4831. EBB to Theodore Tilton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 328–332.
126. Via Felice– Rome.
[mid-February 1861] [1]
My dear Mr Tilton, if you have had time under the pressure of your many thoughts at this crisis, to think of me at all, you may have wondered at this gap in my letters,—but I have suffered great unhappiness, & lost my usual power of occupying myself in consequence.
Now I send you something .. or nothing as you may decide (3 poems): [2] I dont insist on its being something—remember that. I have received the Independents very thankfully– It was by an accident that I saw the ‘Garibaldi’ stanzas in the anti-slavery paper first, [3] —& I should be quick to acknowledge that the typographical faults were confined to it– You are very good in representing me with correctness, as in all the rest– My husband has drawn for the remittance belonging to the two last poems, ‘Garibaldi,’ and the “Summing up” &c. Perhaps one of these days his sense of your generosity and appreciation of it as a peculiar expression of kind sentiment towards both of us, may overcome his disinclination to the periodical channel– Never suppose that I have not done my best to send him to you in my stead,—I know my place too well as poet, & my duty too well as your contributor. Shall I say that Cornhills and Atlantic Monthlys have hitherto solicited him in vain?– But I dont give up hope–
I thank you very much for your most interesting letter on American affairs. I go with your party entirely– The constitution could only be rectified from within, unless you attacked it from without with guns—& I think Garrison [4] eschewed the latter mode– He would use neither– Congress nor sword. Now the question is thrown into new possibilities of solution by that fine madness [5] of the south, which is God’s gift to the world in these latter days in order to the “restitution of all things” [6] & the re-constitution everywhere of political justice & national right. See how it has been in Italy! If Austria had not madly invaded Piedmont in 59, France could not have fought. If the Pope had not been madly obstinate in rejecting the reforms pressed on him by France, he must have been sustained as a temporal ruler. If the King of Naples had not madly refused to accept the overtures of Piedmont towards an alliance in free government & Italian independence, we should have had to wait for Italian unity– So with the rulers of Tuscany, Modena &c– Everybody was mad at the right moment– I thank God for it– “Mais mon cher,” said Napoleon to the Tuscan ex-Grand Duke, weeping before him as a supplicant, “vous etiez à Solferino.” [7] That act of pure madness settled the Duke’s claims upon Tuscany. [8] And looking yearningly to our poor Venetia, (to say nothing of other suffering peoples beyond this peninsula,) my cry must still be, “Give, Give”—! “More madness, Lord!”
The pope has been madder than anybody & for a much longer time, exactly because his case was complex & difficult, & because with catholic Europe & the French clerical party, (strengthened by M. Guizot & the whole French dynastic opposition,—I wish them joy of their cause) drawn up on the Holy Father’s side, the least touch of sanity would have saved him, to the immense injury of the Italian nation. As it is we are at the beginning of the end—we see light at the end of the cavern. Here’s a dark turning indeed about Venetia—but we shant hit our heads against the stalactites even there,—and beyond we get out into a free, great independent Italy– May God save us to the end!
At this point the anxiety on American affairs can take its full share of thought. My partiality for frenzies, is not so absorbing, believe me, as to exclude very painful considerations on the dissolution of your great Union– But my serious fear has been & is, not for the dissolution of the body but the death of the soul—not of a rupture of states, and civil war, .. but of reconciliation & peace at the expense of a deadly compromise of principle. Nothing will destroy the republic but what corrupts its conscience and disturbs its fame—for the stain upon the honor must come off upon the flag. If, on the other hand, the North stands fast on the moral ground, no glory will be like your glory,—your frontiers may diminish, but your essential greatness will increase,—your foes may be of your own household, but your friends must be among all just & righteous men whether in the body or out of the body– [9] You are “compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses” [10] & can afford to risk anything .. except conscience.
Ought not the North, for instance, to propose a pecuniary compromise, taxing itself for compensation to the South?
