4729. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 113–117.
Villa Alberti– Siena. Sardegna
August 25 [1860] [1]
My dearest Fanny,—I received your letter with thanks upon thanks. It seemed long since I heard or wrote. I have been very sad, very—with a stone hung round my heart—and a black veil between me & all that I do, think, or look at– One of my sisters is very ill in England—my married sister—an internal tumour, accompanied with considerable suffering, and doubtful enough as to its issue to keep us all (I can answer at least for myself) in great misery. Robert says I exaggerate, and I think & know that consciously or unconsciously he wants to save me pain. She went to London—& the medical men called it an anxious case– [2] We all know what that must mean. For a little time I was in an anguish of fear—& though come to believe now that no great change anyway is to be expected quickly, you would pity what I feel when the letters are at hand. May God have mercy on us all– I wanted at first to get to England—but everyone here & there was against it—and I suppose it would have been a pure selfishness on my part to persist in going, seeing that the fatigue & the cold in England alone would have broken me up to a faggot—(though of not so much use as to burn—) so that I should have complicated other people’s difficulties, without much mending my own. Still it would have been comfort to me (however selfish) to have just held her hand– But no– Oh—I am resigned to its being wiser. I am shaken even at this distance. She has three children younger than my Peni,—— Dont let me talk of it any more.
You see, Fanny, my “destiny” has always been to be entirely useless to the people I should like to help, (except to my little Pen sometimes in pushing him through his lessons—& even so the help seems doubtful scholastically speaking to Robert) & to have only power at the end of my pen & for the help of people I dont care for. At moments lately, thanks from a stranger for this or that, have sounded ghastly to me who cant go to smooth a pillow for my own darling sister– Now I wont talk of it any more– After all I try to be patient and wait quietly—and there ought to be hope & faith meantime.
The pen-utilities themselves dont pass uncontested, as you observe– Yes, I see the Spiritual magazine, [3] & remarked how I was scourged in the house of my friends– Robert shouted in triumph at it, & hoped I was pleased—and as for myself, it really did make me smile a little .. which was an advantage, in the sad humour I was in at the time. “Biologized by infernal spirits’[’] since “Casa Guidi Windows”—yet ‘Casa Guidi Windows’ was not wholly vicious it seems to me, nor ‘Aurora’, utterly corrupt. And Mr Howitt is both a clever man & an honest & brave man, for all his sweeping opinions– Biologized & be-Harrised, [4] he is certainly– What an extraordinary admiration! I wonder at that more than at any of the external spiritual phenomena. —Dearest Fanny, you were very, very good & generous to take my part with the editor [5] —but laissez faire– These things do one no harm—and, for me, they dont even vex me. I had an anonymous letter from England the other day from somebody who recognized me, he said, in some prodigious way as a great Age-teacher, all but divine, I believe, and now gave me up on account of certain atrocities—first .. for the poem ‘Pan’ in the Cornhill, [6] (considered immoral!) and then for having had my “brain so turned by the private attentions[”] & “flatteries of the emperor Napoleon when I was in Paris, that I have devoted myself since to help him in the gratification of his selfish ambitions.”!______________ Conceive of this—written with an air of conviction—& on the best information!_________ Now, of the two imputations, I much prefer “the inspiration from hell”– There’s something grandiose about that, .. to say nothing of the superior honesty of the position.
