4894. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 123–125.
Rome,
May 13. ’61.
Dearest Isa,
You bade me, once on a time, never read your book—having done so, for all that, & being happy enough to like a great deal in it, I shall tell you so, & trust for your pardon. I do like (if you care to know as much) the good, high feeling which it is full of; the poeticalness of the air you breathe in,—for I see you in it all, what you approve, what you disapprove, and entirely agree with you: where the characters split off from your own, I can however cordially praise you for much observation of character & picking up of “petits faits vrais” [1] which the other gleaners in the same field have overlooked,—the models & their families are capitally touched in: above all, I enjoy the sincere understanding of Rome which is obvious every where, and that without fuss and setting to work at picture making: how well you have kept the plan of the old place in your head– I walk with the people from one street to another square, and see many things by the way which you don’t expressly set down,—all thro’ your honest knowledge of what you write about. Another good thing,—you have really written well and sustainedly,—musical as well as passionate periods, not a few: and let me say, the loosenesses of idiom and mistakes in the properties of words are nothing extraordinary—not worse than,—nor so bad as,—those in some of Trollope’s books—the “West Indies” [2] for instance, which exceeds in slovenliness any clever man’s production within my experience: these slips let you alone, by the bye, in “Framley Parsonage”, and begin to bother you again in the first number of “Orley Farm”,—whence I conclude that Thackeray will have “English spoken” where he rules the roast. The story, I cannot believe in for a moment—it is impossible in more ways than one: nobody was ever so like anybody else as to be mistaken for him by a friend, much less a lover—even two potatoes are unlike,—but two men, Isa! Then, make your two men alike, and you put one of them at once in precisely the position wherein the truth would be shown at once,—subject him to the scrutiny of a “clairvoyant,” supposed by a certain order of intelligences to see thro’ millstones, into the end of next week, round the corner as Irish guns shoot,—in fact to see everything—and certainly that Godfrey is not Herbert: over & above this, you have the moral impossibility of a woman being satisfied with nothing at all after the last demonstration of love which she had experienced—love proceeds sky rocket fashion and rises till it drops—whereas the good Double of Herbert, so far from rising an inch, must have been hard put to it (virtuous man!) in barely keeping at the elevation whereon Herbert’s labors had given him a right to settle itself—and which must have been pretty high, judging from the general pitch of manners throughout the novel (the people kiss hands, squeeze them gently in grateful recognition of the excellence of the first act of a play,—& so on.) There might have been or made a curious study, if worth while, of the case of a diseased somnabule, half-deceived, half suspecting deception, “checking” perpetually her experiences, one sort by another, the sleeping by the waking ones—but disease is best let alone. I don’t believe, neither, in the adoring & stabbing Italians—even Mazzinianism could not keep itself alive with such crazy instruments, who stick you because you kicked a stone with your foot! [3] —to be sure, the sticking seems only to call for sticking-plaster, in Godfrey’s case—(or perhaps, “Godfrey’s cordial.” [4] ) Still the noticeable thing remains that you have gone steadily on with this story to its natural end, treating it artistically, not turning to the left or the right, and subordinating all else to its developement, tho’ the temptation to diverge into episodic pictures must be strong enough—whence I am sure that you can really book-make, construct and complete a story, and next time I think there is every chance of your doing so with entire success. I have been very happy in connecting you with this first performance—which does you great credit,—next time, you shall teach me if you please how to do all I would fain do. I have not remarked on the clevernesses, nor picturesquenesses, nor minor successes,—why should they surprise me in you? And I don’t dwell upon little oversights, neither—such as making Laura [5] send a letter, written for the purpose of protesting herself a goose in artistic knowledge & feeling, by advancing an opinion (of Madlle de Fauveau’s) on a picture at Siena which she could not entertain and still be a goose—confining an Englishman at Spielberg, [6] —& a few more.
There, my Isa! Go on & prosper—always with the truest good wishes of yours affectionately
R Browning.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 465–466.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. “Little commonplaces.”
2. The West Indies and the Spanish Main (1859).
3. While out walking, Godfrey wanders into the Coliseum and accidentally kicks a stone that opens a secret hiding place of the Italian conspirators, causing one of them to stab him.
4. Godfrey’s Cordial was one of the many “proprietary brand” names used for a preparation of laudanum sold in the nineteenth century. This particular mix “contained opium, treacle, water, and spices” (Anthony S. Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian England, 1983, p. 34).
5. Laura Carmichael, one of Agnes’s students, engages in discussions of art with Agnes and her aunt May.
6. Infamous prison at Brünn (now Brno, Czech Republic), where the Austrian Empire sent its political enemies.
___________________
