5177. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 201–204.
19. Warwick Crescent, Harrow Road, W.
Feb. 19. ’63
My dearest Isa,
I may stereotype “thank you heartily for your letter”—for you will always send one, I know, & I shall always be as grateful as to-day, I know– First, I was to write & tell you what information I could get about your Professor: [1] I did so—&, as usual, Milsand promised to do what he could—but it all ended in nothing—nobody will tell—the other professors have some sort of dread of committing themselves: M. is to see Renan [2] & ask him—& if I get anything worth transmitting, expect it. I beg to say it was neither good nor kind in me to do what you desired & call on Mrs Alexander—simply a duty & pleasant: I liked her much—fancied her like you somewhat in face—& mean to call again as often as she may seem to like: she asked me to dinner last week, but unluckily I had been engaged for many a day before & after: people now give you a fortnight’s notice: W. Bracken called on me with all his old benevolence—he had your book, [3] or one volume of it, in his pocket (saying much for the size of that) and was studying it to his great contentment at odd moments. Why is Mrs A. “slow”? I don’t see it at all. W. B wanted to take Pen to the play—(like his goodness!) but Pen was engaged too. I was to have gone next Saty to Paris for a week—but Pen managed to catch a vile cold, I don’t know how,—and that’s put off till he is cured: only a week, with my father & sister– I shall see nobody else: and, I suppose, miss Annette if, as W. B said, she was going to leave Paris at the end of Feb: for Nice. Let me say, by association of ideas, that Fanny Haworth, now in Paris, has lost all her headaches by a miraculous powder the nostrum of a Shropshire Farmer,—a really wonderful cure, at which I rejoice. I shall tell my sister all the kind things you say & mean. Tell dear Mrs Trollope from me that I am very grateful to her for her paper [4] —quite perfect in its way: such a notice ought to have appeared, in justice to Florence,—and nothing could have answered the purpose better: she has true tact & taste, & feeling beside,—I am bound to her. She & her husband would smile if they knew the real affection I have for them. To be sure, I feel love for the dust of the streets of Florence.
I knew you would sympathize with me about the Designs: preference for one or another, even prejudice in favor of one person or against another, can’t be helped and don’t in the least matter in this question—which was,—could I, having accepted the laborious performance of one artist, throw it up at a word from Cottrell in favor—not of another and better performance—but of a mere name—somebody who perhaps might please me more; but who could tell that,—and even were it so? And suppose at the end it did not please me? I wonder how anyone with ordinary feeling could expect I should go to Leighton and say—“True, I did like & accept your work—but a friend tells me there is a great man in Florence who will do it better: I don’t know anything about Mathas, but he does, & that’s enough.” If Cottrell had sent me a design—adding, “Don’t you think this is better? & will not your friend, being utterly generous & disinterested, allow you to prefer it to his own?” Voila parler: [5] instead of which there was proposed a measure which I would not be in a hurry to adopt with my butcher or grocer: I should not throw up these on anybody’s mere assurance that their protégés furnished better articles. I wish this for your only eye, you know,—but, if you think I speak somewhat sharply, observe that Cottrell has not favoured my letter, two month’s old, with a word of reply: nor, by the bye, has he been at the trouble, at least to apprise me of any enquiry he may have made, or forgot to make, about my missing case [6] —containing many things valuable to me, & which he was to see to on his return five months ago. I rely on you to make no allusion to these things: they should have needed no prompting,—and, as to the carrying out the Design, I am no longer at all anxious it should be attempted in such a spirit. I tell you this, because I trust you. Well, Isa, I have read the last vol: I know the success, the sale &c, has been great: in some respects your progress is evident, and I read all with love and anxiety: whatever comes out of yourself is very good: the outside work & incidents you will do better with experience. The character of the father is very good, & there are excellent things about the other individualities: but I can’t admit that Mrs V. [7] had a right to contract a secret marriage—it is the worst proceeding anybody can take next to a crime—because it causes perforce so much lying, from the parties concerned, to all about them—nor ought such a secret to be kept (for no better reason than is given, viz: that it is a secret—) by a wife from a husband: his distrust is natural. Also the machinery goes on too often by one person overhearing the conversation of another: last, I dont think you manage dialect well, housemaids’ talk—there you have all my objections! and the rest to say is good & honest congratulation. I am quite sure your next book will be an increasing success: the notices are singularly eulogistic, [8] & in short, you must be satisfied. And now, dearest Isa—I have to tear myself away, for there is very much to do. I am so glad you went to that picturesque Ball—as an Artist should—you can describe what you have seen capitally—witness dear dear Siena! [9] I feel it is selfish in me not to try & run thro’ my own names & places,—it would amuse you, for I see somebody every evening—but there’s no time. I do go to balls—when Pen goes, as was the case last week at Lady De Grey’s: [10] & he would go to another to-morrow but for the cold—the same reason keeps him from accepting an invitation to dine with Ly Westmorland to night & go to Fechter– [11] I won’t have it. I myself dine with Ly Wm Russell to night, & then go to Ly Salisbury’s [12] —to-morrow, Sartoris,—next day, Ly Palmerston’s, [13] &c &c. But I want to tell you that I am going to enter Pen, if I can, at Balliol, under Jowett [14] —one must do it for years beforehand. Goodbye—Goodbye, Dearest friend. All love from Pen: I never had a photograph taken of my stupid self. [15] I am printing my books, [16] & the Essay on the Greek Christian Poets—you shall have the earliest copy I can send– Love to all friends–
Yours affy ever
R Browning.
