5206. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 226–229.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace.
Apr. 19. ’63
My dearest Isa,
You don’t quite believe me, I see,—that writing to you is next best thing to hearing from you,—or you would not wonder that I remembered it was the day on the day. [1] So I shall while I can hold pen, & look to your heart over the world. The other letter was a treat to myself, under circumstances,—the former having been interrupted by talkers; moreover there was Brett’s picture [2] to tell you about: he is going to call it by my lines about the “chrystal ball”, changing the “morning” to “evening” water-gold—I like that much in him, as it was the sight I had in my mind’s eye, &, he says, my lines were in his mind always while painting. I shall go at once, to Mrs Alexander & leave the book. [3] Let me say here I have just seen Miss Smith who had a message in a letter from you: I read your note and entirely approve of it,—it will consequently be sent at once and save time: I think it quite right to propose such a thing & expect that they will be glad of it. [4] If I can do you any service, observe,—I am here and yours.
Did I ever seem to dislike such praise as that? In that case, it must have been just as I put aside a repetition of it,—from unaffected unworthiness. I take the offer, if you please, of good father & not bad master (of my little man & maid here!)—but the other,—all I can be sure of was my entire love—by the light of, & for the sake of which, now, I dare hope that all my follies, mistaken procedures & inconsequentialities are understood and forgiven: it was so with me then—I could not have loved so, without erring so: now I know better, do not love better, but certainly know immeasurably better, and should not, or if God please, shall not—offend again: and I hope there will be found evidence of that in whatever I do till the end. As for Pen, I love him dearly, but if I hated him, it would be pretty much the same thing. There are most unspeakable alleviations in my case,—so plain a course to pursue,—the effects of it so immediately consoling, and the power to carry it out, almost as complete as I could desire: as it is little wonder, & no subject of praise that I don’t turn out of the one strip of light into the darkness on either side. Poor J. [5] is without light inside or outside: there is some hole in his head, break in his moral constitution, that does for him: I always considered him to be the nearer madness & Mrs E, [6] devilishness. Remember in his wretched story the various pure falsehoods he used to tell, with a babe’s innocency, as if everybody would forget & believe at word of command,—how he would reveal everything, then maintain he had never opened his mouth,—write down (as I have seen) that his wife [7] was “merely calumniated because she was beautiful”—& so on till one’s sick of remembering. The very birth of the child, [8] his ostentatious petting it &c what was it for? What new light can have dawned on him since then? Couple this with the hallucinations about the pictures, chopping & changing names &c—to leave out the “Spirits”—you can’t help seeing the “hole”. I am sorry about it, for old times’ sake: but it is part & parcel of one disease. I have heard no more of the other poor creature, for whom I feel sorry too: the initials were those of Russell Sturgis, [9] partner in the House of Baring & Co—he is her cousin. [10] I took out her portrait [11] to-day, & put it, for a few days at least, in the drawing room. Judge how I look at, think of those who were not merely part of the old time but blessings beside.
I am not going to write much because I am very bilious & out of sorts—it’s nothing worse. I go out as little as I can,—the weather is fine, Pen rows & rides daily, grows and promises in every way. I am getting on with my new edition, which they will publish volume by volume, beginning in May, All the Poems, Tragedies, and Poems again. [12] I have something doing which I shall send you, & which will please you, I know: you remember the picture at Arabel’s [13] —well, in the country Octavius had the original drawings for the heads [14] —the real portraits from which the picture was made,—and very like, I am assured: I am having two,—the brother is the other—photographed [15] —and shall have a duplicate of one made for you: I will find out how to send it,—perhaps by Mrs Alexander.
