4889. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 108–112.
[Rome]
[ca. 9 May 1861] [1]
Ever dearest Isa, yes .. “aspiration!” [2] yes .. “impulse of life” [3] —but also, things done, felt, said—but also the capability of doing, feeling, saying.
Dearest Isa, I have read your book, and though Robert insisted on my not writing till he was ready to speak, & I obeyed him yesterday .. a whole day .. today, he is out, and I escape from under the conjugal thumb into my proper individuality. Let me tell you while I am on Robert, that I doubt any degree of love & sympathy for you carrying him through your volumes in a week. Since taking to clay, he has quite forgotten how to read– To my knowledge he has read one book this winter, and had to be jogged at the elbow to get done with it– Therefore, though interested in you & your book, when I see his mark in half the first volume, I really am not going to admit of an alliance in a first letter of congratulation– I shall be ready to join him in another letter before he writes his first– “Congratulation”, you see, Isa, I say– I thought I knew you pretty well– I certainly knew that there was a great deal in you– Therefore I should begin by congratulating myself and you, & by confessing that your book has exceeded my expectation & hope by very far– It is a book of no common mind nor merit—it has many fine thoughts & images, vivid & poetical descriptions of scenery, and a style which sometimes rises into eloquence, & requires only a little unsexing from occasional looseness & incorrectness to be an excellent, elevated manly, distinct & straightforward style—a qualification by no means ordinary in women’s books, .. or men’s. Then you have ideas, imagination—. To speak for myself, the book drew me on. I congratulate you entirely. There is stuff in you, and the time given to manufacture will not be thrown away. Only let me tell you, my Isa, time and work are necessary with you as with the rest of us; and you must choose between your vocations– To give “two or three days a week” to tending poor houses or hospitals, & the rest to literature, offers the advantage of a selection of impotencies– Be sure that an artist’s life is a hard life enough, if a true artist’s at all. The longest life and the most concentrated energy are scarcely long & strong enough for art, & almost too laborious for the artist– Any combination with other metiers is apt to be fatal. You must choose– If you consider yourself rather qualified by nature for the active, physical part, take it—but never deceive yourself into imagining that you can lead two lives– I consider that the amount of good done by a writer of just & elevated views, expressed in works of imagination, to be infinitely greater, & of a higher kind, & wider influence— .. Why you dont doubt that? you cant! Only there’s a superstition about the superior virtue of stirring up gruel with one’s own hand– The act seems to have a special value for certain consciences. Well—I would not argue the point. Only, let no one think to combine the parts of sister of charity and artist-teacher—whoever does, weakens the book & spoils the gruel–
To go back to this book—it is a first book, & has the signs of one, of course. The curious thing is, that the Globe critic is perfectly right, and that its very faults remind one of Hawthorne– [4] There is more construction of story .. (which you have a power in) .. but not more dove-tailing in of the parts & accessories. Now, precisely because the essential story of your book is improbable, you should have been assiduous in making the accessories & details probable—and the fact is, you are not particular about it at all .. just as Hawthorne is not .. precisely as Hawthorne is not.
That is curious, and establishes a likeness of mind between you at once. Then, Hawthorne’s story does not develop out of his characters, as a story ought by rights to do—and in you also, the vital current between the events and the persons is not satisfactorily established—which makes your difficulty in dialogue, dont you see– What everybody says is excellent,—but they all are apt to speak as anybody would speak, & not after individual characteristics. Observe, my Isa, I criticise you in rudeness & frankness, because I love you enough for that, and because also your talents can bear it– I look forward to books from you far above this book– I feel that you can produce them– Therefore you should see plainly whatever any of us poor bystanders can see, with our fresh eyes, of what is wanting in your work already produced. Your minor impro[ba]bilities you should condescend to care for– Now for instance, I think that Millicent [5] would have proved her astuteness (she was an astute person) by simply mentioning the fact of Tremorne’s [6] being in her house, when she wrote to Wentworth, [7] doubting how to draw him—instead of saying that she had something to tell him. An astute Millicent would have known that the vague letter she wrote would never have drawn a Wentworth. The objection to her naming Tremorne was the wrong turn it would have given to your story.
Then that first stabbin<g> of Wentworth, goes for nothing at all. He faints, is almost killed—but the next morning is as well as ever, & ignores in body & soul the whole tragedy of it. The evil only shows the sympathetic mesmeric agony of Imogene [8] —who, by the way, when Wentworth is really killed, seems perfectly unaware & untroubled–
Then while I get over & accept the major improbability & “impropriety” of the mesmeric influence & mistaken personality, I stumble at the <majo>r improbable impropriety, of Agnes’s [9] “ceasing to be so much with Imogene” because of Tremorne’s intervention. Why, for that very reason, Agnes would never have left Imogene. Think of a woman like Agnes, leaving her young sister with a man for one moment, under such peculiar circumstances, without her own special presence! Mary [10] was by no means a chaperone equal to the contingency!–
I put my hand into my memory & bring out “samples” of the things I mean.
