4744. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 155–157.
Siena.
Thursday. [20 September 1860] [1]
My precious Henrietta I have not written to you that you might not be troubled—and I thought that whatever could interest you in my letters, would go to you by an easier process than if they were addressed to you directly– That my heart has been closely, closely with you, you have known—my heart with all its prayers– But still, now I will write to you. Do not think of answering what I write, dearest—no, do not– Answer it with a good tender thought my way—& perhaps I shall get aware of that, as I fancy sometimes you must be of mine. So many thoughts & prayers are mixed with your name, my own darling Henrietta– God listens to these surely– And do you know, the last account has made me breathe freer about you, dear—yes, indeed– It seems to me that I ought to keep up a bright flame of hope,—that it is reasonable as well as religious– For if the acute form of disease drops into the chronic, there will be time for your constitutional habit of health to conquer the disease & survive it I think– In the meanwhile, if we can but subdue the exhausting pain & see you cheerful, dearest, & able to eat what is sustaining! Everything must depend on the strength keeping up. I had such deep pleasure to hear of your being carried round the garden—such deep pleasure. No, you do not guess how (though in Italy) my summer has been spent with you, I, much more unhappy than you have been yourself, I know– Robert has always been sure that you would get well, & he has prophecied at moments (when put out with my long faces) that by that time I should be worse than you had been at all, through pure stupiditety [sic] on my own part– But the first part of the prophecy being true would quite throw out the second, it seems to me—for to hear of your getting well would set me jumping over the moon—which sign of St Vitus [2] would be all my malady.
So be well, be well, my precious sister! Feel how we all hold you before the loving eyes of the Saviour, in the arms of our hearts that He may heal you & bless you now & for ever!——
And never do we forget dearest Surtees, & how he must be suffering in this trial– Tell him that for all his pain & his tenderness I am drawn to him closer & closer—— Robert’s love with mine–
Dear, our Arabel has told me of your excellent plan of taking a governess for the children. I believe it would have been a wise plan, even if your health had remained unshaken. There are reasons why fathers & mothers are not always the most successful teachers of their own children– Peni’s Abbé did him an incalculable deal of good, & we hope to take the advantage up again soon– The very change of hand, .. the touch of the unfamiliar hand is excellent– You will find it so with your darlings– Not that you were not most successful in getting them on– They are very forward. I see children here who at ten cant read with any fluency– .. I mean among the English & Americans.
Mr Landor has a friend come to stay with him, .. a young Englishman, a Mr Walker, [3] who has been in the army, & has studied medecine & selected homœopathy .. & is doing a great deal of good among the poor here who exalt him to the skies for cleverness & benevolence– A woman, given up by the Italian doctors & given over to the priests (who administered extreme unction) has been perfectly cured by him– Tell Arabel he’s a Plymouth brother besides—& (let me add to his distinctions) an enormous friend of Peni’s– Peni goes to talk to him by the hour, & tells me that .. “His conversation is really most interesting, mama!– Oh—he tells me so many useful things– .. what I am to do if I meet a cobra capella [4] —and how a hand is cut off, & all sorts of really useful things.”
I do hope he may be a little useful in another graver way with poor Mr Landor, but there does not seem much hope of it. Landor goes on with tolerable quietness just now—only conceive what a pleasant host he must be, when I tell you that his friend has a ladder put up to his bedroom window that he may “go out without irritating Mr Landor by passing his door.” I hear Landor admires Mr Howitt’s attack on me [5] very much,—& thinks it “written in the best English he has read for a long while”– I had fancied that he was turning rather spiteful to me—probably because I have not devoted myself to him much this summer, having a Henrietta in my head. By the way, there is a most generous defence of me in a Taunton magazine, [6] addressed here by my dear George’s hand– Which of your friends & neighbours, Henrietta, has broken this chivalrous lance for me?– Robert is quite delighted—& I am grateful. Love & thanks to George too for sending it.
Dearest dear Henrietta, you have certain priviledges just now in having our dear dear Storm, & George .. besides our Arabel & Occy with you .. but I would not take from you a ray of their countenances––you have a right to all. I wish you could have the next two months of fine weather we count upon—& that you might lie under my fig-tree there, & look at the view– You could not, today. The rain has been coming down in torrents after such thunder as frightened me– To make amends, the great cathedral bell tolls from the city—there is news—a “despatch”– Pen rushes in to say .. “Ancona’s taken! [7] Think of it, dear mama! Italy’s ours!—all except Venice—” He is in ecstasies. God be thanked–
May He love & keep you, beloved!–
Your own Ba.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: In private collection.
1. This letter was sent with letter 4743.
2. In Christian legend, a Sicilian youth who was martyred in 303 during the Diocletian persecution. EBB alludes to St. Vitus’s Dance, an alternative name for chorea, a nervous disease characterized by spasmodic twitching. Believers in the middles ages would dance, sometimes wildly, before a statue of St. Vitus on his feast day (15 June) in order to ensure their good health for the coming year.
4. Also, Cobra de capello, Portuguese for “snake with hood” (OED).
5. Either his review of Poems Before Congress (see pp. 378–379) or his reply to Fanny Haworth’s letter in The Spiritual Magazine (see SD2394).
6. We have been unable to trace this “generous defence.”
7. See the last paragraph in letter 4743.
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