4719. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 89–94.
Villa Alberti–
[Postmark: 12 August 1860]
My ever beloved Arabel, The sight of your letter set me all in a tremble– Thank God, thank God .. there is nothing worse, if not much improvement. Also I am relieved about my dearest Storm. [1] Tell him with my dear love how I am comforted in the thought of his being safe in England. Of course I was’nt so improvident a beast as to say so to you, but I was very anxious about him in that old tub of a David Lyon with such winds as at least we in the south have had lately. It has been a most exceptional summer for Italy—like an English summer, when you are not over hot—& our weather here is general—felt even in Florence & Rome. Still, this sort of coolness is not the most healthy for this country where it is not natural & the natives have been looking out for earthquakes,—& suffering from the electricity in the air.—— The details you give me of our precious Henrietta do not make me less hopeful for her. On the contrary. From what I can understand, the malady is a very common one, & commonly ends well, except of course the extremest cases. You dont mention Cod’s liver oil. I teaze & teaze—but wont you consult the medical man upon it? Then the magnetic passes …! If they relieved the pain, Arabel! Such a thing, everything, is worth a trial surely– Surtees might himself attempt the mesmeric process,—or better still, employ someone with a decided power. Her dislike to taking opiates is reasonable, to a certain point, .. because the general tendency of such things is certainly to discourage the appetite which it must be important to keep up—but persuade my dear dear Henrietta of this, .. that anything is better for her than to suffer pain. Pain wears the vital forces much more than opiates in their extreme use, can do—therefore it is not fortitude but foolishness to persist in bearing pain when you can avoid it any how .. that is, by any means placed in your hands by God .. as all means are. How often in the day does she take animal food? The least mite of beefsteak at breakfast is said to be very telling on the strength—& I am sure she ought to take as much meat & as often as possible. The effect on the blood is purifying, all the modern physician-chemists say—the old fashioned notions about vegetables being perfectly exploded. I quite understand the unwillingness to go out—but she will, I know, she will do it for her Surtees & the children, & for Arabel—— .. & even the least, least, for me, who can do nothing for her but love her & pray for her—dear dear thing!——
It strikes me in my letters often that I am made stupid by selfishness, & that in writing to you of what you see & know better than I, I do harm rather than good, instead of getting up my “news,” & beating up my gossip, & resolving to be lively & amusing to help you a little– But it’s so hard– Well—every lesson worth learning is hard– I, for instance, was born impatient of anything I did’nt like—and it seems to me that my commonest lesson is patience, patience, patience—seldom turning the page– At last, one’s convicted of being a dunce– And what then? <Wear patiently the dunce’s cap!—> [2]
Let me tell you of Garibaldi, then. There was a Madame de Swartz [3] last summer (whom I know) who after devoting her offices & means to the Italian cause in various ways, accepted a mission from him to carry letters at a great personal risk to Naples & Sicily– She was suspected by the police & had to eat her letters, yes eat them & swallow them. I had felt a certain interest & esteem for a woman capable of running into danger for a cause—but I found out afterwards that Garibaldi had made considerable love to her, & that she considered herself in some sort his affianced—(having heaps of devoted letters from him!)—& then of course she became in my eyes simply (what any woman of us all is you know) faithful to a man. Still, there was a certain obstacle in her own mind to her marriage. Garibaldi had relations with another woman, & a child .. illegitimate, of course. [4] There was a pause therefore– She received his instructions at Bologna last summer about Sicily & Naples. While at Bologna .. (where she visited his daughter,) .. among the offerings to the General, arrived a most splendid banner. He showed it to Mdme de Swartz with an illuminated countenance, exclaiming .. “That was sent to me by the most beautiful girl in Italy”; & he named her—a Lombard girl, of rank. Well—the banner was not all her gift– Poor simple Garibaldi was taken in a net like a lion, by her & her family, and he married her last winter .. like an ass. Immediately after the ceremony he discovered, & the wretched girl confessed it on her knees they say, that what she was in instant need of was simply … a husband, .. & a name for an unborn baby– He challenged his father in law & left his wife on the spot. [5] As soon as everything was irremediable, “everybody always knew” that she was a woman of the most infamous character– People keep such secrets as long as they can do any good by speaking—& no longer. The unhappy man went away into the wilderness & would see nobody—& the idea was throughout Italy that this & the Nice affair [6] which he could not & would not try to understand, were too much for him, .. & that his intention was to break his sword in the presence of the King & go to America– The man was nobler however than he himself at first thought– After some passionate grief he resolved to use his wounded life instead of losing it, & to draw his sword instead of breaking it—and off he went to Sicily to finish the great work in Italy. This is not gossip. These are the facts. He was not perfectly blameless you see .. no, not to two women, .. & the root of it all was that he is a man easily influenced .. partly through vanity & partly from other infirmities– The head has not the steel in it which the hand has. I am seriously uneasy sometimes when I hear of his being surrounded & acted on by a certain party– Still, for the present the evil seems abated– His chivalrous attachment to the King will keep him essentially free from one kind of intrigue—but the Mazzinians wear masks: that is the worst—they wear masks & work underground.