I hear Giudici has married a woman with £3000 a year, & likes it much. [17]
Publication: DI, pp. 151–155.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Unidentified. Presumably the “Sanscrit Professor” mentioned in letter 5163.
2. Ernest Renan (1823–92), French historian and Hebrew scholar, was appointed Professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France in 1862. He lost the position the following year after the publication of Vie de Jésus (1863).
3. The Cost of a Secret (3 vols., 1863), which RB discusses below.
4. A letter from Theodosia Trollope, dated Florence, 16 January, appeared in The Athenæum of 31 January 1863 (no. 1840, p. 153) under the title “Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Mrs. Trollope refers to the memorial tablet over the entrance to Casa Guidi and quotes the inscription. For the full text of the letter, see SD2624.
5. “That would be the way to talk.”
7. Mrs. Vibert, a wealthy widow, whose marriage to a Frenchman is the “secret” of the novel.
8. We have been unable to trace any “singularly eulogistic” notices of The Cost of a Secret for this period. However, a review in The Morning Post of 10 January 1863, though highly critical of the novel’s plot and characters, found merit “in the beauty, the energy, and the truth of occasional passages in which the author speaks for herself. … She is evidently a keen observer, and she possesses, in no stinted measure, the faculty of word-painting, when her subject is natural beauty. She gives the reader the idea that she could write a story admirably, even nobly, if some other person were to construct it” (p. 3).
10. Henrietta Anne Theodosia Robinson (née Vyner, 1833–1907), wife of George Frederick Samuel Robinson (1827–1909), 2nd Earl of Ripon, 2nd Earl de Grey, later (1871) 1st Marquess of Ripon. Lord de Grey was appointed Secretary of State for War in 1863 and succeeded Robert Bulwer Lytton as Viceroy of India in 1880. He is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4) at 1 Carlton Gardens.
11. Charles Albert Fechter (1822–79), French-English actor whose subtle performance of Hamlet revolutionized the role. He was at this time playing in The Duke’s Motto at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, of which he had sole management. The play, an adaptation by John Brougham (1814–80) of Le Bossu (1858) by Paul Féval, was first staged at the Lyceum on 10 January 1863.
12. Lady Mary Catherine Gascoyne-Cecil (née Sackville-West, afterwards Stanley, 1824–1900), second wife of James Brownlow William Gascoyne-Cecil (1791–1868), 2nd Marquess of Salisbury. Lady Salisbury is listed in AB-4 at 20 Arlington Street.
13. See letter 3549, note 10. Lady Palmerston is listed in AB-4 at Cambridge House.
14. Benjamin Jowett (1817–93), classical scholar and educator, was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1855 and Master of Balliol College from 1870.
15. Perhaps, RB alludes to his not having had his photograph taken in Paris the previous October when Pen, Sarianna, and RB, Sr. were all photographed.
16. Poetical Works (1863).
17. Paolo Emiliani Giudici (1812–72)—see letter 2826, note 9—married, at Tonbridge, Kent, 15 December 1862, Ann Alsager (1804–78), daughter of Charles Alsager (1756–1837) and his wife, Hannah (née Hamer, 1769–1850).
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