5135. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 154–160.
19. Warwick Crescent, Harrow Road.
Nov. 19. ’62
Dearest Isa,
I did indeed get your little note, and will tell you the truth—I could not answer it, so strangely did it affect me; [1] I was forced to write to my sister that day, and made such a business of it that at last I told her why I could do no better, & so left off. After waiting a day or two, I thought I should do better to wait—even now, I can’t tell you the thrill of pain & pleasure I feel about it: the presence of Her is now habitual to me,—I can have no doubt that it is my greatest comfort to be always remembering her,—the old books & furniture, her chair which is by mine,—all that is a comfort to me—but in this case, it was as if, besides my feeling on my own account the deepest gratification at this act, determined & carried into effect,—I also sympathized with her pride & pleasure. And how must I feel to you, my own dearest of friends, whose work it has been? I know you “Thank God,” as you say, from your very heart, and so do I: all I can say is, I shall love the dust of Florence, the letters which make up its name, every man, woman & child it holds. There—I’ve done.
For that monument, I hope & suppose that you have by this seen the real design which Cottrell carried out: Hatty only saw the general sketch made for my approval—which was afterward elaborated & improved, all the details proceeded into, finished indeed. Leighton has been most dear & zealous in the matter. He told me of the Tablet, its size and appearance—but you of course had been, as usual, my best genius. I shall want you, Isa, to do what you promise: I have the inscription in a letter of Villeri’s—but there may be alterations—at all events I should like to have in your hand writing an exact transcript of the Inscription, line after line, letter for letter, from first to last, just as it stands: [2] I will have it cut in marble and put where I can always see it. [3] Next time you write!
Of course I mean to send you the selection the moment it appears—which it probably may do next week. [4] Early in Spring, I print new poems, a number: then, a new edition of all my old things, corrected: then begin on my murder-case. [5] I shall have no amanuensis however! [6]
Yes, Pen is getting a great help to me: his Tutor [7] said yesterday—“I have never once had an instance of inattention in him” (since our return) “It is a confirmed habit of attention now, and the result is certain.” I do very little with him, and his improvement is noticed by even the servants. [8] People are very kind to him, and if I were to break thro’ my rules, I might give him holidays enough—but he does not desire it,—in fact, he thinks now: he has taken to earnest reading .. of Marryat’s novels! [9] I can hardly get him to lay them down.
I had a note from Annette at last, proposing to call on me with her uncle [10] on a day when I was engaged—so I called on her. She was looking particularly well and pretty and said she was quite well—which I the more rejoiced at, as I had heard a passage from a letter read by Mrs Bracken mentioning that she was so weak as to [be] hardly able to cross the room. We talked out the business, [11] and ended as we began: as I told her, it was the old spirit-rapping reasoning—“I can’t expect you to believe—but if you knew, as I do, the perfect honesty &c” She professed no hope about it, and, depend on it, will never break her heart, whatever happens. If I understand anything by the public news, the worthy is looking out for higher preferment instead of &c. A. talks about the difference of feeling that prevails among catholics, how many of them are liberal & would approve of such a step, what Mrs Davy [12] thinks! & so on—to which I replied that the law, while in force, was the law,—whatever individuals, many or few, might “wish” to the contrary—and that if she had any doubts as to what the law was on the subject,—not might be, nor ought to be,—she could get an opinion from a proper authority just as I could learn what the law allowed or disallowed if I wanted to throw up the lease of my house, because my conscience might suffer me so to do: but she had no inclination to do that—“she would far more grieve at finding him dishonest than at anything else”—I repeat,—spirit-rapping logic. “Can you prove it? No. May I test it? No. Then, why am I to believe it? Don’t. Or, why do you believe it? Because I know the angelic purity of Hume.” We parted good friends, but I don’t expect to be readily called to her counsels in a hurry. She is gone, I believe, to Miss Chapple’s. [13]
Mr Landor is, I hope, hardly to be blamed for what he does. He has been trying hard of late to annoy us all here as much as possible: if he were to be judged by his actions, it would be sad indeed. He wrote to me three days ago that he should die this year [14] —but what folly and falsehood does he not write?– Yes, I heard of Capt. W’s death, [15] —and meeting the other day an acquaintance of the wife’s,—a clever woman,—she informed me that the wife was inconsolable—her affection was intense—never was there such an union—& all that! The very devil does seem to me to have his own way with the heads of all the good people, to make amends for his failing to get their hearts! I let her talk away without comment. [16]
I am very sorry for poor Made Tassinari: I daresay chagrin at the prevalent politics helped to undermine her health: if she cares to take it, give her & her husband my true sympathy in any form you choose. On the other hand, I rejoice to hear of the improvement of Mrs T. Trollope—give them all my kind regard, please.
