5384. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 58–61.
Warwick Crescent,
May 19. [1864] [1]
Dearest Isa,
I heard from Miss Smith [2] that you were returned to Florence, delighted with your trip,—this letter shows you are well also,—such are the fruits of a little opportune change: were I you, it should be a remedy I would try often enough—it is (the faculty of moving about) the counterbalancing advantage to the want of one (felt by others) at home: and one day, if I live & flourish like a grey olive tree I will begin to die, running about,—at least so I fancy now. Yes, Naples is a delicious place in my remembrance of it, [3] and I rather tend that way in my dreamy projects, as newer ground with fewer ghosts. Pen came back in a fortnight glowing with health– I am not sure he was ever out of it, but anyhow the change did wonders for him: he came in for the end of stag hunting, was eight hours in the saddle one day, saw a world of country sights, and enjoyed himself to the full. He is out rowing this moment, and yesterday I saw him hold his own capitally against a first rate sparring-master– I am really happy to hear you say that he strikes people as happy himself: I want to consider his whole life & career, and make him educated and accomplished with reference to the future,—but I remember the uncertainty of that, and therefore want his good days to be secured from the beginning—so much I gain, whatever happens: and I cannot but hope and believe that on the whole we have gone so far, in these three years, as Ba would wish, considering that we have a live soul to assist, not a lump of clay to mould as we please: she would like much that is done I am sure, and the rest will follow I hope, mainly out of the soul itself with a healthy body to help, and as many favorable circumstances as I can surround him with. He wrote to me every day of the fortnight with the exception of the day when he hunted from morning to evening; and in all things he does decidedly remember me and consider what I expect. There’s for him! Now for you (though I know you wholly sympathise with me in this)—I am glad indeed to hear your novel is nearly ready, [4] and hope all for it that you could desire. I had intended to speak to Froude [5] exactly in the sense you desire—as it will be simply pleasant & right to do so, why should I not? My own book will come out on Saturday or Monday, I don’t know which. [6] I will send it of course by the first opportunity: as the foreign book-post is now managed, it is a perpetual source of irritation to me: I believe they cheat designedly—& thus—take your book to the office, & say, how much to Paris?—So much: pay it: your friend receives a notice that an underpaid parcel will be forwarded to Him on payment of the double postage,—which they thus get, together with your own eight stamps, say, instead, of ten: this trick is repeatedly played on me and mine: the other day they insisted that no more ought to be paid for two letters (with enclosures) than 10s (to Boston) and then charged the person there some 18 shillings beside: complain, & you get bullied.
You may have seen one of my poems in the Atlantic Monthly: Fields tempted me with an offer of £150 to allow 3 to be so printed [7] (you know my old hatred of that way of publication)– I agreed to it, sent off the proofs months ago,—and then was informed by Fields that “the exchange was at so bloody a rate that he had decided not to remit till it was better”—i.e, to repudiate: the exchange has got infinitely worse since he determined on this piece of knavery, and probably will never get any better—will rise, burst, and leave our friends at liberty to begin the world afresh, with a sponge passed over their debts: and they wonder at that profound disbelief in North American honesty which is at the root of the universal hostility in England: I get letters every week full of declarations of what the North means to do politically & socially: & here I have Fields’ letters (more than one) protesting just as energetically “Send me the proofs, & I will in return send you the money”—a lie: why must needs the other be truth?
I met Sir Edward at dinner a fortnight ago: he had gone to the pleasant house of a friend of mine “to be nursed”—he was very clever, goodnatured,—and unsatisfactory: I am going to dine at his own house [8] on the 1st June: there is a far greater charm about him, to me, than about poor dear Lytton—who seems made for something different, while his father was meant exactly for what we find him. He has quarrelled with the Ernsts, I hear; that’s the end of that sort of thing: now, read the dedication to the last book, [9] and one of two facts is clear—the writer was a fox or a goose, if a few weeks after he could feel as I hear he now feels about them: I should consider myself proved no poet, no understander of men, if I could see a man all gold one month and all brass the next: all this, as ever, between you & me. I wholly agree in what you say about Garibaldi: still his coming, I think, did certainly good: that the “party of action” [10] will mistake it, is after their nature—what do they see clearly? I care about the general feeling of the people here; who turned out to honor what they knew of a few points of grandeur & self-sacrifice—not going into any other question. I saw him, was presented to him, the day he left [11] —in florid health. If his presence annoyed L. N [12] (which it may have done) it furified the Austrians: Apponiy, the Minister, [13] was looking at the reception from a window of the “Travellers”, next to the “Athenæum” [14] where I was—& as G. passed, there being a tempest of applause, he waved his hand by mere chance right in the direction of the said A. who, with Wimpffen, the 1st Secretary, [15] was cursing him & his there. It was funny to see.
Give my love to Cottrell: the moment Leighton lets me have the Medallion [16] I will send it: I wish he would make haste, but I can’t hurry him. The heat here is amazing, like that of Florence,—not too much for me, who began to think I should never be warm again. Goodbye, dearest Isa,—it is a great assistance to me over the flats of this world that I catch at your hand every month and seem to jump by it, on my way homeward;
God bless you ever
yours affectionately
RB.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Year provided by RB’s reference to his meeting Garibaldi, which took place on 22 April 1864.
2. Presumably Jane Browning Smith, but possibly Annie Egerton Smith.
3. RB arrived at Naples, from Capri, on 26 September 1844 and left on 18 October for Rome.
5. James Anthony Froude (1818–94), editor of Fraser’s Magazine (1860–74), where Isa Blagden’s poem “The Story of Two Lives” appeared in the issue of April 1864 (pp. 450–460).
8. 35 St. James’s Place, as listed in RB’s address book of this period (AB-5).
9. Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners (2 vols., 1863). The dedication reads: “My dear Ernst, / Accept the Dedication of these Essays. You will recognise, in some of them, subjects on which I have, not unfrequently, conversed with you and the charming critic who so worthily bears your distinguished name. / The friendship I have formed with natures so noble as hers and your own, has added a new charm to my life; and all who have the privilege to know you will comprehend the affectionate pride with which I inscribe to that friendship this grateful memorial.”
12. Louis Napoleon, Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.
13. Rudolf von Apponyi (1812–76), Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Great Britain (1812–71).
14. The Athenæum Club is located at 107 Pall Mall. The Travellers Club, next door at 106 Pall Mall, was founded in 1819. Its membership included ambassadors to Great Britain.
15. Felix Friedrich Wenzel von Wimpffen (1827–82), Austro-Hungarian diplomat. “He was for a good many years Councillor of Embassy in London, in the time of Count Apponyi, and left in 1866” (The Times, 1 January 1883, p. 5).
16. i.e., Leighton’s design for the center medallion on EBB’s monument in Florence (see the illustration in vol. 30, facing p. 272).
___________________