What displeased me especially in Garibaldi was his bearing to Mdme de Swartz in this respect. He had given her a quantity of private papers regarding himself, in order that she might write his life. Very foolish—for she is not a woman of much ability—& why should people want their lives written? I have no sympathy with that sort of need. But last winter, having fallen in at Genoa with Alexandre Dumas, what does Garibaldi do but send off to poor Mdme de Swartz for “all the papers”—& this, when he knew she was beginning the work & had made an engagement with a bookseller for the first volume– He had changed his mind about who shd be his biographer, & would take Dumas rather–! [7] Observe—there had been no kind of quarrel between him & Mdme de Swartz. No, that was not right–
But we must all forgive our hero that he is a man also– He is a true hero, & Italy required an heroic Sword .. which he is. At the same time—I feel jealous for greater men, when I hear how the praises set in for Garibaldi– In the north too, we had our heroes .. (Garibaldi himself among them)—but without the great head & loyal heart of Cavour, a hundred such heroes would have done nothing for this country. If you could have looked in the face of Massimo d’Azeglio & heard him speak, as I did, [8] you would have known what I mean when I hate & loathe the statesmanship of England– Tell Surtees that I never will forgive Lord Palmerston for his speech on the Defences– [9] Only perhaps that very speech which revolts me, may have reconciled Surtees to Lord Palmerston.
Now I shall have a Storm on my side, I hope. Tell him this country is perfectly willing to give to the pope the things which are the pope’s [10] —there is no lack of loyalty to the spiritual. And the Abbé tells me that the feeling is general in all the lower clergy, that the pope should give up the temporal & that the church would be the stronger for it– He says it is extraordinary what unanimity there is among them on this head: while the aristocracy of the church, the bishops & cardinals, take the other side. The beginning of the end however is coming at Rome– Only a brigade (of the French) instead of a Division, remains,—& their orders are to protect the pope & Rome, but otherwise to “laisser faire”. General Goyon has gone & not to return. [11] This is not newspaper news, but true news. People say horrible things of the poor Irish— For my part I have rather a sympathy for them. They came,—not understanding the real question, & with a sort of crusading piety. [12] How different from that wretched Lamoriciere, who scarcely believes in God, & does what he does, solely to oppose the Emperor. The insults Napoleon has bourne quietly in that Rome, give extraordinary proof of his magnamity & large-hearted patience.——
Austria & Prussia (the slippery power!) have rolled a stone into our road [13] —but we shall overcome it yet– Oh—to avert war!
Yes—public affairs are still at my heart you see—with all this yearning about our Henrietta. God bless her, God keep her, God love her– God love us all–
Wilson’s Orestes is to be brought to her by Mrs Ogilvy’s Italian nurse [14] —by sea–
Mr Landor keeps tolerably quiet—but his fixed idea is that poor Wilson is an “outrageous liar” & is “corrupting” the “virtuous” Florentine maid of all work. Never was an unjuster charge. Wilson is perfectly truthful as far as my experience of her goes– His proof is that she denied throwing the dish at his head, when she did throw it across the table! Now he never charged her before with throwing it—only with meaning to throw it– There’s no use opposing him—and we keep these things from Wilson as far as possible. One of these days there will be an explosion however—there must be– I expect him to charge Robert with administering slow poison to him in order to please his wicked wife EBB, .. before we have done–
If Lamoriciere joins forces with the Neapolitan, Piedmont “departs from her reserve.” That means—assists Garibaldi– And the sooner the better.