What a “mountainous me” I am “piling up” in this letter, I who want rather to write of you. But first, of one you have repeatedly named to me, & who is like neither of us .. Sophie Eckley– My dearest Fanny, it is necessary for me to tell you, since you knew how great our intimacy was & how much affection I felt for her, not that we have quarrelled .. we have not .. but that painful experience has undone all my good conclusions concerning her, and that seeing her as she is, altogether unreliable, I have withdrawn as quietly as I could from a relation which could not be maintained on my part without hypocrisy. You know, what I valued her for, was precisely that singleness & purity of moral nature, in which I have discovered her deficiency: so I have paid a heavy price (not for the first time) for my want of discernment– (But if people did not deceive me, they would not be deceivers.) She is not malignant—she means harm to no one: her fault, I always saw was vanity—but I did not see that the vanity was monstrous enough to present a large foundation for an extraordinary falseness of character– She is utterly false—her life is one ‘manière de poser’. [7] This for you confidentially, of course. I would not willingly hurt her with any one. She & her husband went to England in the spring about the book, [8] & had gone to the Baths of Lucca when we returned from Rome; & I hope & trust we may not winter in the same place– Never think that I advised the printing of that book– If I had seen a page of it when we were intimate & I felt more warmly for her, I should have entreated her not to print it,—though everybody now-a days considers it allowable to trip into literature. Have you read this book? It is of the calibre of a school-girl’s exercise—(& not a clever school-girl). When she sent it to me I wrote in kindness, but in perfect sincerity– Of course, she tells people of my admiration for it!– I find it very difficult to withdraw from her, though I used to praise her for delicacy– Well—never mind. I suppose I deserve such things. I suppose, I am taken somehow by flattery, (not Napoleon’s though!) & that I reconcile myself to it by calling it love– I am a straw woman in much–– Only never think me capricious in my affections—for that is not my fault, however it may appear so.
Italy ought not to draw you just now Fanny– We are all looking for war, & wondering where the safety is– A Piccolomini [9] said yesterday that it was as safe at Rome as in Florence .. which only proved Florence unsafe– Austria may come down on Central Italy any day: & sooner or later there must be war– The Storys are alarmed enough to avoid going back to Rome until the end of November .. when things may be a little arranged. The indignation here is great against “questa canaglia di Germania”– [10] Toeplitz means mischief both against France & Italy—that is plain. The Prince of Prussia gave his “parole de gentilhomme” [11] meaning the word of a rascal. My poor Venice. But you will see presently—only the fear is that our fire here may flash very far. In any case, it would not be desireable for Englishmen to come southwards this year. Our plans for the winter depend entirely on circumstances– If we can go to Rome in any reasonable security, I suppose we shall go– But I have not heart for plans just now–
Dear Isa Blagden is spending the summer in a rough cabin, a quarter of an hour’s walk from here—and Mr Landor is hard by in the lane– This (with the Storys a mile off) makes a sort of colonization of the country here. Otherwise its a solitude—“very triste,” [12] say the English—not even an English church even in the city of Siena. We get books from Florence, & newspapers from everywhere—or one could’nt get on quite well. As it is I like it very much– I like the quiet!—the lying at length on a sofa, in an absolute silence—nobody speaking for hours together .. (Robert rides a great deal) .. not a chance of morning visitors—no voices under the windows– The repose would help me much, if it were not that circumstances of pain & fear walk in upon one through windows & doors, using one’s own thoughts till they tremble. Pen has had an abbé to teach him Latin, & his poney to ride on—& he & Robert are very well & strong, thank God.
Thank you for your words on spiritualism– I have not yet seen the last Cornhill. [13] It pleases me that Thackeray has had the courage to maintain these facts before the public: I think much the better of him for doing so– Owen’s book [14] I shall try to get. There is a weak reference to the subject in the Saturday Review (against it) [15] —and I see an article advertised in Once a week [16] —all proving that the public is awaking to a consideration of the class of phenomena– Investigation is all I desire. The Spiritual Mag. lingers so this month that I fear & Robert hopes something may have happened to it. Would it not be wise of you to get a pied a terre in England & make foreign excursions as you feel inclined. Have you written for Chambers lately? & how with the painting? I saw Lotti [17] just as we left Florence—& he looked radiant for Italy. Mr Landor keeps the peace, & is very well– Stronger than last year I fancy. We are always on the edge of a precipice with him.
Publication: LEBB, II, 405–408 (in part).
