4839. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 5–8.
126. Via Felice. Rome
Tuesday– [?26 February] [1861] [1]
You really astonish me, dearest Fanny, so much by your letter, that I must reply to it at once. I ask myself under what new influence (strictly clerical) is she now, that she should write so?– And has she forgotten me—never read Aurora Leigh .. never heard of me or from me that before spiritualism came up in America, I have been called orthodox by infidels, & heterodox by church-people; & gone on predicting to such persons as came near enough to me in speculative liberty of opinion to justify my speaking, that the present churches were in course of dissolution & would have to be followed by a reconstruction of Christian essential verity into other than these middle-age scholastic forms– Believing in Christ’s divinity—which is the life of Christianity I believed this– Otherwise, if the end were here .. if we were to be covered over & tucked in with the thirtynine articles [2] or the like, & goodnight to us for a sound sleep in “sound doctrine” [3] .. I should fear for a revealed religion incapable of expansion according to the needs of man. What comes from God has life in it—and certainly from all the growth of living things, spiritual growth cannot be excepted. But I shun religious controversy—it is useless. I never “disturb anybody’s mind” as it is called– Let those sleep who can. If I had not known that your mind was broken up rather broadly by truths out of Swedenborg, I should not have mooted the subject, be sure– (Have you given up Swedenborg for this, by the way–) Having done so, I am anxious to set you right about Mrs Stowe– As the author of the most successful book printed by man or woman, [4] perhaps I a little under-rated her– The book has genius but did not strike me as it did some other readers– Her ‘Sunny Memories,’ [5] I liked very little—when she came to us in Florence some years ago, I did not think I should like her—nor did Robert—but we were both of us surprised & charmed with her simplicity & earnestness. At Rome last year she brought her inner nature more in contact with mine and I, who had looked for what one usually finds in women, was startled into much admiration & sympathy by finding in her a largeness & fearlessness of thought,—which coming out of a clerical & puritan cul-de-sac, & combined with the most devout & reverent emotions, really is fine– So you think that since Uncle Tom, she has turned infidel, because of her interest in spiritualism. Her last words to me when we parted, were, “Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ never see one another for the last time.” That’s the attitude of the mind which you stigmatize as corrupting.
With regard to “Spiritualism,” so called, you might as well say “books” are dangerous, without specifying the books. Surely you know that every sort of doctrine is enjoined by these means, from Ch. of Englandism to Free Love. A Lady was with me this very morning who was converted from infidelity to Christianity solely by these means—and I am told that thousands declare the same. As far as I am concerned, I never heard or read a single communication which impressed me in the least! What does impress me is the probability of their [sic] being communications at all. I look at the movement. What are these intelligences, separated yet related & communicating? What is their state? What their aspiration? have we had part or shall we have part with them? is this the corollary of man’s life on the earth? or are they unconscious echoes of his embodied soul? That any one shd admit a fact (such as a man being lifted into the air for instance) & not be interested in it, is so foreign to the habits of my mind (which cant insulate a fact from an inference, & rest there) that I have not a word to say– Only I see that if this class of facts, however grotesque, be recognized among thinkers, our reigning philosophy will modify itself—scientific men will conceive differently from Humboldt (for instance) of the mystery of life, [6] —the materialism which stifles the higher instincts of men will be dislodged, and the rationalism which divides Oxford with Romanism (nothing between, we hear!) will receive a blow.
No truth can be dangerous. What if Jesus Christ be taken for a medium, do you say? Well—what then? As perfect man he possessed I conclude, the full complement of a man’s faculties– But if he walked on the sea as a medium, if the virtue went out of him [7] as a mesmerizer, He also spoke the words which never man spoke, was born for us & died for us and rose from the dead as the Lord God our saviour. But the whole theory of spiritualism, .. all the phenomena, .. are strikingly confirmatory of revelation—nothing strikes me more than that. Hume’s argument against miracles (a strong argument[)] [8] disappears before it, and Strauss’s conclusions [9] from a priori assertion of impossibility, fall in pieces at once.
Now I have done with this subject– Upon the whole it seems to me better really that you should not mix yourself up with it any more– Also I wish you joy of the dismissal of M. Pierart– [10] There was no harm that he took away your headache if he did not presume on that. You tell me not to bid you to beware of counting on us in Paris. And yet, dearest Fanny, I must– The future in this shifting world, what is it?– As for me whom you recognize as “so much myself,” dear, I have a stout pen, &, till its last blot, it will write perhaps with its “usual insolence” .. (as a friend once said,—) but if you laid your hand on this heart you would feel how it stops & staggers & fails. I have not been out yet, and am languid in spirits,—I gather myself up by fits & starts, & then fall back. Do you know I think with positive terror sometimes .. less of the journey, .. than of the having to speak & look at people– If it were possible to persuade Robert I should send him with Pen—but he would’nt go alone, & he must go this year– Oh, I dare say I shall feel more up to the friction of things when once I have been out—its stupid to give way– Also my sister Arabel talks of meeting me in France—though I might have managed that difficulty—but that Robert should see his Father is absolutely necessary. Meanwhile we dont talk of it—and by May or June I shall be feeling another woman probably– I pray you for love’s sake, to keep off Miss Heaton– Tell her you know nothing—& you dont know anything– We have not talked of plans yet, and, at this moment, I cant bear to think of any plan. Dont write of plans, even– We shall be back in Rome next winter, in all probability– The climate certainly lengthens my life–
There is something else I want to say– Ward off questions about Mrs Eckley on the Heaton side– There is no quarrel—I tell you that the deficiency in general truthfulness is intimately proved to me, & that having lost my esteem she cannot keep my affection. In answer to your supposition,—no!—a thousand times no. Nobody could influence me in such a respect,—and that person (for I know of course whom you refer to) was so far from doing so, that she said as you do .. “Be just! take care you are just– She seemed to love you– Are you influenced by any one?”– But I am just– The whole business (I cannot tell you all) was very painful to me—though as to love there, I doubt whether anything was wounded except her vanity .. which lies at the foundation of all the faults–
There, enough! My experience in this world has been very bitter——not now for the first time.
Send Ellen Heaton off on another track. You know she never could bear Mrs Eckley– I wish to be as silent as I can–
So you are going to work hard in Germany—that is well. Only, beware of the English periodicals– There’s a rage for new periodicals, and because the Cornhill answers, other speculations crowd the market—overcrowd it:—there will be failures presently.
I have written a long letter, when I meant to write a short one. May God keep you & love you & make you happy–
your ever affectionate
Ba.
I am anxious about America—fearing a compromise in the North. All other dangers are comparatively null–
Publication: LEBB, II, 420–423 (in part, as [about January 1861]).
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Conjectural dating suggested by EBB’s phrase in the second sentence, “under what new influence,” which she repeats in letter 4857.
2. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith that the Church of England requires its ordinands to swear to uphold.
3. Titus 2:1.
4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Boston, 1852), which sold more than 300,000 copies in the first year.
5. Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Boston, 1854).
7. Cf. Mark 5:30.
8. In arguing against the validity of miracles, David Hume (1711–76) wrote: “A Miracle is a Violation of the Laws of Nature; and as a firm inalterable Experience has establish’d these Laws, the Proof against a Miracle, from the very Nature of the Fact, is as entire as any Argument from Experience can possibly be imagin’d” (Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, Section X, p. 180).
9. EBB refers to Das Leben Jesu by David Friedrich Strauss; see letter 3505, note 3.
10. Zéphyr Joseph Piérart (1818–79); see letter 4822, note 7.
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