I saw very little of Hatty in London: the <…> [17] in the materials & make of the things, perhaps, <…> blouse-way! But this change began in Rome <…> dearly, however, dressed or undressed. Miss Cushman, <…> to be got at: I went one night to Sir C. Eastlake’s [18] m<…> Hatty cross from Folkestone with you? Mrs Kemble [19] <…> certainly did; but I told her you would properly have m<…> has my entire sympathy: what do you think? I met Mrs Car<lyle …> “Joseph” [20] was here under a feigned name—I remarked “Don’t let me <…> tempted to get him hanged the next time he set foot in Italy—whereat she <…>-sity & the ignorance of the English—“J” told her long ago he had done all he could to protest the expedition, wrung his hands over G’s folly [21] &c &c whereto I replied, of course, that “J.” was the little boy who had stuck a pin into a horse to get him to move on gently—& now was amazed at his sprunting out right & left & doing no end of damage. Well, last Sunday, being at Chelsea to see Rossetti, who has taken a huge old house there which he is mediævalising, [22] I called at Carlyle’s—when, lo, there was “J.” tete-à tete with Mrs C: I spoke to him in Italian at once, naming him,—his hesitation & replies in English were funny—he had forgotten me & no wonder– I said “I should know you anywhere!”– When he found out who I was he grew cordial—but I would not talk except on general subjects: I always liked him personally, & still believe in his sincerity in the main,—but can hardly keep patience with his folly or madness: he was looking very well, younger than I, and seemed none the worse for his illness at Torquay which was urged last year on the Ital. Government with a view to his return to “die in his native land.”
I am glad the Cottrells are returned safely: all thanks to you for the trouble you have been taking about my missing case [23] —it contains pictures & glasses, and, what’s worse, books & papers and other small matters stowed between: if they could be recovered, I should be very glad: the packer ought to know where he put the cases & how many there were—I was not in a state to do more than tell him what to pack: it may be perdue in some blind corner of the De Fauveaus– One picture in it, makes four smaller ones or parts of it, useless by its loss—but I don’t care a straw except for the papers &c which greatly concern me. It may yet be found.
By the bye, there is another thing which I forgot to mention to Cottrell & which you may tell him, if you please,—the Porter of Casa Guidi has sent to say that he did something or other at & before the sale “e non ha avuto niente”: [24] should it be so, if Cottrell will satisfy him & repay himself at Brini’s I shall be much obliged to him.
