4683. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 33–36.
Florence–
June 14– [1860] [1]
My ever dearest Arabel, This is simply to introduce Penini & me. [2] For me I dont please myself, being vain after the manner of women, [3] & not being pleased to look either black or old– But it’s made up to me in Penini, even in the vanity. He’s very lovely—is’nt he?– Also there’s another photograph in which I look hidious [sic], & which certainly would have been destroyed if Pen in it had not put on his countenance celestial [4] —so that I saved it in spite of Robert—but I am not sure that I shall send you this one. The photograph process is really fatal to women. One looks, not merely ugly (which some of us do in the looking-glass) but hard & cross, which is by no means necessary– In spite of which, I should like to have your beloved face– You half inclined it our way on Peni’s birthday—& now, there’s no hope for us, I suppose.
Dearest Arabel, both you & Henrietta are undergoing anxieties just now—and, for my own part, I should prefer Henrietta’s. Write & tell me all about yourself & your visitors– Give my love to Lizzie & a kiss to the baby– [5] Is it a pet? does she spoil it?– I grieve to hear that my dear Alfred is not well– Speak of him, I beseech you.
Chapman junior is here upon business. He tells me that your public praises me universally for ‘pluck’—(by which they perhaps mean impudence)—& that the poems B.C. are likely to pass into a second edition, while Aurora Leigh is passing through into a fifth—is in the press, that is. He will have it that I shall not be in the least hurt by the unpopular tendency of my last book. Buy & read the pamphlet called “A word for truth,” by a seaman– [6] He is a man high in his profession, & was celebrated for some gallant act at the Crimea, (about carrying despatches through the enemy’s ships)– [7] Also his status in society is high—he receives the Duke of Cambridge [8] to dinner—that sort of thing– But the pamphlet takes my side precisely in regard to the French emperor, I understand, & Chapman says he has all the courage of his opinions– He is personally acquainted with Napoleon–
I have begged Chapman to let him have my poems—which C says will gratify him much—& all the more that he [is] “a great admirer” &c &c– There’s a man for you.
Read the “Poetess Abroad” in Chambers .. for April .. I think .. or May .. a review– They say in it that Napoleon is believed to be a reader of mine. [9] A Liverpool paper informs its public that these last poems were dictated by “the spirits,” which is mentioned with more freedom “because Mrs Browning particularly wishes it to be known.” —Upon which an American journal moralizes .. as to how, one forgets one’s Maker, falls into the hands of the devil, & so takes to writing poems in favor of the liberation of Italy .... & American slaves!! [10]
Talking of American reviews however, I do hope you received the one I sent you from Rome lately. [11] Answer this.
We dream, talk, eat & drink Garibaldi just now– The beginning of the End is at hand.
I am much better, & have got over the fatigue of the journey– People say I look well, and almost I think I do—and if I can keep out of scrapes this summer, I shall be my own man (such a Hercules of a man) anon. We had nine or ten people here yesterday evening—& a good deal of talk between spirits & politics– Chapman brought us news of the spiritual movement in London. Edwin Landseer (who has seen & believed) did all he could to persuade Dickens to go & see & judge– But no– Dickens is afraid of having to eat his words & admit his own fallibility. How I dispise that class of minds.
An article in the Morning Post alarmed me for peace– [12] But the last news calms me again. Fighting we must have in Italy—& Hungary ripens fast that way. [13] We are in great spirits here– I hope you all observed that the late official statement from Prussia .. from the minister Baron Schleinitz [14] .. justifies the Villafranca peace & Napoleon absolutely– The passing of the Mincio was to be the signal for the attack of Prussia, only prevented, says the minister, by the unexpected peace. I was therefore literally right in the poem on Villafranca– [15] Set that down, & dont despise too much what I say besides of these subjects– It is not out of partizanship or prejudice but from a pure love of truth & the people, that I speak at all.
We find Mr Landor well & in tolerable spirits– He is a man wonderfully uninteresting to me considering his great genius. Of gratitude or any consistent feeling or reasoning he is quite incapable– Not but that he recognizes everything from Robert– That’s true– But a straw would make him Robert’s enemy—as he is Mr Forster’s who has done more for him than any other person. Wilson seems to get on pretty well with him, so far– She is less nervous & stronger altogether—& Pylades is a stout little fellow & a great favorite with Pen–
Mind—this is’nt a letter—only an enfolder of the photographs. Mr Chapman takes them. Love to Minny– In tenderest love
your Ba
I send photographs to Henrietta. Let her have one of the poney– [16] Will you forward the letters to Storm & George? & the poney-photographs to George & Henrietta– If anyone else condescended to care to ask for others … some other time they shall be supplied.
