4743. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 151–154.
Villa Alberti– Siena.
Wednesday– [19–20 September 1860] [1]
I thank you from my heart, darlingest of Arabels– Your letter has relieved me—which will surprise you perhaps, as you speak of some return of a former attack .. but you will learn from my relief how deeply I have been suffering from anxiety. In fact, I go on very well for a day or two or three or four even, after an account such as George sent me,—and then comes the days for expectation of a letter when the anguish grows too heavy sometimes– The post comes about eight in the morning .. and I wind up my affairs at night as if I was to be shot at that hour– It has been terrible. Now what you distinctly tell me of the probability of a chronic long illness .. though dreary & lamentable .. brings me to another state of mind—makes me very hopeful too—because a healthy constitution & strong vitality will have room for operation—& if the pain will but diminish more & more, .. why, we must all try to bear it .. & I shall go & see about it myself next year .. if it shall please God. I am sure that, had I been with you, I should have suffered less mentally .. though I dare say I was perfectly unfit either to travel or to resist the climate when I got among you, or to help you in the least degree except by varying your troubles. But none of you can have had a more dismal summer than I– I dont feel as if I had had a summer at all– Italian affairs indeed have kept power to stir me—& they would do the same if I lay on my deathbed. No private grief or suffering could prevent the swelling of my heart in sympathy, with this liberated people, while it beat at all and the crisis is terrible just now, .. the Papal States in a flame, [2] and the coming down of Austria on us considered imminent by many– There is a great standard figtree, like a forest tree, under my window, and I get out to sit there for hours sometimes with books & newspapers [3] .. & the worm pricking all the while through every thought as it arises– [4] Well—but now I shall really “wrestle with my pain,” & try not to get into those terrors beyond my depth. “After all,” as Sophia Cottrell said to me some time ago when she came over to spend two days with Isa Blagden, .. “we must not be atheists”—only some of us are, more or less– I speak for myself Arabel—I who believe in a spiritual world & in no separation except in an external sense, .. I see God hold up his finger over the head of a Beloved .. & straightway I go mad with terror, precisely as anybody might who believed in death .. in the old, dark, vague meaning of the word– I can trust our Lord in nothing, it seems to me– May He have mercy & help the disbelief [5] —and when you have done praying for our precious Henrietta, pray a little for me my own Arabel that I may have strength given to me to hold & to hope.
Your letter pleases me in three things– The change from the active to the chronic—the diminution of the acute pain—& her having been out– Oh– I have been seeing her with my poor shut eyes, always in bed, always in bed. I did not dare ask in my last letter– Then I am glad you have had the other opinion– Is caustic used internally Arabel? You dont answer that. Then I am very glad there is no enlargement– The affection seems extremely common, & commonly recovered from too– Only of course she must be calm & cheerful—& in order to this, it is very desirable to have the governess-question settled. Does she bear reading?– And has anybody read Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage out of the Cornhill? [6] Ecclesiastically she would not like it, but as a novel, it is admirable, we think– Indeed the Cornhill is very amusing—a wonderful shilling’s worth. I sent there a little poem, “The forced recruit at Solferino” .. (historical) but all my other Italian poems are gone to America, where both sympathy & pay come double. [7] I rather inclined to let Thackeray have my Garibaldi, but Robert thought it was unhandsome, under the circumstances, to keep it back from America, so it was sent after the rest. [8]
I am quite comforted to think that I have Storm with me out of all you English politicians. I see the Times has the grace to admit that if a coalition is regularly built up against France, France will be found at the head of liberal Europe in the face of the elder governments– [9] Now, dont you all see that this is precisely what I have been all this time saying? Make the general opposition a coalition, & you throw light on the actual situation—which is, .. France at the head of the democracy of Europe! But there is coalition, & England not foreign to it—though nobody will call it coalition of course. I dont believe that England is engaged to any particular line of policy for all that, .. only there’s to be a general holding of hands, & a determination against French ideas .. meaning, national hopes &c– Poor Hungary– The reconciliation between Prussia & Austria looks ill for her– As to Italy .. difficulties thicken for our unhappy Venetia– At present we have the southern question thrust on us– There is a mystery somewhere. The probability seems that Austria was preparing an intervention for the Roman States, while Mazzini grew dangerous on the other side– The King had to act therefore. As he disavowed Garibaldi, so the French government will be forced to disavow him .. because something may be said for the breach of international law—but nothing is clearer to me than that Napoleon said “Faites” [10] at Chambery– Farini came straight from his face into Tuscany to arrange the intervention—and Arese [11] arrived coincidently, having travelled with him through Savoy. As the head of the French Government & officially he could’nt recommend an armed intervention on the part of Piedmont—which the Italians seem to understand. But Rome & Civita Vecchia (held by France) wont be touched by any of us—& in fact, nobody wants the pope to be driven out of Rome. This country is Catholic, after all, & this movement is not a religious one. Indeed, had the Pope been well-advised, he would have increased his spiritual authority frightfully by the abdication of his temporal– As it is, the spiritual authority has suffered in the esteem of the people, though it still is recognized, & will be; and if at this moment he invited the Italian parliament to sit in Rome & offered himself to the honorary presidentship of it, he might recover his popularity. But no—Antonelli speaks—& they say, certain spirits rap.
