Correspondence

4824.  EBB to Isa Blagden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 312–316.

126 Via Felice Rome–

Thursday. [7 February 1861] [1]

Thank you, ever dearest Isa. The photographs are most interesting to me—very characteristic, & precious additions to my collection– How too good of you! He might be anything bad, but I dont set down the pretty queen as “cruel”. [2] A little hard she might be with those black brows—but not necessarily– Take care, my Isa. Everything is’nt bad that comes from Gaeta– And there is … oh, pardon me .. a touch of the Isa type in that face. Ask Dr Grisonowski– She’s a spirited little thing too,—& we must consider, in judging people, what their point of sight is–

Mdme de Schwartz came to see me yesterday. She had only heard of the Saturday Review, [3] & had received a Standard with a very gratifying notice. [4] I am to see her book, she promises. A sculptor here has received an order for a bust of Garibaldi from the English consul at Copenhagen– I forget the sculptor’s name stupidly .. Bussen [5]  .. something like that—but he applied to Mdme de Swartz for an introduction. After writing in vain by the post she gave him a letter, which he carried to Caprera, was cordially received, executed his commission, & has just returned—but not a word for poor Mdme de Swartz, from the hero, though she had sent him a tricolored cap, & information about the proceeds of the book which are generously offered to him for revolutionary uses– Turr [6] & others were at Caprera while the sculptor was there. Garibaldi went to bed as usual at seven oclock—a velleité [7] which reconciles me to myself– He takes the newspapers with him– He always likes to go to bed (in winter & summer) when the natural light closes. His daughter [8] also disappeared somehow– She is sixteen, with a savage look & grace in her,—great eyes, & hair of mixed red & yellow. There is a Madame who makes society for her,—& this lady, with Turr, the Sculptor & one or two other persons, on the retirement of the host, went straight into the kitchen & spent the evening round the fire. Garibaldi is going to Constantinople, almost directly. ‘Why,’ said I– “To take up the Hungarian movement”– Mark, Isa– There must be war– And if, in the conflagration, France snatches up a Rhenish province or so, perfectly will Germany have deserved it. The Exeter-hall prophets are all prophecying what is to happen in sixty seven, [9] —& I heard the other day that the Spiritual-manifestations hung their future on the same date—which is curious, the same sort of future being intended by no means– But certainly it does look as if by fair means or foul we were about to have a general political “rifacimento” of the earth. God sends down his fine gift of madness in these days to the governments He would destroy, [10] —& “forthwith they go their way” & hang themselves. [11] Political deaths seem everywhere carried out by suicide simply.

Did I tell you that poor Mr Cartwright was ill with Roman fever? He is preparing an article on the Neapolitan States, [12]  .. which I expect to be melancholy indeed .. adding Roman fever to constitutional temperament, & calculating the result.

Mdme de Schwartz confirmed me in what I had heard from others, that authentic papal authorities admit frankly the impossibility of evading the near crisis of the Piedmontese replacing the French– To which they all reconcile themselves by a prophecy of what is to happen presently– “Only wait.” In the first place there’s to be anarchy—& then France is to come back to set things straight, & take a little pay; and then everybody’s to have his own again. Only wait!

The opposition party in France including the clerical .. is trying to get up a cry, that what Napoleon has done & is doing for Italy, is against French interests. The most ignoble, the most villainous of parties! The Emperor has to be cautious, however,—and even Mr Cartwright said gravely to Robert the other day, “I believe he has a most difficult part to play.” It is not that the great public in France is otherwise than generous: it is that his enemies are unscrupulous in appealing to the patriotic instinct of the uninformed part of it. What struck me in Guizot’s speech, by the way, was less its doctrinairism than its small cunning. [13] Do you suppose a man like Guizot capable of really & in good faith taking that view of Italian affairs? I do not at all. From the foundations of my heart I scorn such a man, .. who cannot .. yet can!!

Is Mr Trollope’s novel coming out? Has Chapman taken it? [14] As to yours, my Isa, I shall accept with gratitude. Robert is beating his brains to know why [15] you eschew his reading it—“what the motive can be”:—thinks you have put your life into it in some mysterious way, & having “memoired” yourself (as a biographical lady wrote once to me) are shy of his philosophy. Such male innocense! I tell him the simple reason is because he growls so, & tears so with his teeth, & that you dont like to be growled at & torn—if you may express a preference– It is’nt so very strange of you, after all. Yet you will have to submit to be read by him– He will read you, if he wont Dumas.– Did I tell you of his modelling? Yes, I think. He met Hatty at Mdme du Quaire’s last night. Hatty dines out every day of the week—so there is no wonder that I never see her.

Mrs Eckley came here yesterday—told me she had finished a bust of her sister in law—& was going to begin a statue—ideal. I said, “How will it be possible without knowledge of the body?” “Oh—of course I shall have a model—a woman.” After all she had said to me before—with an apparently absolute unconsciousness of having said it.! She was in the highest spirits, & “loved me alone”– It used to be good acting. Now it is bad acting. The reason, Robert says, is that I have the key—now. But no– I think, besides, that she has, as an actress, altogether misconceived the present situation– It’s Miss Cushman in Imogen [16] —if Miss Cushman’s good sense did not keep her from attempting Imogen.

