4883. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 93–97.
Rome
Wednesday. [24 April 1861] [1]
My ever dearest Isa, Letters cross, which is a pity. The Storys dont go to Siena they say– Apply to the ‘uomo di faccenda’ [2] of that place, & he will give all comers access & information to Villa Orr, [3] as to other villas. Villa Alberti, of course I prefer to the rest—but the roominess is more apparent than real in certain respects, as there is only one cool side of the house, & tenable sitting-room. The small one always seemed suffocating to me– Still you three or four might of course manage there perfectly. Villa Orr is built like an English house on stairs—but there’s a great deal of broken up space– Take care not to people our Siena too thickly with Florentines, & spoil it by making it popular. Though your Dean [4] must be a Dean of progress (to call Lord John an ass) yet he’s a Dean, & never could live in a Christian fashion without an English church– Mention that fact of spiritual destitution to him, & he will go to Lucca straightway. [5]
I dont send Robert’s love to you my Isa, because he is nearly always away when I write—and I would’nt mock you with the shadow of love–
More & more I rejoice in Agnes. Blessed be the Globe. [6] You have had a very peculiar degree of notice for a first work, a novel,—nothing can be clearer than that.
Lytton’s sonnets touch me a good deal– The image of one who has died “too young” [7] has such a pathetical naturalness in it that it quite melted me. Poor Lytton! Not that I think him at his highest in the Sonnet form– The sonnet should be written more with one’s fist, .. with a strong concentration of hand, .. than suits the habits of his graceful elastic fingering-art. Tell me, Isa, the name of his poem in All the Year round, & the month– There’s a poem in the March number, called Duke something [8] … which Robert says is’nt Lytton’s, & which probably is’nt—and yet, if not, there’s a new poet of mark in the field.
I have written to Thackeray, & sent him a new contribution, to prove that, though indecent, I am not sulky. [9] I told him too, something of what I thought of the oriental morality of covering one’s face to keep one’s soul pure. No, Isa, I dont say he’s a humbug– I only say The world’s a humbug. Which it is, verily. Mdame du Quaire told Robert once (did I tell you before?) that she believed in an especial hell for the Anglo-Saxon race, on account of it’s arch-hypocrisy: & whenever I swear to the thirty nine articles [10] I shall append that dogma as the fortieth.
Then Thackeray says that the Cornhill is “for babes & sucklings,” [11] (while I fancied it was for the volunteers) and you know what an awful thing it would be if “Paterfamilias” [12] thought anything in it improper for family reading—the magazine might be hurt. I have granted to Thackeray that from the Cornhill point of view he may be right—while from mine, I am not wrong, I hold. He says that plain words which people will hear on sunday are too plain for monday!—meaning of course that one must’nt articulate “Thou shalt not commit .....” except on sundays and on Mount Sinai– By no means on mondays & on Cornhill. Weigh these things, Isa dear.
Oh no—my translation is far from verse. I used once to write Italian verses & was praised for them .. before I was a woman,—and long before I knew how in poetry the scholastic tongue is no substitute for the tongue of fire. [13] As it is, I should be afraid of trying even.
I see in the Nazione today a Funeral sermon on Alfredo ed Emilio Savio advertised– [14] If you can get it for me, send it by Mrs Mackenzie. I have written a poem on the subject, .. one of my best, I think, & Robert thinks, .. & sent some time since to America—called ‘Mother & Poet’. [15] For Mdme Savio is a poetess, I heard, .. a very accomplished woman. As the poem was written in her person dramatically, I substituted fictitious names for the young men, not choosing to intrude with indelicate suppositions into that deep private grief– You will remember that Alfredo was killed at Ancona & Emilio at Gaeta–
Thank you twenty times for the Cavour despatch. [16] I had read it– Lord John riles me horribly—but what was worst of all was the interference in Paris, to get Napoleon to give no help to Italy. [17] Did that please dear Mr Trollope, I wonder. Yes—the prospect is serious. How peace will hold out for a year, I dont pretend to see—though competent persons here & there seem to consider it possible– You will mark, that the strain of suspense is not merely on the passions, but on the finances. Meanwhile there is an awful complication in Poland. [18] Can such things be? [19] If you ever write to Bowen point out to him that the last Saturday R. proposes as against France, the very European scheme which L N. was so raved against for suggesting by one of his pamphleteers, .. About himself .. a unity of Germany, and an independent state beyond to block out Russia. [20] O justice, justice! Higher up than on the mountains of Lebanon, grows this cedar of the virtues.
