5163. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 183–187.
The Athenæum
Jan 19. ’63.
Dearest Isa, I shall not be able to write much even now—after wanting & meaning to say so much to you: here is my day, & here must be my scrap of letter: I am plagued with work & calls on my time of various sorts—let me however begin & write fast. How I know, dearest, that you mean what you say—& don’t you know that I know it, am the better for your wishes, and wish you, not in return, but always wish you every good? I am very well & Pen is quite well: there are many things that vex me– I’ll tell you if I have time—but on the whole I see progress for him, work for me, the passing of time,—and other helps,—well,—for your request, and all your urging, coaxing & eloquence—take my laugh at you for a goose! You ought to be sure that only at a word I will go, & be happy to go, not simply to Mrs Alexander [1] but to her housemaid’s cousin,—I will go the first day I can—to-day if I find I am in time,—if not,—next to certainly, tomorrow; & not merely call & return, if she is out, but repeat the call till I see her—& take Pen whenever she likes. For the photographs, being here at the Club, [2] I can’t get at them—but I shall be writing to you in a few days, as soon as I get the information about your Sanscrit Professor [3] which you want, for which I shall write presently,—and Made Torrearsa shall receive one with all my heart: the whole lengths of Pen are gone, but I have ordered more from Paris—& will send you one as soon as they arrive—it was very kind & considerate to give it to Wilson. Now of your book, [4] —I have read two volumes only, thro’ Mudie’s stupidly twice sending the second, i.e two second vols: I can only say that so far I think you write with visible improvement & limpidity: the subjective matter is very good indeed,—the letters from Siena, [5] for instance, which are truth itself, & very dear: you don’t treat us to very new or striking types—but you manage the ordinary people very well, and are certainly improving: there are a few slipshod phrases,—but a few, (such as “cauterizing a pain”—for, “a wound” &c) and one name is unhappy to me—Bifrons, because impossible, and tale-telling: [6] when I read the whole,—as I am glad to see is necessary, since you have a decided plot & work up to a crisis,—I will say what occurs: meantime I am happy to say that those who have read it, like it much—make my heart glad by praising it: Mrs Procter was most laudatory, for instance. Chapman tells me the sale is very good: you will get better and better prices for your books. He said it was wholly thro’ a mistake of yours that he did not publish it & pay you that price [7] —he waited for some reason or other, & you would not wait: but then, he tells more than I vouch for. I saw Mrs Lewis [8] again the other evening—and continue to like her exceedingly: I am going even to dine with her on Thursday to meet A. Trollope: the change in L: is astounding! She spoke very kindly of you,—had not read the book yet, however.
Now, dear, let me say a word to you, strictly to you only, about the Monument, about which I think you are in a misconception. Leighton made that design, with all love & effort. So far from despising the criticism of an Architect, he had all along the superintendence and advice of Cockerell, [9] son of the Architect, and said to be of great ability: his aim was, to make something new, and not dozzinale, [10] something beautiful, and something safe—a difficult matter: indeed, Mr Kirkup had previously written to me twice or thrice to warn me that such erections (pillars supporting an arca) were ruinous—thro’ the arca’s being always too heavy: snow lies on it, one pillar breaks, then all falls. Leighton studied this difficulty, and, in the opinion of the competent, removed it– I don’t hear a word of objection as from an Architect, i.e, with respect to the building-part, which is just where fault, as in a painter’s work, might be most easily found. Cottrell saw leisurely this design, talked over it with Leighton, might have found any objection he pleased, but found none. After several weeks, he called on me for the drawings– I begged him to state frankly any objection that had subsequently struck him, anything he had not liked to mention to Leighton,—still,—none. He then returns to Florence, and writes to me that “Mathas” says the styles are mixed, the arca should be altered, the pillars changed for cariatides, and that he will make a design and send it. This is merely one artist bidding you accept a work from him rather than what you have ordered from another. And who is “Mathas”? “Very clever” & so on: I dare say, but I never heard his name before: would you really recommend that at first mention of it, I should throw up Leighton, renounce what I had entirely admired & gratefully accepted,—all for a design still in the air, promised as a better thing, by a man wholly unknown to me? If Mathas had sent a design, by which I could judge of the superiority of his taste to Leighton’s, well and good: Leighton would have been the first to entreat me to accept it if I so willed—as he has entreated me to give up his design if I have the least inclination to do so—but indeed I have not: you say, “Rafael would have consulted Michel Angelo”—now, I don’t say L. is Rafael—but does anybody call the other Michel Angelo? I really want to know—is it meant that “Mathas” is an arbiter and judge as the other would have been? Recollect, I have only M’s word & C’s opinion that something better will be done by this great man, and I am to throw up what, at least, I have seen and do like. Suppose when we had all accepted the Inscription on the Tablet, somebody had said, “A or B, a very clever writer, now employed in cutting the letters on such a public monument, finds the metaphors mixed, the style unclassic, he’s for altering the first line, changing the second, & removing the third, and I’m sure that Tommaseo if on the spot would applaud his performance, for would not Horace have consulted Virgil on such a matter?”