the beginning that you meant to cheat them, put them off with a promise– I understand that sort of irritation. Of course, if you take Miss Cobbe, there’s nothing for it but for you & her to perish in one embrace, in the cold from the mountains—and then all the unroasted Beccaficos [10] may come & cover you with leaves. Forgive me, my Isa. I mean no disrespect to Villa Bricchieri—but of course whatever may be the quality of the temperature, a house unoccupied so long, will be found colder than usual. I wish you could squeeze in Miss Cobbe to Casa Guidi– You should have my benediction in such a case– Really I am uneasy about you Isa—to say nothing of selfish disappointment in respect to Rome–
I am not very strong, but better & stronger—& the cod’s liver oil is answering perfectly. Also the sun is magnificent & I have had the window open both today & yesterday.
Beseech Dall’Ongaro to let on us whatever light comes from that quarter. You see, my Isa, the Savoy affair refers to reconstituted Italy & recovered Venetia, & not merely to the annexed centre– It has been a very premature mooting of the question, & I much regret it– The enemy blasphemes because of it on all sides. The commercial treaty was a first rate move on Napoleon’s part. Think of Lord Derby writing to Cardinal Wiseman [11] (who by the way, is very ill here) that no Catholic coalition would enable the Conservative party to do anything against France, because of the popularity in England of this treaty– He actually did that; the other day– Otherwise, they had hoped by such means, to oust the Palmerston ministry–
The state of things here is .. difficult repression—just that. The people eat their hearts– [12] The government eat theirs– (And hard may be the digestion of that unclean pork!) [13] General Goyon walks up & down, observing to everybody ecclesiastical & respectable, that “the ideas of the Emperor are not his ideas,—” upon which some persons are heard to murmur, that “General Goyon is above the suspicion of having any ideas whatever”. The French troops rail at the General & sympathize with the people– Some of the soldiers say that their banners are “criblès de benedictions” [14] & that they want no more of such things.
Reports go to & fro– The last word from the English embassy yesterday was, that France had resolved on maintaining a central independent kingdom,—on giving up annexation. I am perfectly incredulous, of course. Mr Cartwright believed it implicitly however, as he does everything against France. If he could prove Napoleon to be the Devil, he would be happy for life, that man.
Buloz of the ‘Revue des deux mondes’ has applied to Milsand to attack the government on the Savoy question. Milsand refused,—being adverse to the Savoy annexation & a disapprover of the war .. indifferent in fact to Italy .. but having a sort of loyalty to the Emperor whom he holds in high esteem on certain accounts– This agrees with the “letters”. [15]
Mrs Stowe is full of the Italian question, & is about to write a series of letters on it for the American newspapers– [16] Yes, I decidedly like her–
Do you ever see the Saturday Review now– The Diceys [17] are kind enough to send it over to me regularly. It is hideous–
Isa darling, how is the novel? [18] Tell me that it is finished, & that you are contented.
Dall’Ongaro’s poem has great spirit & swing [19] —but it is not his best doing, to my mind. May I keep it? or shall I return it? Love to my Florentines– Robert’s true love to you–
your ever loving
Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 302–305.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Date provided by the copy of Aurora Leigh, sent with this letter (see note 5 below).
2. EBB’s remarks in later correspondence indicate that the writer of these letters was Charles Fauvety (1813–94), French journalist and philosopher. He was the author of a pamphlet entitled Du Principe de Nationalité: L’Italie (1859).
4. This presentation copy of Aurora Leigh (4th ed., 1859) has not been located.
5. Isa Blagden’s presentation copy of the fourth edition of Aurora Leigh bears the following inscription: “From EBB to her dearest Isa—with truest love—Rome—March 5—1860” (see Reconstruction, C13).
6. In the preface to The Marble Faun: or, the Romance of Monte Beni (Boston, 1860), Hawthorne admits that “having imagined a sculptor in this Romance, it was necessary to provide him with such works in marble as should be in keeping with the artistic ability which he was supposed to possess. With this view, the author laid felonious hands upon a certain bust of Milton, and a statue of a pearl-diver, which he found in the studio of Mr. Paul Akers … he committed a further robbery upon a magnificent statue of Cleopatra, the production of Mr. William W. Story, an artist whom his country and the world will not long fail to appreciate” (pp. ix–x). Several copies of Story’s Cleopatra are extant; the original is in the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (London).
7. Charles Thomas Newton (1816–94), British consul in Rome from June 1859 to January 1861, was an archaeologist who later became keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum (1861–85).
8. In 1860 Lent began on 29 February and ended on 8 April, Easter Day.
9. For The Oldest of the Old World (1860).
10. “Figpeckers,” a beige-colored warbler esteemed for its tasty meat.
11. Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman (1802–65) was made Archbishop of Westminster on 29 September 1850 and the next day was created a cardinal, as part of the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England.
12. Cf. The Iliad, VI, 200, trans. A.T. Murray.
13. Cf. Leviticus 11:7.
14. “Riddled with benedictions.”
15. i.e., the letters mentioned in the first paragraph (see note 2 above).
16. Harriet Beecher Stowe, writing from Italy, contributed more than twenty letters to The Independent (New York) between 1 December 1859 and 13 December 1860. Her first letter from Rome appeared in the issue of 5 April (p. 1) and remarked on the unusually quiet carnival season (see letter 4607, note 27).
17. The Diceys in Rome at this time included Anne Mary Dicey (née Stephen, 1796–1878), widow of Thomas Edward Dicey (1789–1858), and two of their sons, Francis William Dicey (1837–88) and Edward James Stephen Dicey (1832–1911), author and journalist.
18. Agnes Tremorne (1861).
19. Perhaps “Il Vento e il Diavolo,” a ballad of twenty-four 8-line stanzas, which sold as part of lot 255 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, L85).
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