5528. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 203–206.
[London]
19th Jan. ’65.
Dearest Isa,
I believe my last letter was delayed a day from my vile state of cold & headache just as I wrote it: whether my wishes came to you a day before or after the proper Christmas-time, they are always springing up fresh & fresh. I wish you so well in all you do, that I shall begin by venturing to question the policy of “keeping your name before the public,” by merely a reprint: [1] I don’t believe there’s anything but disadvantage in that; the public is glad enough to be ungrateful to old stagers & declare that every new comer has quite leapt up to so & so’s place—and new names (for new books) are the attractive thing. Of course I will say my say to Chapman,—though it is worth little enough: and I do quite remember enough of the story to be able to praise it sufficiently. But, don’t mind if you keep people waiting a little for what is worth waiting for.
I am quite of your mind about the worth of college-acquirements & fame, and how little they prove the owner a person of soul’s-quality: but a race is a race, and who ever tries ought to win—and has [sic, for as] Pen means to try, why I want him to get the reward of it, though that be only a help to something better: I don’t at all doubt that, once in the race, he will do his best—that’s his way: but it happens to be really hard to get leave even to run—the matriculation being said to prove as much scholarship as obtaining a degree at another college: I don’t know. I should be quite at my ease, too, if I could resolve to cut off all the languages, drawing & music, and give all the time to Latin & Greek—but I can’t do that—so we must have all or nothing. Well, two years more, & then—I shall not break my heart in any case. He grows, is happy, & good—clear gain.!
Yes, Bessie Parkes “went over,” after the due hesitation & interesting struggle, and is now something or other that, it seems, she was not before,—whatever amazement that may give the world. [2] Seeing that she was never one of my lights, I don’t feel particularly in the dark. As for Miss Emily [3] —the queen cut away that glory of Royal Printership at once: and one of the counsel in the case told an acquaintance of mine that the “sealed letter” contained a charge I shall be excused from even hinting to you—fear of the explosion of which, caused the shift of Miss E. from one side to the other. [4] As is invariably the case, peoples’ mouths are opened, and tell you what “they knew long ago” though it seems that did not matter a bit so long as nobody else knew: Mrs Procter, for instance told me of a lie she (E) had invented to interest Adelaide, about as pretty a specimen as I ever heard, though familiar with such sportings of the fancy. After all, folks are safe enough in the main—if you know a thing, and fear to be first in telling it, all’s one as if you were ignorant: you don’t say—“I’ll have nothing to do with him or her, I know why & won’t tell”—because friends smile and reply “Really, you can’t expect that, without a definite charge being made, I am to avoid the person you please to dislike”—that is—“I contest your superior experience, and disbelieve in your acuteness, & suppose you to be prejudiced somehow besides”: then one day comes a howl & a wondering at this wicked world.
Yes, Florence will never be my [5] Florence again. To build over or beside Poggio seems barbarous & inexcusable—the Fiesole side don’t matter. Are they going to pull the old walls down, or any part of them, I wait to know? [6] Why can’t they keep the old city as a nucleus and build round and round it, as many rings of houses as they please,—framing the picture as deeply as they please? Is Casa Guidi to be turned into any Public Office? I should think that its natural destination. If I am at liberty to flee away one day it will not be to Florence, I dare say. As old Philipson said to me once of Jerusalem—“No, I don’t want to go there—I can see it in my head.” By the way, how fares it with Mrs Philipson, the daughters & the boy? [7] Are they still in the house all gold & lacquer? Do you bank with Brini? Is M. St Paul [8] alive and on the bridge? Do the B[r]eckers flourish?
Tell Cottrell I am his Debtor for a very kind & considerate letter: I never doubted he did all for the best, and only think of his invariable kindness in all the business: let Giovanozzi [9] but do as he engages and all will go well at the end, which will be all I shall remember.
Willie Bracken is just arrived from Liverpool—where he has been this three weeks with his mother—both are well. Good news from Annette, he says.
I wrote to my sister yesterday and told her your kind wish to be remembered to her & my father: both of them will be delighted, I know. Is there any chance of your coming here this year? I sometimes meet Miss Götting [10] (?) in the street: she tells me the quondam Charlotte Agassiz, [11] who was very ill in India, is now fortunately well again. Was that wound never healed between you & the Tassinari? [12] She, too, was ill, seriously, was she not? What kind of elephantine developement has the girl [13] attained to,—and can poor T. still see a little out of his eyes?