By the way, Isa, this has come out– She began (talking of our wants at Rome) to vaunt the delightful room for ladies in London [17] —newspapers & tea,—& how she had often been there. And when I wondered at her finding such a thing out .... “But she knew Miss Parkes– In fact she was a subscriber!” Which explains the review entirely, Isa!– [18]

The Abbé has been here to tell me of a telegraphic despatch to the French ambassador on the Emperor’s address to the Legislative Body. It all goes in the right way as to non-intervention, but that I did not want assurance of. I confess myself slightly disappointed on the whole. An agreement with friendly Powers, & more talks about diplomatical theories of right, I dont care to hear of at all. Well—I may like the speech at full length, better. [19]

Has the dreadful news about poor Una Hawthorne come to you from any quarter—that she is or has been in a state of raving madness?– They had to put bars to the windows—to take every precaution. The last account is that some female mesmerist has been called in by her family, with beneficial affects– [20] But how very, very sad!– The poor father! And poor, poor Mrs Hawthorne– If she had died at Rome the misery would have been less.

The carnival is poor. Only the Neri go,—The Italian committee [21] having signified that all good Italians ought to keep away. Sir John Bowring is better, but has been dangerously ill. Whenever I am “in my right mind” I like to see these representative men, [22] & Mr Trollope was quite mistaken in supposing it could bore me to hear a man of such varied experience talk.

How are you my Isa?– Mention yourself always– May God bless you, my dear–

Your loving Ba.

But you dont expect Americans to walk visibly in sackcloth. I am very anxious– But the civil struggle seems imminent & necessary. [23] Love to Kate & her mother.

Publication: B-IB, pp. 404–409.

Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.

1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Napoleon III’s speech (see note 19 below).

2. EBB refers to cartes-de-visite of Francis II, King of Naples (see letter 4702, note 7), and his wife, Maria Sophia Amelia (1841–1925), 3rd daughter of Maximilian Joseph, Duke of Bavaria (1808–88). They are reproduced on p. 391.

3. See letter 4823, note 23.

4. A review of Recollections of General Garibaldi (1861) appeared in The Standard of 8 January 1861. The conclusion reads: “We take leave of this book with unfeigned respect for the authoress, and we trust that on another horseback journey through the more picturesque countries of Europe she may be more fortunate in accomplishing all she intended than she was in her first. She who can describe so well ought to have more opportunities for description” (p. 3).

5. Christian Gottlieb Vilhelm Bissen (1836–1913), Danish sculptor, kept a studio in Rome from 1857 to 1863. According to the Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, the commission came from a fellow Dane, Alfred Hage, a politician and businessman. The bust is now in the Glyptoteket, Copenhagen. The “English consul,” Augustus Berkeley Paget (1823–96), was an intimate friend of W.C. Cartwright, from whom EBB probably received this information.

6. Stefan Türr (1825–1908), Hungarian general, had deserted from the Austrian army in 1849 to join the Italian cause. He became one of Garibaldi’s officers and sailed with The Thousand to Sicily in May 1860.

7. “Propensity.”

8. Teresita Garibaldi (1845–1903), daughter by Garibaldi’s first wife, Anita, was the subject of EBB’s poem “The King’s Gift,” published in The Independent, 18 July 1861, and later collected in Last Poems (1862).

9. The best known of these prophets was John Cumming (1807–81); see letter 3186, note 3. Although his church was at Crown Court, Covent Garden, he had preached and delivered numerous lectures at Exeter Hall.

10. Cf. James Duport (1606–79), Homer Gnomologia (1660), p. 282: “Whom God would destroy He first makes mad.”

11. Cf. Luke 22:4 and Matthew 27:5.

12. An unsigned article by Cartwright entitled “The Neapolitan and Roman Question” had just been published in the January 1861 issue of The Westminster Review (pp. 114–152). We have been unable, however, to trace the article EBB mentions. Cartwright had recently returned from a month’s visit to Naples (see letter 4823).

13. See letter 4822, note 15.

14. See letter 4815, note 2.

15. Underscored three times.

16. Imogen, the heroine of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, disguises herself as a page boy during part of the play.

17. See letter 4611, note 17.

18. EBB refers to a generally favorable notice of Sophia Eckley’s The Oldest of the Old World in the September 1860 issue of The English Woman’s Journal (pp. 54–58).

19. Napoleon III’s speech was given at the opening of the Legislative Assembly on 4 February 1861.

20. Writing from Concord, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1860, Hawthorne told James T. Fields that Una’s case had “yielded at once to the incantations of a certain electrical witch.” Shortly afterwards he told Franklin Pierce: “All the violent symptoms … were allayed by the first application of electricity, and within two days she was in such a condition as to require no further restraint” (James R. Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in his Times, Boston, 1980, p. 537).

21. i.e., the Italian National Society, which was formed by Daniele Manin and others in 1857.

22. EBB may have in mind Representative Men: Seven Lectures (1850) by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Following an introductory lecture, “Uses of Great Men,” are lectures on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe. She mentions receiving the book in letter 2903.

23. Seven states had seceded from the Union by this time, the most recent being Texas, which ratified secession on 1 February 1861. Delegates from six of these states met in Montgomery, Alabama, on 4 February 1861 to draft a constitution for the Confederate States of America.

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