5013. RB to William Wetmore Story & Emelyn Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 23-27.
1. Chichester Road, Upper Westbourne Terrace
Jan. 21. ’62.
Dearest Friends,
I wrote two hurried letters to you, weeks ago, [1] about the American letter [2] —& meant to say something more leisurely at the first opportunity—which is now, & not earlier, you shall hear why. A fortnight ago Pen was attacked with what they supposed would be small-pox: after a day or two of anxiety enough the ailment proved nothing but chicken pox—kept him a week in bed, another week in the house, & finally has dismissed him as it found him: “had there been any encouragement in the system it would certainly have gone on to small-pox” says the doctor, & I take my comfort out of that: really believing we have got off very fortunately. Peni took up lessons again yesterday—is out in the snow just now—& I at last write the word or two which your kindness will take as if they were worthier. First, I am very glad that, on the whole, the matter of the “Letter” may be pronounced successful thro’ Dicey’s energy and opportunities: it would have been better could the supervision have been given to Mr Adams as you wished, but the great point was to secure such an advantage as the columns of the “Daily News”—a first-class paper—and you understand that, no doubt. I don’t remember whether I told you my own poor opinion of the extreme cleverness of the exposition of the question: the Trent affair was necessarily less complete in its handling than we should have found it had you been nearer the law-books. Of my heartfelt delight in the issue of that thing, why try & speak? Don’t mind the mean, vindictive “Times”—everyone here understands the difficulties that have had to be overcome, and thinks the reparation complete & handsome too: [3] the purpose of the North is also understood at last—and if the event of the struggle seems less certain here, than to your politicians, there is no longer the notion that “slavery had nothing to do with it”: the “Commissaries” [4] will be received with the contempt they deserve, and the antecedents of both gentlemen are kept profitably in mind here. On the other hand, this blocking up Charleston seems inconsistent with any hope of eventual success on your side [5] —for what will you do if Charleston becomes loyal again? There may be better reasons for such a step than we can see—let us hope so. Dicey will be a good interpreter, at least, of Northern intentions & accomplishments: he is gone, you know,—for some months: I gave him a few letters [6] —you, however, will do whatever he wants in that way, & as hardly anybody else can. I am heartily glad he goes.
Of myself—so little to say,—my life is as grey (or yellow) as this sky, one snow-bank above head at this minute. I make up my mind from week to week, next Monday, I will begin & call on my friends—but this fortnight of anxiety was a real excuse,—next week, I still say. I see hardly anybody, but mean, I assure you, to alter all that for abundance of reasons. I have got, besides, a Tutor to my mind [7] —rather than to Pen’s perhaps—but he is sound to the core in grammatical niceties and will put the essentials of scholarship into the said Pen’s head, I think: a grave taciturn indefatigable man, who returns to the charge with his gerunds & supines, till the miracle is accomplished: not such pleasant teaching as the dear Abbé’s, but Pen is growing fast in every way and wants to understand serious work: his behaviour is very satisfactory,—he gets good habits of attention & diligence daily—& continues as childlike and docile as before,—rather grows more so. I have a very good German Music Master,—who will be of great use,—learns German, Drawing, Dancing & other matters, [8] as much as he can properly bear. I cannot but think that such an education pursued for three or four years will send him to the University in better plight than if he threw up all study but that of Latin & Greek for the same time, plus Eton manners good & bad. I shall go on thus, at all events, for another year. I am convinced that our method was, in this case, the right one: of generally enlarging the knowledge first of all, by the introduction of various studies, however imperfectly apprehended—and then going back to re-learn, and more exactly, what was superficially gained at first. And so I make myself somewhat more quiet upon what gave me a deal of trouble and anxiety at the beginning.
