4737. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 141–144.
[Siena]
[Postmark: 11 September 1860]
My dearest Sarianna I am afraid you will have waited for Robert– There is nothing or little to add to my last account of my precious Henrietta—but dear, you think the evil less than it is—be sure that the fear is too reasonable. If you knew me quite well you would know that I am of a very hopeful temperament, & that, though subject to fancies on some heads perhaps, I never could go on systematically making the worst of any case. I bear up here for a few days—& then comes the expectation of a letter .. which is hard– I fight with it for Robert’s sake—but all the work I put myself to do, does not hinder a certain effect– She is confined to her bed almost wholly—& suffers—suffers acutely. George is there—& he wrote last—& then she was rather better—suffering less pain somewhat– But she had been worse—& I cant help observing that whenever they write they call her a little better .. but after she has been worse– It looks like mere fluctuation. Also George bids me not hope too much—as if my vice about it, was being too sanguine. In fact, I am living from day to day, on the merest crumbs of hope—on the daily bread which is very, very bitter. Of course it has shaken me a good deal, & interferes with the advantages of the summer—but that’s the least– Poor Robert’s scheme for me of perfect repose has scarcely been carried out.
Pen has had a cold .. which came rather from the sun, I fancy .. as there was a threat of fever—which did not hold however. I kept him in bed one day, because it was the only way of keeping him in the house—he is as wild as a young fox here. Now he is well, & I hope Robert is not going to inherit his cold— Robert rides every day three hours & upwards,—& though he is not generally imprudent as to the sun, yet he always comes in bagnato, [1] as we say here—as if he had been dipt in a well—not merely in his shirt & waistcoat but even his coat drenched through with perspiration. I have to sieze him & push him into his room without allowing him to stand talking for two minutes (which wd be dangerous of course) before he changes everything. There have been days this summer when he has changed his linen three times—think of that. You or I would be exhausted & worn by it—but he exclaims that it’s life & renewal of strength to him—& that he is at the height of physical prosperity after a course of shirts. The weather has been very hot—but by no means as hot as Italian weather is generally, and just now, (after a storm,) we have had quite fresh cool days for the last two or three. The accounts from England have been frightful .. in reference to the harvest. [2] And in France you seem to have had bad weather in your degree. I wonder you went to Dieppe without clear prospects of settled sunshine. It must have been very unsatisfactory to pass through so much trouble & expense for a mere increase of discomfort.
“What does Mr Cobden think of it” you ask—but if you read his letter you know. [3] “All his difficulties & all the falsehood” he says, “have come to him from the English side of the channel.” Having tried the experiment of Free trade, we consider ourselves much more intelligent than nations who have not tried it. But how do we account for our unwillingness to apply in every case a principle which, through our superiority, we know the advantage of? Why, for instance, do our paper-makers cry out that they are ruined, because of an application to them of this great principle? Is that intelligence? And is it honesty in the Times to take their part? [4] For me, I know too much about the manner in which free trade was forced upon our legislation, in the first instance, to be surprised at any slowness at being persuaded, on the side of other nations.
Did you find Fanny Haworth in Paris? I answered a letter she sent me from thence, to London, because I had not faith enough to write as she desired in Germany. She has been very kind in taking my part with a letter to the Spiritual Magazine which I do wish she had not written .. (only dont tell her that) for I submitted patiently to the charge of being inspired & possessed by the Devil, & would rather have left it so. Nobody, you see, can quite disprove it. And in fact Mr Howitt is more than ever convinced that seven devils are in me, each wickeder than another, [5] since “Ruth’s” letter. [6] “Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Mr Howitt,” makes an attractive article—and it’s funny, & would make me laugh (if I could laugh just now) to see how the ex-quaker keeps up his titular dignity by the side of the artist-woman.
But it was very kindly meant of Fanny Haworth, & touched me—for it is the fashion in England now to abuse me lavishly & without pause or repentance. Fraser’s Magazine came last [7] —but I never open a review scarcely without mud being thrown in my face—& little is my care for it.
