5440. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 107–109.
Cambo près Bayonne, Basses-Pyrenées,
Aug 19. ’64
Dearest Isa,
You will wonder to find me so far South: we had a fancy to go to Arcachon, a newish place by Bordeaux—but found it crammed with strangers: we tried St Jean de Luz and Biar[r]itz to no better purpose, and, having to make the best of a mistake, settled ourselves in this pleasant little place for a month—meaning to get two or three weeks of sea-bathing at St Jean (as charming as Biar[r]itz is ugly). We are just under the Pyrenées, and an easy morning’s walk from Spain: [1] indeed, if I listen much to Pen I may be forced to go on to Madrid—which is a day’s travelling by rail: only one would like to see that with greater consideration, and not at the expence of the sea.
I am much disappointed at getting no letter from you—had one reached Paris two days ago, or less, it would have arrived: I want to know where and how you are:—to be sure, when do I not want news of you? Besides, my letters, poor things, are even poorer when not directly answers to yours.
It is very saddening to me to feel the Southern influence again: the mountains under which we are just like the Tuscan ranges: the verdure and vegetation more flourishing and abundant, and the villages less picturesquely distributed by far: but there are cicale on the trees, and much the same blue sky as of old: few vines, but great fields of maize, and plenty of fern and heather. No, it is not anything near Italy after all—but dearer for what is like. I am supremely dull here, I know. Pen amuses himself very well—having a knack that way,—draws a good deal with my father—who is perceptibly younger than last year. My sister, too, finds the South interesting—sees it for the first time. I shall be able to spin the month out. Now, what can I tell you? I kept up the ball gallantly to the last in London, dining out in a way that looks absurd enough: at last—my head began to turn in an ominous way, one morning, and I got ready and set out. My last memorable dinner was with Trelawny, Byron & Shelley’s friend– I liked him much. We talked (we two and a lady) till I got up from table at 12 o’clock: he then accompanied me nearly home. Well, Isa: Lytton is engaged to be married, to Miss Villiers, [2] niece of Ld Clarendon: not rich, but influential, they say. Sir L: will have to be generous. He is going to print a new Poem. [3] Do you hear anything of Annette? I wrote to congratulate her, [4] but have got no answer yet. Everybody seems to know about the P. episode: [5] Mrs Story, Hatty &c. Mrs Mackenzie said that there had been some explosion, some seduction-case, which ended by the good man having to pay 40 fcs monthly to the interesting little stranger. What does Mr Bracken say? After all, it is the best Annette could do—she had outgrown English ways, no doubt. I saw less than usual of the Storys: they go full-butt at every social delight, and, I daresay, find some good in it. Edie is a nice girl, pretty too & simpatica: [6] I think very few English women pretty—their complexions I don’t care for, and their Elizabethan aquiline noses and chubby cheeks I dislike. I only saw one beautiful girl, that I should so designate, at two great houses last season (I mean, I saw her twice)—but had not the curiosity to ask her name. The infinitely best thing in London to me is the music,—so good, so much of it: I know Hallé, Joachim, [7] and others, and make them play at parties where I meet them—the last time I saw Hallé, at his own house, he played Beethoven’s wonderful last Sonata—the 32d in which the very gates of Heaven seem opening.
You don’t say anything to me about my poems, [8] and, I make no doubt, are vexed with me for not sending them by post: but the tricks of that Office irritate me too much: I pay what is asked, send a book to Paris, and after some days, get a letter to say that, on receipt of four pence, the book will be sent—to me back again. I thought Leighton would have taken it to you this month—but he is unable to go till much later—meanwhile, there is a new edition nearly ready, with a few additional stanzas to one poem, [9] —you shall have that. By this time, Tennyson’s book [10] will have reached you, moreover: tell me what you think of it. I daresay you have seen mine, after all, and, like the proud puss you are, you won’t speak about it! Just as if there were one person in the world whose opinion I cared more about,—I mean, whose sympathy I wanted more! Good bye with that sweet word, and God bless you, my dearest friend! Can it be that you have directed your letter scrawlingly?– I can’t get over the want of it. But you don’t expect I should. Write to Paris, next time—I don’t know where I may be.
It is night, I write in my room, but I know that everybody here loves you and would send you the assurance of it. I know that I am as ever or more than ever <…> [11]
Publication: DI, pp. 189–193.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Sarianna describes more fully the Brownings’ search for lodgings in a letter to Joseph Milsand; see SD2718.
2. Edith Villiers (1841–1936), daughter of Edward Ernest Villiers (1806–43), younger brother of the 4th Earl of Clarendon, and his wife, Elizabeth Charlotte (née Liddell, 1807–90). Miss Villiers married Robert Bulwer Lytton on 4 October 1864.
3. Unidentified. Lytton’s next publication was Poetical Works (2 vols., 1867), under his pseudonym, “Owen Meredith.” He published, under his own name, Chronicles and Characters in 1868.
4. Annette Bracken (1834–98) married Giuseppe Frascheri (1809–86), Italian painter and teacher, the previous month, probably in Genoa where she had been studying.
5. Involving Carlo Passaglia (1812–87); see letter 5032, note 3.
6. “Agreeable.”
7. Joseph Joachim (1831–1907), Hungarian violinist, considered the greatest of his era, studied under Felix Mendelssohn at Leipzig. Joachim made regular appearances in London beginning in the late 1840’s (see A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sir George Grove, 1900).
8. Dramatis Personæ (1864).
9. RB added three stanzas to “Gold Hair,” evidently at George Eliot’s suggestion (see The Poems of Robert Browning, vol. 4, ed. John Woolford et al., Harlow, England, 2012, p. 89). They appeared in the second edition of Dramatis Personæ, which was issued on 26 September (see Chapman and Hall’s advertisement in The Athenæum, 24 September 1864, no. 1926, p. 389).
10. Alfred Tennyson’s Enoch Arden, etc. was published by Edward Moxon & Co. on 15 August 1864.
11. Closing and signature have been excised.
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