And for me,—my end of life, & particular reward for myself will be—one day—years hence—to just go back to Italy—to Rome—& die as I lived, when I used really to live. If you knew .. but you do know, can conceive how precious every mud-splash on the house walls of Rome is: how every minute of those last six months in Rome would melt up into gold enough for a year’s use now, if I had it! But I have not, & must think of something else,—as, that you at least are there, where you were, as you were. But come here, all the same, for you can go back, you know. Surely you will all come,—will you not, for the Exposition [9] —which (I told you truly in my last note) [10] is to go on just as it was intended: let me know what you do intend—& how far advanced is the Sibyl. And, dear Mrs Story, do you please write me more of those letters that I was so delighted to have, and that stop of a sudden: why?– I will try and make some sort of return in my lame way, by repeating to you all the news that occurs when I go my rounds and see people you know—whose very letters are in a pile here, unanswered, but not always to remain so (observed for the hundredth time[)]. You may know—what I have left out in my account of the daily work,—that I have been painfully engaged with the Printers, and am not yet absolutely out of their hands: the book, advertised long ago by the publisher, [11] will not appear for a month at least. I shall send it to you the first thing– (Since writing this paragraph, arrives an invitation from Miss Wynn [12] to dine and meet Mr Maurice [13] only,—& I have accepted it—as I said I would.) There is a note from Pen to go with this—if Edie knew how happy her letters make him—& I should be ungrateful indeed not to add—& me also—she would give us more & more: how does the music proceed,—including the singing,—that is not abandoned, I hope. I have just written to Cartwright [14] —for the first time since I was here! very black it looks when actually put on paper. Dear Story, tell me what you can about the studio—let me smell the wet clay once more, and hear the birds & the goat thro’ that dear little door to the left: I would send my kind remembrances to Mr Boncinelli [15] —if he cared to have them, & he may, in his good nature. Have you to do still with that clever Lombard artist? [16] Probably not—but as for your being idle, I don’t believe it. By the bye—Mrs Cholmeley [17] wrote the other day, and mentioned the death of poor Gajassi: [18] if there is a sale of his effects, and the cast of Byron’s head, by Thorwaldsen, [19] (with his “points” on it) [20] is to be sold for what you consider a moderate price, I should be glad to have it—supposing that there is no trouble to you, & that Boncinelli attends such sales as of old—keep it in your studio “till I come.”
I want you to tell the many & true friends I have in Rome—& elsewhere when you write to them, how they are all like portraits in the one habitable room of a house– I go in among them many a time in the course of the day & night. The Bruens & Perkins—whose kind & dear letters to me are still unacknowledged, but not forgotten, any more than the photographs which are theirs by every right: I have only just succeeded in getting impressions in Paris from the plate [21] —which is found to be in perfect condition—I shall supply all friends therefore.
And now—good bye: if you knew how the minutest news of your daily life interest me, you would register every chip that is picked up on the carpet. How is Wilde? I have his picture of Peni facing me [22] —give him my true love. But you need no telling how I think of old friends. How is the weather with you– Here, singularly mild & fine days till a few touches of frost & snow surprized us—the thaw is even now beginning. —It is clear that Pen needs fear nothing—he never was better, or freer from cough. How are Edie’s headaches? And Story’s general health continues as well as when you last wrote? Don’t forget to remember me most kindly & particularly to Mrs Dicey [23] —to Lady William—(how is she,—the accident had just happened, & I have heard nothing, of course, since your letter.) [24] There is no protracting this final shaking of hands—in decency I must leave off– Pen’s truest love to you all—with that of
Yours affectionately ever
Robert Browning.
Publication: BAF, pp. 93–98.
Manuscript: Keats-Shelley Memorial Association.
1. Letters 4997 and 5001.
2. As indicated below, RB refers to Story’s essay that was published in The Daily News the previous month (see letter 4997, note 1).
3. The “reparation” consisted of the release of the Confederate emissaries, Mason and Slidell, who had been taken off the Trent (see letter 4997, note 3) and an admission by the United States that Great Britain was entitled to the prisoners in one narrow legal sense only. There was no public apology. See Gordon H. Warren, Fountain of Discontent: The Trent Affair and Freedom of the Seas (Boston, 1981), p. 183.