What surprises me is that the slaves dont rise–
Never imagine from anything said to you by Mr Bayard Taylor [11] who remembers far too well a mere historical remark of mine upon the influence of government on art, that I am non-republican. I honor republicanism everywhere as an expression of the people,—but it seems to me that a theoretical attachment to any form of government whatever, is simply pedantry,—as if one should insist on everybody’s wearing one kind of hat, or adopting one attitude. A genuine government is simply the attitude of that special people– What we require for every man (or state) is life, health, muscular freedom to choose his own attitude. Let us be for the democracy, & leave the rest. Who cares for the figure at the helm, as long as the people’s wind is in the sails? I care little. Only I do care that the democracy should have power—that each man should have the inheritance of a man, and the right of voting where he is taxed. So this is my creed–
If I had an opportunity I would send you photographs of my husband, & even of myself .. though I had better rest with you perhaps in the engraving which you think like Mrs Tilton, [12] since that must surely have points in my favor– Three little daughters have you? [13] That is better than one little son—seeing that we often feel it to be too frightful to have all our treasure in a single coin. The pure gold of it only increases the fear. Oh– I must send you a photograph of our boy.
We shall be in Rome till May, & then return to Florence.
Napoleon will come out admirably in the Italian results– He has had Europe at the end of the diplomatical sword of fence, & a European coalition against him as no remote contingency– Often what has seemed like opposition to our progress here, has simply been putting on the drag down hill when the wheel was inclined to a perilous velocity– But there are some who cannot understand, & more who will not– It will be enough that the Italian nation understands.
As to novel-writing, I go naturally into verse– [14] What is truest in my convictions as well as what is warmest in my emotions run naturally to rhyme– And life is short & art long [15] .. as has been said once or twice before– Then you have Mrs Stowe. Her new story opens beautifully & promises what she can keep– I congratulate the Independent upon it– [16]
This is all for today– My husband unites in regards with me,—and I remain
most truly your friend
Elizabeth B Browning–
Publication: Theresa West Elmendorf, Descriptive Catalogue of the Gluck Collection (Buffalo, 1899), pp. 12–14.
Manuscript: Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.
1. Dating suggested by the publication of this letter (in part) in The Independent of 21 March 1861 and by EBB’s use of the phrase, “fine madness.” She uses a similar phrase, “fine gift of madness,” in letter 4824.
2. The three poems were “Parting Lovers,” published in The Independent (21 March 1861, p. 1), “The King’s Gift” (18 July 1861, p. 1), and “A View Across the Roman Campagna” (25 July 1861, p. 1).
3. The National Anti-Slavery Standard of 20 October 1860 (p. 4). “Typographical faults” included “peered” for “posed” (line 26) and “lip” for “lid” (line 32).
4. William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79), editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, was a pacifist.
5. Michael Drayton (1563–1631), “To my most dearely-loved Friend, Henery Reynolds Esquire, of Poets and Poesie” (1627): “For that fine madnes still he did retaine / Which rightly should possesse a Poets braine” (lines 109–110). See also letter 4824, note 10.
6. Acts 3:21.
7. “But my dear … you were at Solferino.”
8. See letter 4735, notes 7 and 9.
9. Cf. II Corinthians 12:2.
10. Cf. Hebrews 12:1.
11. Bayard Taylor (1825–78), American travel writer and poet.
12. Elizabeth Monroe Tilton (née Richards, 1834–97). The Tiltons married at New York on 2 October 1855. Presumably, the engraving is that of the Macaire photograph, used as the frontispiece to the fourth edition of Aurora Leigh (1859); see letter 4243, note 2.
13. The Tiltons had two daughters at this time: Florence (afterwards Pelton, 1857–1920) and Alice (afterwards Gardin, 1859–1949). A third daughter, Mattie (1861–69), was born in September.
14. Tilton had suggested that EBB write a “story … giving to the American People an insight into Italian life, manners, traditions, sufferings, and struggles for Freedom” (see letter 4733).
15. Cf. Hippocrates, Aphorisms, I, 1, trans W.H.S. Jones.
16. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s The Pearl of Orr’s Island (1862) was serialised in The Independent beginning with the issue of 3 January 1861.
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