What you write about Shelley’s servant is very interesting: [25] I am sadly unsettled in my feelings about Shelley, or rather confirmed in my secret apprehensions, by the recent books [26] <… Hog>g’s since dead): [27] there has been a little book [28] <… Pea>cock (especially) are attacked—how judiciously <…>tance, on certain friendly letters to his first wife <…> was afterwards his second: but they showed their friendliness <…> “sororially” (as Dr Parr called it) [29] with her successor. <…> Lady Audley’s Secret”, by an actress, Miss Braddon [30] —you have <…> not. Mrs Forster has returned quite well—a happy circum<stance …>an expected. He is pretty well, most kind, building a great house [31] <…>ook at such things as at the piled-up luggage in a rail-way station—likely to be swept away in six minutes: yet at this moment there is hammering going on over head,—I am having the old tapestries put up like curtains in the drawing room: [32] there are two large windows & I mean they shall (the tapestries) hang & draw their full length: I find this house very comfortable & shall hope to make it serve my turn till I have done my work here—then I shall go home—not, I think, to establish myself any where, but to wander about the world: meantime, as you say & I thankfully assent to, all goes well with me: I write a good deal & mean to do more. Arabel Barrett has not returned from Wales, nor will, I expect, till Christmas– I avoid calling & going out, and find it more comfortable than at any previous time of the year. I mean to go & see those kind Mackays. Give my kind love ever & always to all friends: if you write to dear Kate Field, true love to her. Story sold his statues, I am told (not by him) for £2400: [33] he had the usual number of quasi-offers & assurances at second hand—so at the end, when delay began to be serious he sold them—rightly, for the consequences of going away with these on hand would have been disastrous; no sooner were they sold, than the half offers grew to whole ones,—it’s so with a picture exposed for sale,—fifty people pass it every day, & when at last somebody really perils five dollars and buys it outright, they each & all discover they had been meaning to do so. Story’s reputation is immense now, & he has only to take care of himself and only do his very best and he will be what he pleases, and, for the matter of that, get what he likes. They started this day week for Paris & Rome. Now good bye, & God bless you, my dearest friend: (by the way, I dined with Matt: Arnold last week,—you know what that reminiscence implies!) [34] I have to see Rossetti & Allingham to-day, they lunch with me—& I must leave off: how I enjoy the certainty of your love, and care for me, and the feel of your dear hand thro’ the distance! I shall see you, you know when, with the bodily eyes—but I am always with you in my thought & memory: I say this, because I feel how inadequate a representation is any such letter as this poor thing of what I ought to express—but that cannot be. Pen’s best love to you, he has just bidden me say. I am so glad your Villa arrangements are satisfactory. Have you got Emilia [35] again? A kind word to her & to Ansano, & the Vetturino: [36] I can’t cram in any more.
Ever yours affectionately–
Robert Browning.
(I venture a Photograph of my Father, taken a month ago—in his 81st year.) [37]
Publication: DI, pp. 133–141.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This note has not surfaced, but it undoubtedly announced the placement of EBB’s memorial tablet above the entrance of Casa Guidi. Evidently, in a letter to Sarianna, RB reported that the tablet was begun “Monday last [12 October] … and on Friday [16 October] was finished” (see SD2606).
2. See letter 5019, note 1. Isa’s transcription was loosely inserted in RB’s copy of Poems Before Congress (see Reconstruction, A355). The transcription and book are now at Akron.
3. There is no evidence that RB carried out his intention. Many years later, Pen placed a marble tablet with the same inscription in the chapel at Palazzo Rezzonico, his residence in Venice (see letter from RB to Emily Tennyson, 21 July 1889, ms at ABL).
4. Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning (1863) was published by Chapman and Hall on 20 December 1862.
5. The Ring and the Book (1868–69); the “new poems” would be Dramatis Personæ (1864); and the “new edition,” The Poetical Works of Robert Browning (3 vols., 1863).
6. As he had for Men and Women, when Isa took on the role (see letter 3541, note 2).
7. George Gillespie (see letter 5013, note 7).
8. Unidentified.
9. Frederick Marryat (1792–1848), author of many sea-going adventure novels.
10. William Bracken (1809–91); see letter 4280, note 7.
11. Concerning her wish to marry Carlo Passaglia; see letter 5032, note 3.
12. Unidentified.
13. Frances Chapple appears in Bedford College’s “List of Students, 1849–1949,” as having entered in 1852, during which time Annette Bracken was also enrolled. Their friendship is mentioned in an undated letter from Frances Cobbe to Elizabeth Jesser Reid (ms at Royal Holloway Archives and Special Collections, University of London).