4. James Mason (1798–1871), U.S. senator from Virginia (1847–61) and John Slidell (1793–1871), U.S. senator from Louisiana (1853–71).
5. The Union navy blockaded, ineffectually, the port of Charleston, South Carolina, soon after the start of the American Civil War. In an effort to foil Confederate blockade runners, 16 Union ships—retired whalers loaded with granite stones—were sunk in one of the main channels of Charleston harbor on 19 and 20 December 1861. The Times of 10 January 1862 (p. 7) reported the sinking of the “disabled whalers,” and the next day’s issue carried an editorial protesting “this violation of all the laws of war … No belligerent has a right to destroy the great features of nature, to choke up the avenues by which populations communicate with the world without, and to deprive the mariner for ages of refuge from the perils of the sea” (The Times, 11 January 1862, p. 6).
6. Letters 5007, 5008, and 5009.
7. George Knox Gillespie (1801–74), Irish-born classical scholar, was Pen’s tutor in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics until October 1867. He is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4) at 12 Prebend Street, Camden Town.
8. We have identified five tutors for Pen during this period: Gillespie (see note 7 above); Leopold Noa (1826–97) for German; Jane Browning Smith for drawing (see letter 4994, note 3); Theodore A. Lemaître (1812–86) for French; and Giovanni Toscani (d. 1876, aged 42), for Italian.
9. i.e., the International Exhibition of 1862, to which Story sent his “Cleopatra” and “The Libyan Sibyl.”
11. In The Athenæum of 19 October 1861, Chapman and Hall ran the following advertisement: “In the Press / A New Volume of Poems, / By Elizabeth Barrett Browning” (no. 1773, p. 519). The advertisement also ran in The Saturday Review of the same day (p. 419). Apparently, the title, Last Poems, was still to be determined.
12. Charlotte Williams Wynn (1807–69); see letter 2982, note 14. She is listed in AB-4 at 43 Green Street, Park Lane.
13. Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–72); see letter 3428, note 7.
14. RB’s letter has not surfaced.
15. Jan M. Seidler identifies him as “Pietro Boncinelli (also spelled Bonicelli). By 1861, Story was describing Boncinelli as his ‘head man’ [in the studio]. … Another reference … in Story’s correspondence indicates that he was a trusted enough associate to keep the family’s household keys when Story was absent from Rome” (“A Critical Reappraisal of the Career of William Wetmore Story (1819–1895), American Sculptor and Man of Letters,” Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1985, p. 197).
16. Possibly Giovanni Battista Lombardi (1822–80), Italian sculptor, born in Brescia, Lombardy, who had a studio in Rome.
17. Isabel Charlotte Cholmeley (b. 1830); see letter 4838, note 8.
18. Vincenzo Gajassi (1811–1861), Roman sculptor and engraver, died in Rome on 20 October. He is listed in AB-4 at 1 Piazza della Tribuna di San Carlo.
19. Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), Danish neo-classical sculptor and pre-eminent artist of his time, made a bust of Lord Byron at Rome in 1817. Evidently, RB did not acquire a cast of the head.
20. “Points” (i.e., marks or pins of some kind) facilitate the reproduction of a plaster or clay sculpture in marble when used in conjunction with a pointing machine.
22. This portrait of Pen on his pony by Hamilton Gibbs Wild (1827–84) is reproduced in vol. 26, facing p. 305.
23. Anne Mary Dicey (née Stephen, 1796–1878).
24. On 11 December 1861 at Rome, Lady William Russell (see letter 4330, note 4) was “knocked down by a carriage in the Piazza di Spagna & suffered a dislocation of the hip … I fear she will never get the use of her leg again … But she is better now” (W.W. Story to C.E. Norton, 10 February 1862, ms at Harvard).
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