4911. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 153–156.
Casa Guidi–
June 15– [1861] [1]
My precious Arabel, I read your letter with a pang because I see that my last will have really disappointed you– Ah dearest, dearest; love me though I give you nothing but pain. And after all, see .. the worst is, that you will be driven to come & find me out in my Italian hole, because I feel in my heart you wont be able to wait till next spring. Interlacken would be as far for you—a great deal too far for the Brownings—and for us, I suppose– Only I can assure you I am getting up again in a summer sort of way,—so that it would be simply ridiculous of you or anybody to spend a thought and a half on me. I look better every day. Still … you mention Cavour. That death has trampled a great deal of life out of me– It has been profoundly saddening– It is a loss which nothing can repay– We have heroic souls here, but no capacious & flexible genius added to the mighty heart & passionate energy which together made that man. He was the angel of Italy—but God can save without angels. The Italians are behaving admirably—& I hope & trust that Ricasoli will be supported well. [2] You are quite mistaken about France. The present Legislative assembly is reactionary, & the Senate little better– You never understood in England that the emperor’s difficulty with regard to Italy was in having to struggle with the whole of the French clerical party and a union of Legitimist and Orleanistic parties who have been moving heaven & earth (not to say what’s lower) to strike at the Napoleons through Italy. Now the clerical party is strong in the assemblies– The elections took place some years since under a special panic of the destruction of ‘order’– The emperor is supported as such, but his liberal policy is resisted as far as can be– I assure you the assassination of him is talked of quite coolly at Rome in the priestly French party, as something becoming highly necessary. There is an intention to appeal to the country soon for a new assembly,—and naming our Cavour in the old one would have given rise to a storm of insult … of course. The feeling in the people of France is very different– You dont see the French papers– The strongest, most passionate regrets are expressed everywhere—& among the government papers not least strongly. Such ultramontane papers as Le Monde, & the anti-Napoleonic journals are alone in another sense– The Emperor sent five telegrams in one day to Turin, and his own physician, Dr Conneau [3] .. too late! It looked like regard & anxiety .. did it not? In fact Cavour & he understood one another as to European politics generally, & he lost his left arm in losing Cavour–. The Hungarian journals say .. “There were only two men, who stood supporting the edifice— Cavour is gone—& now what will Napoleon the third do?”– [4] Cavour died recommending a strictness of the French alliance, with his last breath– Garibaldi’s reproach to him was always that he was over-French. Next to Italy, & Hungary perhaps, Napoleon has lost most. In fact, Cavour was the statesman of the future—the man who disdained the ruts of the old traditions, & walked onwards in a free soul– That was the great difference between him and all your small Lord Johns.
I have had a letter from Matteucci [5] (he is at Turin—Senator &c) in which he tells me that what I had written in tears he had read weeping– He is very despondent– But he is not of a hopeful temperament, & I am– We shall hold on to the programme—& at worst die with it between our teeth.
Garibaldi did something towards killing this great Genius, by that scene in the Chambers. [6] Cavour restrained himself, but with a price– It is not generally known—but he fainted in the passage .. when he left the chamber in order to recover his self-command. Then the incessant work & anxiety had told .. & I fear, I fear, that the bleeding was fatal– Not typhus,—but Gastric typhoid– [7] The same, Peni had at Lucca—the common affection here. They dont bleed for it here in Tuscany however–
I am glad you have corrected me, beloved, about the governess, as I thought rather bitterly over my foolish fancies– [8]
As to dear Mr Stratten … dont mistake about me so as to be uneasy without a reason, in my fashion. There’s nothing new—but certainly & for a long time past I should be considered “heretical” by orthodox people, as I have told you again & again. For years I never go into church or chapel without protesting in my mind against one half of what is taught .. I hope I dont give up “foundations” .. essential truths .. but I do believe in the development of all vital truth, & that Christianity was not planted as a dead stick, but as a grain of mustard seed to grow & enlarge & thrust out branches.– [9] I believe that the formulas in which the churches (high & low) have wrapt up dogmas, are splitting on all sides, & that those christian teachers who are not inclined to throw up “thirty nine articles” “Presbyterian catechisms,” & Independent & Baptist declarations of faith, in their conventional idioms, not only do not go as fast as the age goes, but will presently stumble greatly– I put all these things together, because they seem to me naturally to rank together. I am not a Swedenborgian, observe—though Swedenborg saw much truth which none of the churches (except where individuals catch a light through) accept—but there is a “growing & expanding light” of truth everywhere, in which, thank God, I do believe hopefully. But the time is one of transition & storm– Many souls will suffer—many lives will wreck on the rocks, before the high shore is reached. Who knows but what dear Mr Stratten is brought out of the chapel routine, that he may look at these subjects from the outside & take in the larger view of what is. I think I myself heard him say what I repeated, of Lady Huntingdon– Ask him, if you doubt– But it is better not perhaps—I have the sincerest reverence for him indeed. See, my Arabel,—just as aunt Jane is ignorant of the wickedness of London, so are you ignorant of these great currents of thought which stream on beyond the walls of the visible tabernacles– Oh—what I said about being “afraid” &c &c, was said half playfully, half lazily, & because “disputations on religion” seem to do nobody any good. I should really have liked much to hear dear Mr Stratten talk quietly, to learn much from him– We all hold (according to the weakness of our hands) to Jesus Christ our God. That’s not Calvinism, nor any other prevalent ism—its christianity in the essential, as I conceive of Christianity–
Just as we heard of our loss here, we heard through the French papers that queen Victoria was ill, & that “foreign physicians” had been called in– This news is repeated day after day—& today it is said that she is not better yet– Meanwhile most curiously, all the English papers we get sight of, including Galignani, are dumb about it—& her movements here & there are mentioned as if she were in full health– Yet I cant help believing that we are informed rightly, & you not at all– How dreadful, if she is insane! [10] Have you heard nothing?—has aunt Jane heard nothing in society?– Probably silence has been recommended to the papers.
