5579. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 246–247.
Paris, 151 Rue de Grenelle, Fb St Gn
Apr. 19. ’65
Dearest Isa,
I arrived here last night—for a week’s visit to my Father & Sister. I heard soon after getting your letter of the release of poor Mrs Trollope from the sufferings you were doing all in your power to lighten—I only hope at not too great cost to yourself, for the standing so long (to say nothing of the other trials of strength) must have tried you indeed. I saw Anthony Trollope on the 13th & he seemed to entertain hopes,—but I had none, from your account. I cannot but contrast the lingering six or seven weeks of agony with my own case, and be very thankful: you will have thought of that too. I am vexed to hear that the chances are again against your coming to London. I will see Chapman & find out why he don’t advertise, [1] if I can—but his ways are his own, and he mends his pace for nobody– Story has just written to me in far more savage terms: the fact is, he is slow. How do you like fast people? Lucas, for instance,—who wrote to me to contribute to his new magazine—which I told him I could not do—whereupon he at once put my name into his list. I called on him, and he declared he had never seen it—yet there was a huge bill of the thing, with letters as thick as my thumb, lying on his table. [2]
I am very grateful for what you promise to do with respect to Cottrell: he wrote kindly to me about it, and may do the little that is wanted, if you speak to him every now and then. [3]
Milsand is going to be married—a long engagement, twelve years old—which could not be carried out, because his mother refused her consent, through some religious scruple: the death of his mother some months ago allows him to marry at last: [4] he is in the room while I write, and looking very well. Fanny Haworth was here just now,—in good case, also: Paris is brimfull of English for the Easter Holidays—but I shall see nothing of them, I trust. Pen is with me of course.
Oh yes—that Mrs Thistlethwaite, [5] about whom you enquire, was the Laura Bell and is now the canting hypocrite you read about: about that, I am in no doubt at all—seeing that three years ago she concocted a copy of verses to herself, beginning “Lost Angel!” and continuing after the same fashion,—the whole signed—Robert Browning!! She thought I was still in Italy and that she could show this impudent forgery with no risk of detection—but I got to see a copy of it, and wrote underneath my denial of having perpetrated a syllable of it: whereupon she wrote two flaming letters inviting me to dine with her—which I never answered: I thought she might want to get my handwriting and really forge something like it. There’s a Magdalen for you! It answers perfectly, of course—crowds of people go to hear her, and take her by the hand,—like the exquisite fools they are—born for Laura Bells, Humes and such vermin. So is the world made, and we have got to live in it.
I can only write this poor scrap this time—for I am forced to go out—but I would not let my day pass: God bless you, dearest Isa: Pen desires me, this moment, to give his best love: My sister & father send theirs also.
Ever affy yours
RB
Publication: DI, pp. 213–215.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Isa Blagden’s The Woman I Loved, and the Woman Who Loved Me (1865) was first advertised by Chapman and Hall on 6 May 1865; see The Athenæum of that date, no. 1958, p. 633. The advertisement announced that the novel is published “this day” (as did the following week’s advertisement), but in letter 5599 RB indicates that as of 18 May it is still not “out.”
3. Regarding his supervision of the construction of the monument over EBB’s grave.
4. Claire Hélène Milsand (1781–1864) died at Dijon on 4 December. She was a Roman Catholic who never reconciled herself to her son’s embrace of Protestantism and was unhappy that his daughter Claire was being raised a Protestant.
5. Laura Thistlethwayte (née Bell, 1829–94), daughter of Robert Henry Bell (1772–1842), of Dublin, and his second wife, Rebecca (née Bowland, d. 1871). Before marrying in 1852 Frederick Thistlethwayte (1830–87), who inherited great wealth, Laura had been a high-priced courtesan (hence RB’s “Magdalen” remark). Sometime after her marriage, she began lay-preaching as a Methodist, though “there is no evidence of a conversion experience, and little to explain her actions” (ODNB). She is listed in the Brownings’ address books (AB-3 and AB-4) at 15 Grosvenor Square.
___________________
