5111. RB to William Wetmore Story & Emelyn Story
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 122–124.
Chez M. le Maire de Ste Marie,
près Pornic, Loire Inférieure.
Sepr 13 [1862] [1]
Dearest Friends,
I have no more than a word to say, but you will take that of me with your old goodness: the letter of Aug: 28th arrived safely—you must let me hear once more of you before we leave this place—which will be very soon now—unless the fine weather should be prolonged extraordinarily: our arrangements are for going on the 24th Pen seems to enjoy himself so much—& the daily swimming must be so good for him, that I should decide for another week—but we must stop a few days in Paris: at any rate we hope (I hope, at least) to be in London a few days after the beginning of October, & shall we not find you there? Indeed it cannot well be otherwise—& what a comfort to look forward to,—never mind the pain after it all! I never much expected you would be able to do as you wished (I know) & pass a few days with us here—it was too hard, indeed impossible. Our early time was made sad indeed by the sudden illness & death of our hostess, the Mayor’s wife [2] —a young woman leaving four little children—& the husband who feels her loss. [3] But things go on as usual now—three weeks since then. I did not mean to give you the notion that this place at all resembled Dieppe: the country is solitary & bare enough—but the sea is every where & the land harmonises entirely with it: I like the long walks by the sea & complete loneliness: at Pornic, gaiety enough,—but it does not reach us. Mrs Bracken strolls with us of an evening—the two boys fish & divert themselves. I brought some old books with me, & read odd things in Latin & antique French: let me remember that I made a note for William of a passage about the Evil Eye in Cap: IV. Lib. IX. Auli Gellii Noctium Atticarum in which, quoting from Plinius Secundus, [4] he says that those in Africa who have such an eye possess a double pupil to it—a ghastly circumstance! [5] In another crazy old Latin Joke-book I came upon the “Piper of Hamelin,” done into verse, by one Lucas Lossius [6] —who has simply left out the whole story of the rats—and only mentions the spiriting away of the children as a singular instance of the devil’s power: he makes him a bag-piper moreover. Now, how about the purchaser of the statues? [7] Do tell me. I am very glad the Book is in hand. [8] If you write at once, I shall get your letter, & a great delight, here—but if you cannot manage it,—direct to 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St Germain– I am really anxious to know & hear. Pen’s true love with mine to you all– My father & sister’s kind regards—& my complete stupidity—all go together from
yours ever affectionately
RB.
Publication: BAF, pp. 109–111.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Year provided by RB’s reference to the death of the mayor’s wife, which he also mentions in letter 5112.
2. Adèle Laraison (née Hardy, 1820–62), who married René Laraison in 1851. The couple had 6 children, four of whom were alive at her death: Eugénie (b. 1854), Auguste Antoine (1856–1949), Delphine (b. 1857), and Valérie (b. 1859).
3. In a letter to Joseph Milsand, dated 3 September, Sarianna writes: “The poor Maire looks very wretched, but says nothing,—it was sad to hear the youngest little child crying for its mother—too young to understand why she did not come, and getting very fretful and cross– Pen was very kind in playing with her and trying to amuse her,—and Robt. dispatched me off to Pornic for a cargo of toys to give to the poor little things who had never seen a toy in their lives, and must have thought the gigantic dolls I brought them, miracles of beauty” (see SD2600).
4. A passage on the “Evil Eye” occurs in Pliny the Elder, Natural History, VII, 16–17, trans. H. Rackham.
5. “In those same books I ran upon this statement too, which I later read also in the seventh book of the Natural History of Plinius Secundus, that in the land of Africa there are families of persons who work spells by voice and tongue … That with the eyes too a deadly spell is cast … and it is said that there are persons among the Illyrians who by their gaze kill those at whom they have looked for some time in anger; and that those persons themselves … have two pupils in each eye” (Aulus Gellius, The Attic Nights, IX, 4, 7–9, trans. John C. Rolfe). The version RB took with him to Pornic may have been Noctium Atticarum (2 vols., Biponti [Zweibrücken], 1784), inscribed by EBB “Elizabeth B. Barrett e libris,” which sold as lot 701 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1028).
6. Lucas Lossius (1508–82), German music theorist and hymnist. The “Latin Joke-book” is Jocorum atque Seriorum by Otto Melander (1571–1640), a copy of which in Trinity Library, Cambridge, is dated [1595]. Many editions followed with varying titles. Years later RB wrote that he owned the last two volumes of a three-volume edition, and that “Jocoseria” appeared as a running title, though it differed from the title-page (see letter to F.J. Furnivall, 4 February 1883, ms at Huntington). RB would borrow that title for his own 1883 work. In a 1626 edition of Melander’s book (3 vols., Frankfurt), Lossius’s poem appears as item CXLIV, the first line being: “Hameliæ in ripis jacet urbs celebrata Visurgis” (III, 152).
7. According to Jan M. Seidler, the “purchaser” of Story’s “Cleopatra” and “The Libyan Sibyl” was Charles Morrison (1817–1909), of Basildon Park, Berkshire, where the statues remained until 1978 when they were sold at auction. “Cleopatra” is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; “The Libyan Sibyl,” in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (see “A Critical Reappraisal of the Career of William Wetmore Story (1819–1895), American Sculptor and Man of Letters,” Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1985, pp. 528 and 562–563). As for the price paid for them, RB later tells Isa Blagden in letter 5135: “Story sold his statues, I am told (not by him) for £2400.”
8. Roba di Roma (2 vols., 1863), published by Chapman and Hall the following January. Story incorporated the passage from Gellius (see note 5 above) in volume two, p. 270.
___________________