Well, good bye, dearest Isa: I have been for a few minutes & nay, a good many,—so really in Florence with you that it would be no wonder if you heard my steps up the lane to your house. Pen sends his best love. No book yet to you! [14] Perhaps the fault is in me: I never think it worth serious caring for, that’s the fact, but some day you shall have it, be sure, blessed prize as it will prove!
Ever yours most affectionately
Robert Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 203–206.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Isa Blagden’s The Woman I Loved, and the Woman Who Loved Me (1865), published by Chapman and Hall (see letter 5021, note 4).
2. Bessie Rayner Parkes had been drawn to Roman Catholicism through the work of its charities (see letter 4681, note 6). She converted to that religion in July 1864, being “baptized at St Mary Moorfields [in London] … by Dr Daniel Gilbert [(1828–95)], the founder of the Providence Row Night Refuge for women and children.” See Deborah Ann Parker Kinch, “Seeking a ‘Steadfast Aim’: A Cultural Historical Biography of Bessie Rayner Parkes Belloc (1829–1925),” Ph.D. thesis, University of Portsmouth, June 2021, p. 189.
3. Emily Faithfull (1835–95), youngest daughter of the Rev. Ferdinand Faithfull (1789–1871) and his wife, Elizabeth (née Timberlake, 1791–1868). She was part of the Langham Place circle, which included Bessie Parkes and others who advocated women’s rights. In 1860, Miss Faithfull founded the Victoria Press, which employed only women and which in 1861 was made “Printer and Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty” the following year (ODNB).
4. Emily Faithfull had been named as “an accomplice to adultery” in a divorce proceeding filed in November 1863. During the trial, which began in the summer of 1864, the petitioner, Admiral Henry Codrington, claimed that Miss Faithfull had aided his wife, Helen, in arranging visits from her lover at the Codrington home. Mrs. Codrington countersued, denying the adultery and alleging “that her husband had raped Faithfull in the marital bed,” which was substantiated by the victim’s sworn statement (Kinch, p. 186). Before being called as a witness, Miss Faithfull “fled abroad … and the trial was suspended … When the trial resumed in November, Emily Faithfull retracted her sworn statement that Codrington had assaulted her. A Times report [18 November 1864, p. 8] referred to a ‘sealed packet’ which Codrington had given his brother after Emily had been ‘sent away’ from his home, ‘containing an explanation of the cause of her dismissal,’ and there were widespread rumours that this letter contained an accusation that Helen Codrington and Emily had been caught in a sexual liaison” (p. 186). Although Miss Faithfull’s Victoria Press retained its “Royal Printership,” “she was ostracised from Langham Place” (p. 187).
6. In November 1864, not long after Florence was announced as the new capital of Italy, municipal officials appointed the architect Giuseppe Poggi (1811–1901) to head a commission that was charged with expanding and beautifying the city. It was decided to replace the city walls north of the Arno with wide boulevards. Demolition began in the summer of 1865, and “the deadly work was completed within four years” (see R.W.B. Lewis, The City of Florence, New York, 1996, pp. 183–186). South of the Arno, Poggi constructed a winding boulevard in the hills east of the Porta Romana, leaving the city walls largely intact (see Lewis, pp. 188–189).
7. The family of Abramo Philipson (1805–60); see letter 4484, note 21. “Old Philipson” is Abramo’s father, Marco Philipson (1783?–1859); see letter 2751, note 8.
8. As indicated by RB in a later letter to Isa Blagden, “M. St. Paul” was a “goldsmith” on the Ponte Vecchio (2 July 1870, ms at ABL).
10. Laura Getting (1817–94); see letter 3489, note 23.
11. Charlotte Brice (née Agassiz, 1822–1900).
12. Giovanni Tassinari (1805–92) and his wife, Mary Amalia (née Thornton, 1819–95).
13. Alice Isolina Gaspera Tassinari (afterwards Johnson-Danyell, 1848–1911), a childhood friend of Pen. In letter 2896 EBB described her as an “enormous child.”
14. Dramatis Personæ.
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