The country is in a confusion with troops passing. Pisa wd suit me—but it would be dreary for Robert– We shall decide nothing—but some people think that France will keep Rome safer than any other place in Italy this winter. Only we should have to go by sea as the roads are flaming up everywhere– There is time– We never go till the end of November. I dont think of such things just now.
May God keep & bless us & grant me good letters. That’s what I think now– Garibaldi was magnificent at Naples—was’nt he? [12] No– Ancona not taken after all—but Lamoriciére beaten– [13] It is great news. The withdrawal of Napoleon’s ambassador means nothing—an evasion for the “Powers.” [14] He will stand by us to the last—and through enormous difficulties & the opposition of the world. What has been called ‘tortuous policy,’ has been masterly diplomacy in behalf of both France & Italy. Now the end is at hand—except Venice—& her turn will come. Best of loves to all– Love me dear darling–
Your Ba–
Write.
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / Miss Moulton Barrett / Stoke Court / Taunton.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 489–492.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 20 September 1860, a Thursday, and was presumably concluded on that day. In letter 4744, which was enclosed with this one to Arabella, EBB remarks: “Pen rushes in to say .. ‘Ancona’s taken!’” At the end of this letter, however, she writes: “No– Ancona not taken after all.”
4. Cf. Jonah 4: 5–8.
5. Cf. Mark 9:24.
6. Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage (1861) was serialized in The Cornhill Magazine from January 1860 to April 1861.
7. “A Forced Recruit at Solferino” appeared in The Cornhill Magazine of October 1860 and was later collected in Last Poems (1862).
9. An editorial in The Times of 11 September 1860 noted that “any such coalition as that suggested [of European powers against France] … would end by placing France at the head of Liberalism against Absolutism in a war of opinions” (p. 6).
10. “Do it.” See letter 4737, note 8.
11. Francesco Arese (1805–81), a friend of Napoleon III and his mother, Queen Hortense, was, after 1859, a senator and cabinet minister, as well as Cavour’s agent in Paris. He met the emperor a few days after Farini and Cialdini had, and received the same indication regarding an invasion of the Papal States (see Jasper Ridley, Napoleon III and Eugénie, 1979, p. 464). EBB refers to Arese in “Summing Up in Italy” (1862), line 29.
13. i.e., at Castelfidardo (see letter 4738, note 6). Cialdini captured Ancona and took Lamoricière prisoner on 29 September.
14. Charles Angélique de Talleyrand-Périgord (1821–96) had been appointed French minister to Piedmont the year before. His recall was reported in The Morning Post of 17 September 1860: “Paris, Friday, 6 p.m. The Moniteur this morning records the retirement of the French Minister, Baron de Talleyrand, from Turin, by orders of the Emperor— a chargé d’affaires, however, still remaining. I had prepared your readers for this event by informing you that his excellency had received orders to quit Turin if the Piedmontese forces entered the Roman States” (p. 5).
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