15. Fleetwood Thomas Hugh Wilson (1817–62) “formerly of the Army and Navy Club Pall Mall in the County of Middlesex but late of the Island of Barbadoes in the West Indies Auditor-General of the said Island (formerly a Captain in Her Majesty’s 8th Hussars and afterwards on the Staff) deceased who died 13 September 1862 at Barbadoes aforesaid … Effects under £300” (National Probate Calendar).
16. There were rumors in Florence that Mrs. Wilson had at one time been adulterously involved with Robert Lytton (see vol. 19, p. 355).
17. A corner of the sheet has been torn off, affecting text here and below.
18. Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865), president of the Royal Academy and director of the National Gallery. His wife is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4) at 7 Fitzroy Square.
19. Frances Anne (“Fanny”) Kemble (formerly Butler, 1809–93).
20. i.e., Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72).
22. Tudor House at 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
24. “And has not received anything.”
25. The previous editor, Edward C. McAleer, suggests that Isa had written about “Paolo Foggi, a discharged servant of the Shelleys,” who “attempted to blackmail Shelley with the charge that Claire Clairmont had borne him a child” at Naples (see DI, p. 140n).
26. Recent books about Shelley included the following: Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792–1862), The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 vols., 1858); Charles S. Middleton (b. ca. 1827), Shelley and His Writings (2 vols., 1858); Edward J. Trelawny (1792–1881), Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858); Shelley Memorials: from Authentic Sources (1859), edited by Jane Shelley (née Gibson, formerly St. John, 1820–99); and Relics of Shelley (1862), edited by Richard Garnett (1835–1906). RB may also have in mind “Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley” by Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866), which appeared in two parts in Fraser’s Magazine, June 1858 and January 1860, followed by “Percy Bysshe Shelley. Supplementary Notice” in the issue of March 1862.
27. Hogg died on 17 August at his home in St. John’s Wood.
28. Garnett’s Relics of Shelley, in which the author responds to comments made by T.L. Peacock in his last article in Fraser’s Magazine (see the preceding note): “The papers referred to in Macmillan’s Magazine [June 1860, pp. 100–110], respecting the existence of which Mr. Peacock is so incredulous, demonstrate that Shelley and Harriet corresponded, both during the former’s absence on the Continent [after he deserted her and their child at the end of July 1814] and afterwards … that so late, at least, as December, 1814, he continued to take an affectionate interest in her, gave her much good advice” (p. 149). RB refers to Shelley’s “first wife,” Harriet (née Westerbrook, 1795–1816) and the “second,” Mary (née Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851). The Athenæum of 5 July 1862 “attacked” Garnett’s book, quoting the above passage and wondering why the “letters and documents … are not published” (no. 1810, p. 10).
29. We have been unable to trace the word “sororially” in the works of Samuel Parr (1747–1825). The OED defines it as “in a sisterly manner” and cites, as the first source, Theodore E. Hook (1788–1841), Sayings and Doings (1825).
30. Mary Elizabeth Braddon (afterwards Maxwell, 1835–1915), had acted in the late 1850’s under the stage name “Mary Seyton.” Her first successful novel, Lady Audley’s Secret, a sensational tale about the wicked title character, was published by Tinsley Brothers on 1 October 1862 and went quickly into multiple editions.
31. Palace Gate House, Kensington, completed the following year.
32. The Brownings owned at least seven tapestry panels (see Reconstruction, H667–673).
34. An allusion to Matthew Arnold’s Empedocles on Etna; see letter 5044, note 7.
35. Isa’s maid, who had evidently become pregnant out of wedlock (see letter 4813).
36. Pietro Gai (see letter 4535, note 2).
37. One of two photographs taken in Paris at the studio of C.L. Leblanc. They are reproduced facing p. 145.
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