4710. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 76–78.
Villa Alberti, Marciano, Siena–
Sardegna.
July 18. [1860] [1]
Beloved Arabel, I hasten to send my address to you. Siena is but a few hours more south than Florence—& we say Sardegna now on letters, instead of Toscana [2] —and I beg of you, my dearest, to write to me without pause or stint– Of course I must be very unhappy as long as she is only “a little better.” [3] Her sweetest note to me touched me to the heart– She takes all the pain & gloom so confidingly out of the Father’s hand. Only you must scold her very gently for her fancy about my being vexed with her for criticisms. She’s a naughty darling, tell her, &—I never was vexed with her in my whole life that I can remember now– Also, she was the gentlest of finders of fault– Here’s Mr Howitt who has this instant printed an article (with his name) in the “Spiritual Magazine,” to suggest that my book was probably inspired into me by “biologizing infernal spirits” [4] .. that I have been going on for some time (since ‘Casa Guidi Windows’) in this bad way. He wont blacken his pages by quoting me .. &c &c. Robert cries out for triumph at my Spiritualists turning on me .. and I should laugh, if I could: only the laugh is put out of me till I get good news from you. Tell Henrietta of this—that she may ask herself how I who have to hear such things can be crossed by a word from her–—& she never did say one that was not steeped in the tenderness of her heart for me.
Professor Matteucci & his wife are in a villa near, [5] & they send us heaps of Italian & French papers. We have been & are rather anxious about Sicily– Jessie & her gang are doing harm there, & Garibaldi is weak enough to allow himself to be influenced. There are divisions for the first time. [6] The supposed foolish & ignoble letter from Garibaldi about ships, & the E of the French, was written by Jessie herself in his name, [7] there’s no doubting– He cant write the English of it—if that were all. The Italians & Sicilians are sorely disappointed—but I always told you that the man was a hero & weak—& we want brains as well as arms for the work here.
The heat has been much moderated by a succession of thunder storms. Very different from the furnace of last year. Then we have always air in this villa. Altham is still at home for the holidays,—is he not? What a dear account you give of the children– I am glad you & Henrietta liked the photographs– [8] Wilson was going off to Florence from Mr Landor the day after our arrival here, because of some graciousness of his, but we made the peace– He is a sick-souled man—& that’s worse than sickness of body– What wd become of him if Robert let him go—? Yet its a great responsibility.
Your ever & ever attached
Ba—
Write for pity’s sake.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 475–476.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year based on the return address; 1860 was the only year the Brownings resided at Villa Alberti on 18 July.
2. Tuscany had been officially part of Piedmont (Kingdom of Sardinia) since March 1860; see letter 4622, note 3.
3. i.e., Henrietta; see letter 4702, note 2.
4. William Howitt’s notice of Poems Before Congress appeared in the second of a two-part review of Thomas Lake Harris’s poetry (see letter 4729, note 4) that was published in The Spiritual Magazine of July 1860 (pp. 289–302). With references to some of EBB’s earlier poems, Howitt wrote of her more recent efforts: “Though containing bold theorisms of reform, especially as regards woman, they yet belong entirely to the earth-plane, if they have not lately, according to Harris’s theory, been strongly biologized from below” (p. 293). For the full text of this review, see pp. 378–379.
5. Carlo Matteucci (1811–68), former professor of physics at the University of Pisa and author of Manuale di Telegrafia Elettrica (Pisa, 1850). In 1847, while residing at Pisa, the Brownings met him and his wife, Robinia Elizabeth (née Young, 1812?–97), an Englishwoman (see letter 2660, note 20). He was at the time of this letter a senator in the Piedmontese parliament, a position he retained when the first Italian parliament met in February 1861.
6. In letter 4714, as well as letter 4730, EBB attributes the “divisions” to Mazzinians, among whom Jessie White Mario and her husband were numbered, and it was about this time that “Napoleon III and Cavour were becoming increasingly alarmed at the Mazzinian and Radical elements in Garibaldi’s entourage in Sicily” (Jasper Ridley, Garibaldi, 1974, p. 483). EBB may be referring specifically to the affair involving Giuseppe La Farina, Cavour’s agent in Sicily, whose mission concerned the annexation of the island to Piedmont. Garibaldi, the Mazzinians, and many Sicilians opposed annexation at this time. On 9 July 1860, provoked by false statements La Farina had made in a Sicilian newspaper, Garibaldi had him “arrested and sent … back to Piedmont” (Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, p. 241).
7. A letter dated Palermo, 24 June 1860, to Thomas Parker, a commission agent in Liverpool, was published in the 10 July 1860 issue of The Morning Star. In this letter Garibaldi agrees to purchase two steamers; however he turns down an offer for several “built of iron, which is a decided objection to their being used for warlike purposes. What we want in this respect are the gunboats you have in England. If you could do something in that way—above all, if you could get some of them fully armed—I should not hesitate to give a good price for them. … Let England remember that she has no really sincere ally except among free people, and that there are but few of those on the Continent. An Italy free and united would supply this want, and be one of the greatest obstacles to the schemes of the Emperor of the French” (p. 4).
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