5467. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 151–154.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace W
Oct. 19. ’64
Dearest Isa,
I returned on the 11th– We stayed three weeks at Biarritz, in the loveliest weather possible—just spent a day in Spain, to get a taste of its quality (a very pleasant one)—going to Fontarabia, Irun & St Sebastian. We returned easily by Bayonne, Bordeaux, Tours & Paris: I only stayed one day there, though the Storys, arriving the same evening, caught sight of us & pressed us to stay—but I was wanted at home: and here I hope to be for many a month. I doubt whether the warm sea & air have “braced” us all as the Breton place used to do—but the return to the South was attractive indeed. Pen enjoyed himself besides, & is very well.
It was fortunate indeed that I was saved from the addition to my annoyances which I should have had to bear had my journey been to Florence. Leighton writes to me that nothing can be more impudently bad than the execution of his designs [1] —there has been no pretence at imitating some of them—and the four capitals of the columns will have to be sawn off and carved afresh,—also two of the medallions have to be cut out and replaced—as infamous: while the third “though indeed detestable is not quite irremediable.” The Profile is “less slovenly than the rest,” though open to many objections—“the hair, with the designing of which I took great pains, is entirely different: the fellow [2] had the coolness to say that he thought I had probably done the thing hastily without nature, and that he had put up a plait, and done the thing afresh himself (if you could see it!)—also, in the ear, “ho cercato di migliorare!” [3] —he added that he had obtained from Cavalier Mathas [4] & Count Cottrell the sanction to improve these parts of the work—let us hope there is no truth in this. Cottrell says he saw all the criticisms I make, himself—but that he thought it better to leave them to me to make, as the mischief was irremediable.”– On the contrary, Cottrell wrote to me that it was “extremely well executed,”—and as he paid up the last instalment, [5] though not due till the work was really erected, I have no sort of remedy. Don’t say one word about this—I won’t have any wrangling over .. literally .. the grave. Cottrell has done his best, I daresay—but my best, in such a case, would have been to tell the Sculptor “You will please to reproduce exactly what you have given you in the Designs, good, bad, or indifferent—if you want to practise drawing of your own, do it elsewhere; and be particular in bidding the Cavalier Mathas mind his own business.”
I am glad that poor Landor is out of the weakness and sorrow of his old age, and that nobody went to his funeral. By his will, he has left me certain pictures &c[.] I notified at the time to his relatives that I only let that clause stand because unable to prevent it, but that I would never hear of taking a scrap of the old man’s—excepting any papers he might wish me to examine, preserve or destroy. I have again—although unnecessarily—repeated my determination: which I mention to you, in case the amiable people at the Villa should declare that the Rafaels & Correggios are intended to grace my rooms here. I have been more than rewarded for my poor pains by being of use for five years to the grand old ruin of a genius, such as I don’t expect to see again.
Your letter about Annette & her Husband [6] was graphic indeed: I quite understand all about it. After such a blunder as hers, she cried “Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world”—i.e of Grosvenor Place, [7] and her old friends’ reach: and she is safe from them all effectually. After all, when folks fail I like them to fail—not patch up, make shift, keep going wretchedly.
I can’t tell you how little I care about Lytton—he is utterly uninteresting to me,—I seem to know all about him. His cleverness surprised me a little, when I saw him,—he can extend that to almost any extent[.] As to his being “kind” to any woman wholly in his power, I wonder what makes you hope that?
I have not seen Miss Cobbe’s book, [8] —spite of finding that there is something about “the Brownings” in it. I was ungracious to her, I remember, in those days when I did as seemed right in my own eyes.
I saw Geo: Smith yesterday;—don’t know his wife, [9] who seems a very nice person; I like him, however,—his generous ways and unpretentiousness. He told me about you, and was delighted with his visit to Florence.
Tell Jessie White that I beg her pardon & trust to her kindness. I got her letter, [10] at a time when every moment of mine was taken up,—she never told me when she would certainly be at home, and I delayed calling: when I was about to do so, I heard she had left Town to return– At last my time was up, I was very unwell, I hesitated at writing, I could not ask her to come to me—at last the wrong was irreparable. I tell her the plain truth, in belief of its efficacity. Another time, it shall go hard but I will see her for old days’ and enduring love’s sake.
No book yet! [11] Well, you lose little: but you shall have it soon, somehow. I hope to have a long poem ready by the Summer, my Italian murder thing. [12] Do you see the “Edinburg” that says all my poetry is summed up in “Bang whang, whang, goes the Drum?” [13] I have not got to see your article in the Cornhill, [14] though I went yesterday to the club [15] in order to get it: I shall read it with great interest.
Good bye, dearest Isa– Pen’s love always.
Yours affectionately ever RB.
Miss Smith [16] says she is much disappointed at getting no letter from you—but this is two days ago.
Publication: DI, pp. 194–198.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. For the monument over EBB’s grave in Florence.
2. The sculptor of the monument, Francesco Giovannozzi (b. 1802).
3. “I tried to improve.”
4. Niccolò Matas (1799–1872); see letter 5146, note 11.
5. £80, the final payment of three, totalling £240, for construction of EBB’s monument.
6. Giuseppe Frascheri (see letter 5440, note 4).
7. RB refers to the home of Annette’s and Isa’s aunt, Mary Alexander (née Bracken, 1790–1867), at 43 Grosvenor Place.
8. Italics. Brief Notes on Politics, People, and Places in Italy, in 1864 by Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904) was published by Trübner and Co. earlier in the month. Miss Cobbe had visited the Brownings in Florence while staying with Isa Blagden at Bellosguardo during the spring and early summer of 1858. The “something about ‘the Brownings’” occurs on pp. 389–394. The author praises EBB’s “courage and energy” and “her great powers, not only of writing but of loving … Mrs. Browning found a man whose own powers were great enough and his heart large enough to appreciate and to glory in those she possessed” (p. 393).
9. Elizabeth Smith (née Blakeway, 1831–1914). She and George Murray Smith (1824–1901), RB’s future publisher, were married in 1854.
11. Dramatis Personæ (2nd. ed., 1864), which RB mentions in letter 5440. We have been unable to trace this presentation copy.
12. The Ring and the Book (1868–69).
13. RB, “Up at a Villa—Down in the City,” lines 53 and 63. In his notice of Poetical Works (1863) and Dramatis Personae in The Edinburgh Review, William Stigand offers this line and other “new interjections and combinations of letters,” along with a few “peculiar names,” as evidence of RB’s choosing “to remain apart from the beaten track of the ordinary world.” For the full text of this review, see pp. 344–354.
14. “A Tuscan Village—A Tuscan Sanctuary,” The Cornhill Magazine, October 1864, pp. 461–476.
15. i.e., the Athenæum Club.
16. Presumably Jane Browning Smith.
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