5755. RB to Isa Blagden
[London]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 83–85.
May 19. ’66.
Dearest Isa,
I was particularly glad to get your letter, as I had received one a week or two before from Miss Smith [1] inquiring about you,—she had missed your usual communication, it seems, and fancied you might be ill: I conclude, and trust, from the absence of allusion to it in this letter, that all is right. I am glad you like Pen’s photograph, [2] —by no means a flattering one, however,—too dark,—still very like undoubtedly. He ought to be somebody above nobody by virtue of the likeness you perceive, [3] which gets stronger & stronger: but his development has been very gradual indeed, I think: his moral qualities are really nearly all I could wish,—his truthfulness, and deepness of feeling, & firmness of mind,—I hope the other good things will follow. We go in a fortnight to Oxford, on a second visit to Jowett at Balliol,—and don’t my heart just beat! I don’t know whether Pen will go next year, or after the next; what shall I do, pray, when alone? But I won’t begin conjuring horrors up,—in this world where one is always taken by surprise rather than by what one has foreseen and feared. My father has been very ill,—he is better and will go into the country the moment the East winds allow,—for in Paris,—as here,—there is a razor wrapped in the flannel of sunshine. I hope to hear presently from my sister, & will tell you, if a letter comes: he is eighty-five almost,—you see! Otherwise his wonderful constitution would keep me from inordinate apprehension. His mind is absolutely as I always remember it,—and the other day when I wanted some information about a point of mediæval history, he wrote a regular bookful of notes and extracts thereabout. [4] Well,—I forget whether I answered a question about Lytton,—if I did not, I can say, from having seen Drummond Wollf [5] two days ago, that he is quite well, going to get extra pay as Chargé d’affs in the absence of his chef, [6] which Uncle Clarendon [7] will considerately prolong, and then will get leave to return to Engd for the winter: his eyes are all right, and his happiness with his wife entire. I wish, by the way, you would give me one word, toward satisfying my natural curiosity, and tell me if the following personages are alive & how? Made Tassinari, Mrs Baker, Dr Trotman. Not that I care three straws about the three,—but that I would like to know where they are, as Florentine stocks & stones. I agree with you, & always did, as to the uninterestingness of the Italians individually, as thinking, originating souls: I never read a line in a modern Italian book that was of use to me,—never saw a flash of poetry come out of an Italian word: in art, in action, yes,—not in the region of ideas: I always said, they are poetry, don’t & can’t make poetry,—& you know what I mean by that, .. nothing relating to rhymes and melody and lo stile: [8] but as a nation; politically, they are most interesting to me; I think they have more than justified every expectation their best friends formed of them,—and their rights are indubitable: my liking for Italy was always a selfish one,—I felt alone with my own soul there: here, there are fifties and hundreds, even of my acquaintance, who do habitually walk up & down in the lands of thought I live in,—never mind whether they go up to the ends of it, or even look over them,—in that territory, they are,—and I never saw footprint of an Italian there yet. I shall not go to Florence again to stay—certainly not now—but I should like to have earned a few years of that sort of solitude somewhere else in the divine Land of Souls: perhaps Greece would suit me even better. Never mind about it now. As for Mario, [9] I dare say he is a born baby and less of a politician than the first mechanic you meet in the street here.
My poem is nearly done—won’t be out for a year or perhaps more. Suppose I am ruined by the loss of my Italian Rents, [10] —how then? I shall go about and sell my books to the best bidder, and I want something, decidedly, for this performance: 16,000 lines, [11] or over,—done in less than two years, Isa!—I having done other work besides,—and giving the precious earlier hours of the morning to it, moreover, which take the strength out of one. Poor Mrs Carlyle’s death was sad & strange,—but by no means “shook” me rudely; after all, there are people to take care of her husband,—and she might be considered fairly as entitled to go: I have not seen C.,—he talks much about her, and shows more deep feeling than is usual with him: I dined with them both, and saw her for the last time, when he completed his seventieth year. [12] God bless you, dearest– Pen was pleased with your “shake of the hand” and sends his best love. I am just going to write to Cottrell.
Ever affy yours
Robert Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 237–240.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Either Jane Browning Smith or Annie Egerton Smith, though probably the former.
3. That of EBB.
4. As letters 5785 and 5865 indicate, RB, Sr. had sent his son information on “one of the Popes,” either Formosus or Stephen VII (see letter 5684, note 6).
5. Henry Drummond Charles Wolff (1830–1908); see letter 3148, note 11.
6. Sir Arthur Charles Magenis (1797–1867), Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon from 1859 to 1866. Robert Lytton had been transferred from Athens to Lisbon as Secretary of Legation on 21 April 1865. According to The Foreign Office List for July 1872, Lytton served as chargé d’affaires at Lisbon “from April 29 till November 18, 1866” (p. 134).
7. The 4th Earl of Clarendon (1800–70)—see letter 3755, note 12—was at this time foreign secretary in Lord John Russell’s cabinet. Lytton’s wife was his niece (see letter 5440, note 2).
8. “Style.”
9. Alberto Mario (1825–83); see vol. 26, p. 341.
10. RB refers to the “Tuscan funds,” in which the Brownings invested in 1857. See letter 4005, where EBB writes: “We shall have five hundred & fifty a year from that source alone.”
11. The Ring and the Book (4 vols., 1868–69) exceeded 20,000 lines.
12. At the Forsters’ on 4 December 1865 (see SD2801).
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