Mr Trollope himself admits I suppose that there is an intention of enlarging liberty in France.
The discussion in the Turin chamber is painfully dramatic & picturesque– [21] When Garibaldi faced Cavour in that mad fury, & Bixio [22] called upon both in the name of God to set Italy above personal rancours, what a moment!– What a tragic sweep of passion!
But very painful– Garibaldi is played upon as the keys of an instrument by a certain party. Mere greatness of heart wont keep a man right, when the head is so narrow. No.
What takes Dr G. to Ferrara?
Mdme Louise Collet has written a book about Naples & Garibaldi—slight & readable– [23] Among the liberators of Italy Orsini is mentioned, & Napoleon not mentioned—in the long list of names.
From that fact, judge.
Mme de Swartz says she (Mme Colet) has been brilliantly beautiful, & is not decided on giving up the pretention—has overpowering manners, very clever talk .. which keeps other people silent. She has had four poems “crowned by the Academy.” I have read them. Very poor. Yet I, not being like Robert, should have liked to see her .. if only for the sake of .. “Lui”. <***>
Publication: B-IB, pp. 449–453.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s mention of her letter to Thackeray, written on 21 April; the first Wednesday following was 24 April.
2. “House agent.” Presumably Sig. Nencini (see letter 2904).
3. Another name for Villa Belvedere, where the Storys had stayed the two previous summers.
4. Gilbert Elliot (1800–91), Dean of Bristol since 1850, who with his two daughters stayed in Bagni di Lucca from early August to mid-September (ICS).
5. There being an English Chapel at Bagni di Lucca but not at Siena.
6. The generally positive review of Agnes Tremorne that appeared in the 15 April issue of The Globe opened with the following comment: “There are riches in the mind of this writer which only need better arrangement to produce an admirable result. Noble aspirations, a fervent sense of duty, great susceptibility to natural beauty, and a sensitiveness to those mysterious influences which flow from some human beings to others of like organisation, and whose name is not yet agreed upon, even when their existence is not denied, are the points that must strike any reader” (p. 1).
7. From “Divided Lives,” The Poetical Works of Owen Meredith (1867), I, 164, line 11: “Much like the ghost of one who died too young.” Since this sonnet was not published until the 1867 edition, EBB must have seen it in manuscript form. Lytton referred to the new material in a preface to that edition: “Although some of its contents are now for the first time printed, yet all of them were written many years ago,—at an early age” (p. x).
11. Cf. Psalm 8:2 and Matthew 21:16. See letter 4865.
13. Cf. Acts 2:3.
14. Under “New Publications” in La Nazione of 24 April 1861: “Funeral Discourse on the occasion of the solemn funerals of the brothers Alfredo and Emilio Savio, recited by the Canon Ambrogio Abrosoli in San Carlo, Milan” (p. 4).
15. “Mother and Poet” was published in The Independent (New York) on 2 May 1861. The poem refers to the deaths of Alfredo Savio (1838–60), who was killed during fighting at Ancona on 28 September 1860, and his brother Emilio (1837–61), who died a few months later on 22 January 1861 at Gaeta. Their mother, Baronessa Olimpia Savio di Bernstiel (née Rossi, 1816–89), was a writer and poet. The funeral took place on 6 February 1861, in the Church of San Carlo, Milan. EBB’s poem was later collected in Last Poems (1862).