Address, on cover sheet: Miss Moulton Barrett / 7. Delamere Terrace / Harrow Road / London.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 469–472.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the review of Poems Before Congress (see note 9 below).
2. i.e., their photographs; see letter 4680, note 5.
3. Cf. Genesis 18:11.
4. Variant A; see letter 4680, note 5.
5. Edward Alfred Moulton-Barrett, born 17 January 1859.
6. Frederick Augustus Maxse; see letter 4675, note 8.
7. “As naval aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan after the battle of the Alma (20 September 1854) he showed conspicuous gallantry in carrying dispatches, which caused his promotion to commander in December 1855. At the end of the war he was the youngest captain in the navy” (ODNB).
8. Prince George (1819–1904), 2nd Duke of Cambridge (see letter 3537, note 7).
9. A largely negative review of Poems Before Congress, entitled “The Poetess Abroad,” was published in Chambers’s Journal of 21 April 1860 (pp. 251–253). Dealing with EBB’s hero-worship of Napoleon III, the reviewer notes: “We have heard that the writings of this English admirer of his are not unread by him” (p. 252). For the full text of this review, see vol. 27, pp. 390–392.
10. The following appeared in The Saturday Evening Post of 5 May 1860 (p. 2):
Many of our readers probably have wondered with ourselves, at the recent erratic performances of the muse of this gifted poetess. The following paragraph, if true, contains a sad but (in one sense) satisfactory explanation of the writings in question:-
The London correspondent of The Liverpool Albion, says that “Mrs. Barrett Browning is a medium, and that her incomprehensible gibberish called ‘Poems Before Congress,’ is really what she believes to be the direct effusion of disembodied beings, especially communicated to her for the regeneration of Italy! This is a fact, and one about as painful as well could be; but there is no indelicacy in making it known, inasmuch as it is her particular wish it should be known.”
It would thus appear that so long as Mrs. Browning trusted to the strong and sound intellect that her Maker had given her, her judgments were worthy of her fame; but, having once admitted the idea that she was become a medium for the transmission of the opinions of heavenly spirits, she is at the mercy of her own wild imaginations, or, even, perhaps, at that of any fiend who chooses to “squat like a toad, close at her ear,
Assaying by his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he lists, phantasms and dreams.”
The item that ran in The Liverpool Weekly Albion of 2 April 1860 (p. 5) reads as follows: “As to rapping, heavy has been the blow and hard the knock dealt at the biologists by Mrs. Barrett Browning, now that it is known she is a medium, and that her incomprehensible gibberish called Poems Before Congress is really what she believes to be the direct effusion of disembodied beings specially communicated to her for the regeneration of Italy! This is a fact, and one about as painful as well could be; but there is no indelicacy in making it known, inasmuch as it is her particular wish it should be known.”
11. The New-York Times notice sent with letter 4663. For the full text of this review, see vol. 27, pp. 375–377.
12. EBB may be referring to a telegraphic item, dated Paris, 6 June, that ran in The Morning Post: “Both the Patrie and the Pays state that the last despatch from Sicily positively announces that the armistice had been indefinitely prolonged. This resolution has given rise to the supposition that the Sicilian revolution has become a matter of diplomatic negotiations” (7 June 1860, p. 5). Although an armistice declared at Palermo on 30 May had been renewed, the Neapolitan commander surrendered to Garibaldi on 6 June, and within two weeks all of the Neapolitan forces had sailed back to Naples (see George Macaulay Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, 1921, pp. 304–315).
13. The continuing, and now mounting, discontent with Austrian rule in Hungary would be temporarily subdued a few months later by a federal constitution proclaimed by Emperor Franz Joseph and known as the October Diploma, which provided “some measure of local autonomy” (EB).
14. Alexander Gustav Adolf Graf von Schleinitz (1807–85) served as Prussia’s foreign minister from 1858 to 1861. We have been unable to trace an “official statement” made by him that corresponds to EBB’s report. However, earlier in the year the Prince Regent intimated the same thing in a speech at the Prussian parliament (see letter 4608, note 5).
15. i.e., “A Tale of Villafranca.”
16. The photograph of Wild’s painting of Pen. The one sent to Henrietta is inscribed by EBB: “For Henrietta– Painted at Siena, Septr. 1859.” Also sent to Henrietta were the photographs of EBB and Pen (Variant B; see letter 4680, note 5) and of Pen alone. All three photographs are now at ABL/Altham.
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