What does cleave as a care & interest, is this cause of Italy—& the beginning of the end is at the doors. For days there has been no passage for private persons on the railroads: The troops come down from the north like locusts, eating up the roads– There are great mysteries .. which the journals are “too patriotic” to hint much at. Some of us suspect that Napoleon has whispered from Savoy, “Allez.” [8] In fact, this is scarcely doubtful. We shall take the thread from Garibaldi’s hands & finish the stitch. Of course, there are dangers—room for great fears as well as great hopes—& many politicians are very fearful. But the end, I believe (I for one) will glorify as well as justify the means–
Give my love to dear M. Milsand. At Florence we shall get to see the other number with his review on Ruskin. [9]
Thackeray has admitted a most curious article on the “Spirits”–. [10] The subject makes great way in England—& investigation will soon be demanded on all sides.
Peni’s truest love with mine to the very dear Nonno, as well as to yourself.
Your most affectionate sister
Ba—
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Mademoiselle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle, / Faubg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. “Drenched.”
2. The English press at this time reported that harvests across the country were delayed by several weeks owing to a cold and rainy summer. The Times of 3 September 1860, for example, noted that in the last two months the Midland counties experienced “a succession of heavy rains and cloud, which has so retarded the ripening of the grain as to make the harvest six weeks later than last year” (p. 5). The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (1860) carried a weather summary of the period: “The weather during the quarter [June–September] was very remarkable for continued low temperature, frequent rain, large amount of cloud, little sunshine, and bad weather generally. … The mean temperature of the three months ending September was 56º∙2, and once only, viz., in 1817, has the mean temperature of the same months been so low since the year 1771. The mean temperature of the four months ending September is still more remarkable; its value was 55º∙9, and there is no other instance, as far as trustworthy records extend, of a temperature of so low a value for these four important months” (p. x).
3. EBB refers to a private letter from Richard Cobden to a friend, dated 13 August, on the subject of the French-English commercial treaty (see letter 4582, note 10). The Morning Post of 20 August 1860 (p. 4) carried an extract of the letter. Concerning the treaty, he wrote: “I have still no reason to doubt that matters will be brought to a satisfactory result here. Up to the present moment I have experienced nothing but candour and straightforwardness in my dealings with the French Government, while all the misrepresentation, falsehood, and difficulties which I have had to encounter have come from the English side of the Channel.”
4. Paper manufacturers in England were concerned that proposed changes in import duties (as a result of the commercial treaty signed in January—see letter 4582, note 10) would allow French paper to sell at a significantly lower price than English paper. An editorial in The Times of 7 August 1860 sided with the papermakers. Referring to the previous night’s speech in the House of Commons made by William Ewart Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the editorial writer asked: “Now, we put it to Mr. Gladstone whether, if by any chance the papermakers—whom he regards only as a decayed remnant of Protectionists, or ‘Freetraders with an exception’—should be all ruined, it would not be regarded as a condemnation of his present measure?” (p. 9).
5. Cf. Matthew 12:45.
6. See SD2393. In the same issue of The Spiritual Magazine (September 1860, pp. 405–406), immediately following Fanny Haworth’s letter, William Howitt replied in a letter that “Ruth” had only confirmed his suspicion that EBB wrote Poems Before Congress while being “biologized from below” (p. 405). He went on to condemn EBB for “A Curse for a Nation”: “Cursing is no part of Christianity. This, too, confirms my supposition that the extraordinary fascination in favour of the one man who disturbs all Europe, is precisely a demoniac spell” (p. 406). For the full text of Howitt’s letter, see SD2394.
7. A negative review of EBB’s Poems Before Congress appeared in Fraser’s Magazine for June 1860 (pp. 818–823) as part of an article entitled “A Raid among the Rhymers” by Shirley, pseudonym of John Skelton (1831–97), Scottish writer. In concluding his remarks on EBB, Skelton wrote: “Mrs. Browning’s book being intended for a political manifesto, it is perhaps unnecessary to add that as poetry it is a complete failure. … On the whole, the poetry is the weakest, most inchoate, most unmusical, and most ineffective that we have met with for a long time.” For the full text of this review, see pp. 367–369.
8. “Let’s go.” On 28 August 1860, Farini and General Cialdini had met with Napoleon III at Chambéry, ostensibly “to convey Victor Emanuel’s good wishes on the occasion of the transfer of the territory to France; but the real purpose of their mission was to sound Louis Napoleon on Cavour’s plan to invade the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples” (Jasper Ridley, Napoleon III and Eugénie, 1979, p. 463). The emperor “allowed Farini and Cialdini to believe that he would acquiesce in the invasion of the Papal States by Piedmont, and apparently encouraged them to act as quickly as possible, so that he could confront Catholic pressure in France for intervention by the argument of the fait accompli” (Ridley, p. 464).
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