Tell me of Amelia. I am anxious about her & for Harry tell them with my dear love. [11]
It is very hot already, & we shall soon have to think of pushing out of Florence into the cooler place– Where, I have never had the heart to think. I should like Siena—but Robert seems tired of it– I am never tired of places I like, & I like Siena very much– I want silence, silence! and this house is very noisy with its whole range of great windows open to the street—its like one wall away– Sometimes we have monks chanting, bells ringing, children screaming, carriages rolling, & an eternal see-saw of a sawyer, [12] all going on at once. At Rome too the noise was tremendous, Napoleon pleasing to have his cases for the Campana collection hammered out under our windows. [13] Silence, I want– Robert may like going to the sea perhaps, as Pen does—who knows? We have not talked– But sea-places are hot here—still I shall make no opposition, when we come to talk, which we have’nt yet. The Italian Kingdom is to be recognized by France directly– [14] That will be the best tribute of the Emperor to the grave of this great Statesman-friend. Also I see, today, that the French Moniteur states that the French government will be “officially represented” at the funeral services– Which is quite right & worthy.
I shall be anxious to hear of you my darling—that you are not overmuch vexed– And then … what? Photographs not come yet– I cut my paper, not to be over-weight– —Yes—precisely so– Too much “plainness of speech.” [15] May God bless you, my beloved. It would be refreshing to hear of the “cold”, if you were out of it. Speak of yourself & love your Ba–
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 539–543.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the death of Cavour.
2. Bettino Ricasoli (1809–80), Baron of Brolio, Italian statesman and patriot, became prime minister of Italy upon Cavour’s death.
4. According to Denis Mack Smith, Napoleon III was “concerned whether ‘without the coachman the horses may bolt and refuse to re-enter their stable’, and he at once broke off his negotiations over the withdrawal of French soldiers from Rome” (Cavour, 1985, p. 273).
5. The last letter EBB wrote may have been an unfinished reply to Carlo Matteucci. Emelyn Story mentions it in a letter to Sarah Blake Shaw: “Her last unfinished letter was to Professor Matteucci & touched upon the Roman Question in a most able & wise manner. … I meant to have taken a copy of her last words to Mat[t]eucci, for B. agreed that I should do so, but at the last it escaped my mind” (See SD2503). There is some question as to whether the letter was meant for the professor. Both Isa Blagden and William Wetmore Story tell correspondents that it was written to Mme. Matteucci (see SD2460 and SD2498). Further, Caroline Marsh, wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, later recorded a conversation with Mme. Matteucci in which she said that “the last letter Mrs Browning ever wrote was to her” (Diary, 22 January 1864, ms at Vermont).
9. An allusion to the parable of the mustard seed; see Matthew 13:31–32, Mark 4:31–32, and Luke 13:18–19.
10. According to the ODNB, the death of Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent (see letter 3591, note 5) on 16 March 1861 led to “a nervous breakdown. … Rumours about the Queen’s health flew about the courts of Europe, and it was with some difficulty that Albert brought her back into her public role to meet the king of Sweden in August.”
12. Many years later, RB recalled that at Casa Guidi “a sawing machine, next door, disturbed them and never ceased. Mrs. Browning said ‘Strange, that the only industrious worker in Florence, never idle, should be our neighbor![’] It proved to be the only machine in town, to which people brought their wood, and as soon as one went, another took his place” (Diary of Daniel Sargent Curtis, 3 November 1889, ms at Marciana).
13. Giovanni Pietro (1808–80), Marchese di Cavelli, had formed a vast collection of antiquities over the previous thirty years, during which time he was the director of a prominent Roman bank. In 1857 he was arrested for financial malfeasance (he had used bank funds for personal acquisitions). His collection was ultimately broken up and sold, the two major buyers being the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, and the Louvre, Paris (see Fiona Greenland, Ruling Culture, Chicago, 2021, pp. 60–62).
15. II Corinthians 3:12.
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