16. EBB refers to a dispatch from Cavour to Emanuele Taparelli d’Azeglio, Italian minister to Great Britain, dated 16 March 1861. It was a response to a dispatch of 21 January from Lord John Russell to James Hudson, the British minister at Turin. Doubtless, what riled EBB was the reference Cavour made to Russell’s assessment of the various Italian plebiscites on annexation that had taken place in October and November 1860 (see letter 4764, note 1). “Towards the end of the month of January her Britannic Majesty’s Minister at Turin communicated to me Lord John Russell’s despatch ... in this despatch the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, attributing little value to the vote by universal suffrage given at Naples, in Sicily, in Umbria, and in the Marches, determines to reserve the examination of the questions raised by the political transformation of Italy till the genuine intentions of the Italian nation can be manifested in a regular and solemn manner by the legitimate representatives assembled in a freely elected parliament” (The Daily News, 20 April 1861, p. 5). Russell’s dispatch read, in part, “that he did not take any official notice of the decrees annexing … Naples” etc. “because the votes by universal suffrage … appeared to her Majesty’s Government to have little validity. These votes … did not in themselves imply any independent exercise of the will of the nation” (Annals of British Legislation, 1863, XII, 413).
17. We have been unable to confirm that Lord John Russell made such a statement.
18. At the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), Poland had been divided among Austria, Prussia, and Russia. The area of Poland under Russian control, known as the Congress Kingdom, had revolted thirty years earlier without success. Recently, the Poles had begun calling for reforms and greater autonomy. A demonstration in Warsaw on 27 February 1861 led to a massacre of the participants by Russian troops. Another demonstration in the same city ended similarly on 6 April. As reported in The Times of 17 April, unarmed men, women, and children were “shot down like dogs” (p. 9). It is unclear, however, whether EBB refers to these incidents or to the unrest in Posen (annexed to Prussia in 1815) and Galicia (annexed to Austria in 1815); see note 20 below.
19. Macbeth, III, 4, 109.
20. An article on the Schleswig-Holstein question, appearing in The Saturday Review for 6 April 1861, contained the following: “On a sudden a new agitation, not unconnected with foreign intrigues, has arisen among the Polish inhabitants of Posen and Galicia. Alexander II., while he imitates his uncle and namesake in his conciliatory policy towards his subjects in the kingdom of Poland, has not forgotten the scheme for reuniting the ancient monarchy which was defeated by Castlereagh and Metternich at Vienna. In 1815 France was either powerless or hostile to Russia, but Napoleon III. would see with pleasure the beginning of an interminable quarrel between the great Northern Empire and the principal German Powers” (p. 331).
21. A reference to the confrontation that took place between Garibaldi and Cavour on 18 April 1861 in the Chamber of Deputies. Although the new Italian Parliament had been in session for two months, Garibaldi, an elected deputy, did not take his seat until debate began over the reordering of his volunteer forces. His own plan called for the formation of a national guard separate from the regular army. While proposing this plan to the chamber, he “launched into a passionate denunciation of Cavour. After general charges that Cavour had hindered the sailing of the Thousand and had only accepted the idea of Italian unity at the last minute, Garibaldi was carried away by his anger about the cession of Nice and Savoy and the government’s treatment of the volunteers … and he accused the government of having checked the Garibaldians’ successes with its ‘cold and hostile hand’ and of having been ready to provoke ‘a fratricidal war.’ The chamber was in an uproar after these startling accusations, which Cavour indignantly refuted. ‘It is not permissible that he should insult us in this fashion,’ said Cavour. … But Garibaldi repeated his charges, and Rattazzi suspended the session to allow tempers to cool down” (Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, pp. 267–268).
22. Nino Bixio (1821–73) had fought against the Austrians in 1848 and joined Garibaldi’s troops in 1859. He was elected as a deputy from Genoa to the first Italian parliament in 1861.
23. Naples sous Garibaldi (1860) by Louise Colet (née Revoil, 1810–76). Her Lui was published in 1859 (see letter 4694, note 4).
___________________