And when all’s said, with what joy I feel that I can hold this book in my hand & think of you in relation to it, and feel that there may be a very brilliant future before you– Take heart, & take hope my Isa– You will not only do good things, but much good in doing them. What I have not spoken of, but felt throughout the book, was the elevation of thought & sentiment everywhere—you breathe freely from end to end.
Which .. will you do, through this letter? Surely nothing but much love could excuse so much impertinence–
I have heard Robert grumbling to himself something like … “Really superior to what I imagined …” something like that– I tell you it, lest you should consider gloomily any delay; and he is so out of the habit of reading now that certainly he must stick a little at words of three syllables. Even Framley he had to be dragged to, not to keep Mrs Dicey’s Cornhill for an unreasonable time.
I hope Annette will read faster, when her turn comes—because we want to send ‘Agnes’ bowling through Rome.
Penini has received a card from the Duchesse de Grammont (French ambassadress, you know) for a matinée d’enfants [11] today .. which is to be very splendid people say .. May-pole in the garden, and ball in the house,—& everybody there of all ages– Robert takes Pen at two,—& Annunziata & I have been preparing a costume worthy of the occasion.
Mr Powers surprised us by a visit yesterday. [12] He had not yet been to the Vatican. He told us of your last reception, praising your “modesty” in view of your literary success—named your guests, specified G. which rather alarmed me .. (lest the calmness of judgement necessary for reading “Agnes” shd be disturbed) & Robert’s fur was rubbed at once the wrong way at the thought of somebody in Villa B. on the old terms!– I maintained of course that it would have been a serious ‘mancamento’ [13] in good sense & dignity on your part, if you did not receive him as usual before the public– You see Robert has no tolerance for G. & would gladly kick him—which would be a pity. Robert can tolerate crimes, and the weakness which leads to crimes—but the weakness compatible with respectability & moral decency of any kind, is not merely crime in his eyes, but the unpardonable crime itself. Oh—no harm was done. Dont fancy that–
Mr Powers said some agreeable things of poor Mrs Kinney– [14] It appears that that coarse Trotman goes about calling men & angels to witness that “he gives no opinion”!!– Powers candidly observed, that he & his wife had known a woman past sixty (whose husband was seventy) who had a baby, & called his name Isaac: [15] it would be the right name for the Ks’s. Oh—our tender, tender friends!—how tender they are to us–
Dont let this pass from me to anyone beyond you, Isa–
Have I too been a tender friend in my way– Well, really,—I have not praised the book according to my feeling for it, I do believe– I delight in certain passages—observations, descriptions, images—and I look forward, over the shoulders of this book, to the next book coming.
May God bless you—and the work of your life whatever it is–
Love me a little, dear—dearest Isa– Much do I love you.
Ba–
What a struggling struggling letter—written in a net of troubles.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 458–462.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dating suggested by EBB’s reference to Pen’s attendance at a children’s party in the French embassy later the same day and to the visit from Hiram Powers. EBB describes the party in letter 4891. Powers was in Rome the second week in May (see note 12 below).
2. From the review of Agnes Tremorne in The Globe for 15 April 1861; see letter 4883, note 6.
3. We have been unable to trace this quotation.
4. The Globe reviewer stated: “If we were called on to name the writer of whom we were reminded by J. [sic] Blagden, without any suspicion of imitation, Mr. Hawthorne is the one to be so named. In the descriptions of Rome and its environs lovely little paintings arise, worthy to be named near his. Also, the choice of somewhat morbid subjects, of disordered mental and bodily organisation, forms another parallel” (p. 1).
5. In Agnes Tremorne, Millicent Wentworth is Godfrey Wentworth’s cousin and first love.
6. Herbert Tremorne, an Englishman living in Italy, joins the Italian patriots in their struggle against the Austrians in the 1830s. He once loved Agnes but is engaged to marry Imogene. The day before their wedding, Herbert is arrested as a conspirator and sent to Spielberg prison.
7. Godfrey Wentworth, another Englishman, is in Rome to study painting. He tries to discover what happened to his friend Herbert, whom he resembles in appearance.
8. Imogene Tremorne lives with her older half-sister, Agnes, in Rome. She becomes mentally distraught upon Herbert’s arrest and is confined to their lodgings in Rome. Godfrey attempts to cure her by mesmerism, but because of his resemblance to Herbert, she mistakes the one man for the other and believes her fiancé has returned to her.
9. Agnes Tremorne is an English artist working in Rome. She supports herself and Imogene through her art and her teaching.
10. Mary is Imogene’s English nurse.
11. “Afternoon party for children.”
12. Powers, who seldom left Florence, was in Rome during the second week of May 1861. It was only the third time he had visited the city in a fifteen-year period, not wishing to be separated from his family for an extended length of time (see Richard P. Wunder, Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor, 1805–1873, 1991, I, 312).
13. “Failing.”
14. Mrs. Kinney believed she was pregnant; see letter 4867, note 18.
15. The son God promised to Sarah and Abraham in their old age; see Genesis 17:15–22.
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