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year based on EBB’s references to Henrietta’s illness.
4. EBB refers to Thomas Lake Harris (1823–1906), English-born poet and spiritualist minister, whose family moved to America in 1828. Visiting Great Britain from 1859 to 1861, he had recently been preaching at the Marylebone Institute in London. In a sermon delivered on 12 February 1860 and published as “The Second Visibility of Jesus,” Harris warned: “Those who are investigating the problem of Spiritualism, beware! If you do not wish to find yourselves locked in the embraces of fiends from Pandemonium, beware! If you would not find the brain biologized by sorcerers whom ages ago God swept from the earth with the breath of judgment and destruction, beware” (Sermons, by the Rev. T. L. Harris, No. 6, 1860, pp. 121–122). In letter 3823, Mary Howitt had recommended that EBB read Harris’s A Lyric of the Golden Age (New York, 1856).
5. Fanny Haworth’s letter, signed “Ruth,” appeared in The Spiritual Magazine of September 1860 (pp. 404–405) under the heading “Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mr. Howitt.” Responding to William Howitt’s comments on Poems Before Congress in the July issue (see letter 4710, note 4), she objected to his suggestion that EBB’s recent work had been “biologized from below”: “When Mr. Howitt says that Mrs. Browning has changed and lowered her style since her earlier poems, he surely cannot include in this criticism Aurora Leigh as a proof of the change. He has not indeed named it; but surely such passages as those to which I would call his attention, do not emanate from the inspiration from below.” Miss Haworth goes on to quote passages from Aurora Leigh, VII, 773–785 and 837–843. For the full text of her letter, see SD2393.
6. i.e., EBB’s “A Musical Instrument,” in the issue of July 1860 (pp. 84–85).
7. “Affectation.”
8. Mrs. Eckley’s The Oldest of the Old World (1860).
9. An unidentified member of the Piccolomini, “an Italian noble family, which was prominent in Siena from the beginning of the 13th century onwards” (EB).
10. “Germany, this scoundrel.”
11. “Word of a gentleman.”
12. “Sad.”
13. In the August 1860 issue of The Cornhill Magazine (pp. 211–224), Thackeray published an article, “Stranger than Fiction,” by Robert Bell (1800–67), journalist and playwright, on the topic of spiritualism. On the first page, Thackeray added the following editorial note: “As Editor of this Magazine, I can vouch for the good faith and honourable character of our correspondent, a friend of twenty-five years’ standing; but as the writer of the above astounding narrative owns that he ‘would refuse to believe such things upon the evidence of other people’s eyes,’ his readers are therefore free to give or withhold their belief.—Ed.”
14. Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (Philadelphia, 1860) by Robert Dale Owen (1801–77).
15. An article entitled “Somnambulism” in The Saturday Review of 18 August 1860 (pp. 202–203) alludes to the spiritual manifestations reported in the Cornhill piece (see note 13 above): “It is often easy in such matters to question the reliability or good sense of a particular witness, and to show how the very language in which the statement is made bears the marks of a mind little fitted to conduct a troublesome investigation, or to deal with delicate matters of evidence. It is more satisfactory, however, to repel the suggestion of supernatural agencies by pointing to other regions of inquiry which were long the chosen home of darkness, mystery, and wonder, and to see how the calm and diligent efforts of competent scientific inquirers have at length cleared away the last suspicion of any spiritual interference with the uniform laws of the physical world.”
16. “Recent Spirit Rappings,” by John Delaware Lewis in the issue of 18 August 1860 (pp. 212–215), begins with a mention of the recent spiritualism article in the Cornhill but goes on to narrate a fraudulent séance conducted by a Mrs. Marshall of Red Lion Street, Bloomsbury. EBB probably saw the advertisement in The Athenæum of 18 August 1860 (no. 1712, p. 212).
17. Giovanni Lotti (1812–76), former suitor of Fanny Haworth.
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