I think I must leave off here—but my love & its wishes go on. Remember me to all friends: to Kate Field, when you write. I never read Hume’s book, [16] —avoid looking at an extract from it. Did I tell you that, just before I went to Paris, I went to a party at Lady Salisbury’s and came right upon him—though I could not believe my eyes: presently the Marchioness’ sister [17] asked me, “what I thought of him?”—I said my say, as briefly as possible. “Why, he’s gone!” said she—& so he had,—I can’t help flattering myself, that the announcement of my name did him no good. So forget him– I am very grieved to gather from what you write that the King is unpopular at Florence. As for Mario, [18] Mazzini &c here the contempt for them is complete—I should not think them worth prosecution. But if the govt think so, nobody will deny the rich desert of punishment of these miserable marplots.
I don’t know anything about the nature of L’s novel [19] —it is accepted by C. & H. (at very different terms from his) along with two volumes of verse– [20] I suppose, collected & original poems. Adelaide Procter is in the worst way, I fear: no better, still weaker, in bed these three months, confined to her room, eight—poor, dear thing. [21]
Goodbye, God bless you, dearest Isa– Pen is not here, but I may send his dearest love. How is Madame Tassinari?
Ever yours affectionately
Robert Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 158–161.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Either the day RB or Isa was scheduled to write (see letter 5089, note 1).
2. “Florence from Bellosguardo.” The “other letter” may refer to one RB says he intends to write at the end of letter 5190. The intended letter has not surfaced.
3. The Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets.
4. We are unable to clarify this passage.
5. James Jackson Jarves (1818–88); see letter 3466, note 9.
6. Sophia Eckley; also “the other poor creature” mentioned below.
7. Elizabeth Russell Jarves (née Swain, d. 1861, aged 40); see letter 3473, note 3 and letter 4961, note 8.
8. Flora Amy Jarves (1854–1947), youngest of the Jarveses’ three children.
9. This may have something to do with Mrs. Eckley’s claim of infidelity against her husband. See the end of the second paragraph in letter 5191.
10. Mrs. Eckley and Russell Sturgis were not cousins, though she may have told RB that they were. Her half-sister, Hannah Parkman Mason (née Tuckerman, 1805–59), however, was his first cousin, their mothers, Susan Sturgis (née Parkman, 1780–1827) and Hannah Tuckerman (née Parkman, 1777–1814) being sisters.
11. Perhaps the portrait of Mrs. Eckley painted by Fanny Haworth (see letter 4190) or that by Field Talfourd (see letter 4405) or the photograph mentioned in letters 4336 and 4337. The present whereabouts of these images is unknown.
12. See letter 5155, note 1. Volume one of RB’s Poetical Works (3 vols., 1863) was published by Chapman and Hall on 9 May; volume two on 1 July; volume three on 1 September.
13. An oil painting by English portraitist William Artaud (1763–1823) that depicts at full length three Moulton-Barrett children: EBB, Edward, and Henrietta (see Reconstruction, H4; now at Eton).
14. See Reconstruction, F2.1, for the drawing of EBB’s head. It and the heads of Edward and Henrietta are all currently in private hands. See also Reconstruction, H3 and H4.
15. A photograph of the engraving made from Artaud’s drawing of EBB’s head was used as the frontispiece to A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1866). It is reproduced in vol. 1, facing p. 41.
16. Daniel Dunglas Home’s autobiography, Incidents in My Life (1863) was published by Longman in February. A lengthy, negative review of it appeared in The Athenæum of 14 March 1863 (no. 1846, pp. 351–353). The reviewer concluded: “From first to last there is not a statement in the book so presented as to warrant a sensible man in paying attention to it. To exhibit such a volume is to expose it.”
17. One of two sisters: Lady Elizabeth Russell (née Sackville-West, 1818–97), whose husband, Francis Charles Hastings Russell (1819–91), became the 9th Duke of Bedford in 1872; or Lady Arabella Diana Bannerman (née Sackville-West, 1835–69), whose husband was Sir Alexander Bannerman (1823–77), 9th Baronet.
18. Presumably a reference to Alberto Mario (1825–83) rather than his wife, Jessie White Mario (1832–1906).
19. The Ring of Amasis, published by Chapman and Hall on 13 June.
20. Lytton’s Poems (1865) and Chronicles and Characters (1868).
21. Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–64) suffered from consumption. She died the following year on 27 February.
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