These things are for Storm, mind, as for you– Dear dearest Storm– Tell him how I love him. Tender love to my Henrietta– Let me know any sign of comfort– In all cases, write.
When do Altham’s holidays end– Kiss the darlings for me—& my love to Surtees. Tell me of George—who is so near my thoughts– Love to the Hedleys—& dear Bummy. Take care of yourself, Arabel– And—bellissima [15] —my own– As I am your
Ba–
Address: Miss Moulton Barrett / Stoke Court / near Taunton / Somersetshire.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 479–484.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
2. Passage in angle brackets was added as an afterthought.
3. Marie Esperance von Schwartz (née von Brandt, 1818–99); see letter 4514, note 5.
6. i.e., the annexation of Nice by France, which Garibaldi opposed (see letter 4654, note 3).
7. Mémoires de Garibaldi, trans. Alexandre Dumas, was serialized in Le Siècle before being issued in two volumes later in 1860. Dumas had first met Garibaldi in January 1860 with the intention of writing his life. He later joined The Thousand in Palermo and accompanied them on the campaigns through Sicily and ultimately to Naples, where Garibaldi appointed him “director of excavations and museums” (Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, p. 245).
8. Massimo Taparelli d’Azeglio (1798–1866) paid a visit to the Brownings in March 1859. EBB reports his conversation in letter 4370.
9. Speaking in the House of Commons on 23 July 1860, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston presented a case for making substantial improvements in the fortifications of the country’s naval dockyards at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Devonport, etc. In justifying the expenditures, he said: “Now, as to the necessity of these works, I think it is impossible for any man to cast his eyes over Europe and to see what is passing there without being convinced that the future is not free from danger. … The House, of course, knows that in the main I am speaking of our immediate neighbour across the Channel, and there is no disguising it” (The Times, 24 July 1860, p. 6). Palmerston went on to mention the recent commercial treaty between France and England but warned: “A great nation which has not hitherto been much addicted to commerce, whose mind, whose feelings, and whose glories have chiefly been in relation to warlike operations—such a nation cannot be expected on a sudden to be entirely free from its former habits” (p. 6). As an indication of those habits, Palmerston pointed to France’s “army of 600 and odd thousand men, of whom 400 and odd thousand are actually under arms, and the remainder are merely on furlough, and can be called into the ranks in a fortnight. That army is greater than France requires for the purpose of defence” (p. 6).
10. Cf. Mark 12:17: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
11. General de Goyon left Rome for Paris on 6 August 1860 (see The Times, 10 August 1860, p. 3). He returned to Rome on 17 September (see The Times, 20 September 1860, p. 10).
12. In anticipation of the Piedmontese invasion of Umbria and the Marches, foreign mercenaries had been recruited for the Pope’s army. They “were devout Catholics who had come from France, Austria, Belgium and Ireland to defend a Catholic idea: the Papal States. … The tone of the army, however, was set by the great number of French nobles of the old aristocracy who came to serve as officers. Most of them including the army’s commanding general, Christophe Lamoricière, were ‘legitimists’ in their French politics, men who wanted to dethrone Napoleon and to replace him with the Bourbon pretender” (George Martin, The Red Shirt and the Cross of Savoy, 1969, pp. 591 and 593).
13. EBB refers to the recent meeting between Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, and Wilhelm, Prince Regent of Prussia, that was held on 26 July at Teplitz (now Teplice), a spa town in northern Bohemia. The reasons for and the results of the meeting were little known at that time. EBB may have feared an alliance that would have at the least reinforced Austria’s hold on Venetia and at the worst led to an Austrian invasion of Italy. The Standard of 4 August 1860 reported there were no results but indicated the reason for the meeting: “All the accounts from Vienna and from Berlin agree that no special treaty was concluded between Austria and Prussia at the Conference … at Tœplitz. From the first moment of the interview between the two chief cabinet ministers Baron Schleinitz felt it his duty, in the name of the Regent, to declare … that Prussia could not make any engagement to guarantee to Austria the possession of territories which are not comprised in those of the German Confederation. Nevertheless … the obtaining of such a guarantee formed the principal motive which induced the Emperor Francis Joseph to demand of the Prince Regent an interview” (p. 5).
14. Gigia (see letter 3207, note 2). As EBB reports at the end of letter 4730, Wilson’s sisters kept the child in England.
15. “Very beautiful”; i.e., Henrietta.
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