– So I see the matter, at least: and the vexatious circumstance is, that Cottrell who is kindness itself, who means all for the best, probably misunderstands me, thinks my disinclination to adopt his views pure obstinacy &, perhaps, ingratitude—such are the misfortunes of friendship! He has never answered my letter, sent a month ago: nor, by the bye, will he do the simple favor of making some enquiry about that missing cassa [11] with many precious things of mine in it—it don’t help me to have been all this time in Florence without asking de Fauveau or the Packer a word about that. I lose pictures & papers, besides the other things—but never mind. Don’t mention it. There are worse miseries,—those I referred to. Ever since I set foot in England I have been pestered with applications for leave to write the Life of my wife: I have refused—& there an end. I have last week received two communications from friends—enclosing the letters of a certain Geo: Stampe of Great Grimsby, asking them for details of life and letters, for a biography he is engaged in—adding that he has “secured the correspondence with her old friend Hugh Stuart Boyd.” Think of this beast working away at this, not deeming my feelings, or those of her family, worthy of notice—and meaning to print letters written years & years ago, on the most intimate & personal subjects, to an “old friend”—which, at the poor, old blind, forsaken man’s death fell into the hands of a complete stranger, [12] who, at once wanted to print them—but desisted thro’ Ba’s earnest expostulation—enforced by my own threat to take law proceedings—as fortunately letters are copy-right: I find this woman died last year, & her son [13] writes to me this morning that Stampe got them from him as autographs merely: he will try & get them back: Stampe, evidently a blackguard, got my letter, [14] which gave him his deserts, on Saturday—no answer yet: if none comes, I shall be forced to advertise in the Times, and obtain an injunction. But what I suffer in feeling the hands of these blackguards (for I forgot to say, another man [15] has been making similar applications to friends)—what I undergo with their paws in my very bowels, you can guess & God knows! No friend, of course, would ever give up the letters: if anybody ever is forced to do that which she would have so utterly writhed under—if it ever were necessary, why, I should be forced to do it, and, with any good to her memory & fame, my own pain in the attempt would be turned into joy—I should do it at whatever cost: but it is not only unnecessary but absurdly useless—&, indeed, it shall not be done if I can stop the scamp’s knavery—along with his breath.
I am going to reprint the Greek Christian Poets & another Essay: nothing that ought to be published, shall be kept back—& this she certainly intended to correct, augment & reproduce—but I open the doubled-up paper! Warn anyone you may think needs the warning of the utter distress in which I should be placed were this scoundrel or any other of the sort, to baffle me & bring out the letters. I can’t prevent fools from uttering their folly upon her life, as they do on every other subject, but the law protects property—as these letters are. Only last week or so, the Bishop of Exeter stopped the publication of an announced “Life”—containing extracts from his correspondence. [16] And so I shall do.
Dearest Isa, I will end now—as soon as I get the information from Paris, you shall have it. I have not gone out much lately, having suffered from bile & cold—both are subdued plagues just now. Arabel B. is returned: I shall probably go to Paris for a week at the end of next month—as a change to Pen and a pleasure to my Father. Give my love to all old & dear friends: I am so happy, Isa, to think that you prosper, as you manifestly do, in your house & society: that is right! I am glad you went to those Balls,—you will find the good of them in your novels. Kind love specially to the Cottrells—Trollopes—Mignatys: you don’t see Kirkup, I suppose? I will write you, if I can, a supplementary letter of gossip, to take the taste of this bitter sheetfull out of your mouth. Thank my kind understander, Mr Brett, [17] for his goodness to me: I shall be glad to know him whenever he comes to England. Now, good bye & God bless you, my dearest friend: I comfort myself in the thought of you in dear, dear Florence: I wait for your letters,—they come and I wait again,—nothing delights me, so much–
Ever yours affectionately R Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 145–151.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Mary Alexander (née Bracken, 1790–1867), Isa Blagden’s aunt, whose London address was 43 Grosvenor Place.
2. The Athenæum Club.
3. Unidentified.
4. The Cost of a Secret (3 vols., 1863).
5. Volume two of The Cost of a Secret opens with a letter written from Siena that contains descriptions of the city and its environs. The Brownings spent the summers of 1850, 1859, and 1860 in villas outside Siena.
6. Princess Bifrons is a wealthy and duplicitous character, who lives in “a villa just within one of the gates of Florence” (The Cost of a Secret, II, 198). Bifrons is Latin for “two-faced.” It is also the name of a demon in various works on demonology, including Dictionnaire infernal (1818) by Jacques A.S. Collin de Plancy.
8. Sic, for Lewes; i.e., George Eliot. “L” refers to George Henry Lewes. According to the ODNB, in the early 1860’s, “Lewes’s health began to deteriorate … with headaches and nausea taking on the nature of a chronic complaint.”
10. “Ordinary.”
11. “Case.” See letter 5101, note 3.
12. Mary Ann Smith, who was not “a complete stranger” to EBB. She knew her through Hugh Stuart Boyd and had met her “two or three times, years ago” (see letter 2560).
13. John Finch Smith (1839–1907), son of Richard Smith (1783–1854) and his wife, Mary Ann (née Clarke, 1797–1862).
14. Either letter 5159 or 5160.
15. Unidentified.
16. RB refers to a biography of Henry Phillpotts (1778–1869) by Reginald N. Shutte entitled The Life, Times, and Writings of the Right Rev. Dr. Henry Phillpotts, Lord Bishop of Exeter (1863). The bishop had filed for an injunction some months earlier (see Shutte’s preface to The Life, p. xii) prohibiting the publication of extracts from his letters, but it did not prevent the book’s publication by Saunders, Otley, and Co. in the second week of December (see The Athenæum, 13 December 1862, no. 1833, p. 770). Projected as a multi-volume work, only one volume of the biography was issued.
17. John Brett (1831–1902), English landscape and marine painter, associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. His “Florence from Bellosguardo” (1863), the frontispiece to this volume, is discussed in letter 5199.
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