5879. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 181–184.
Athenæum Club
Pall Mall S.W.
19th March (by rights!) really March 21, ’67.
Dearest Isa,
I waited thus long in the hope I should be able to get your book before I wrote: I cannot,—get whoever may the novel,—I cannot get it, though, thro’ Arabel Barrett, my name is long since down on a library-list for it. Will you wait till next time? By when, depend on my reading & criticizing to heart’s content. I never see Chapman, and there is no wonder he don’t send it or lend it. I have seen no review as yet, [1] even a line in length: I hope they will come in thick & threefold, all the better considered for not being done in a hurry as usual.
I shall interest you by telling you that Lytton & his wife are here,—I met them at Forster’s the day of their arrival. [2] She is very nice & distinguished,—not, to my mind, with a trace of prettiness—but that may be owing to her health (she is to be confined in June—)– [3] He is just the same as ever,—was very affectionate and demonstrative,—seems very fond of his wife, too,—and she, I hear, gives him a wonderful character,—let it all be as it looks. He wants much to know Mat Arnould, and I will bring it about, if I can: but he called on Lady Strangford, [4] at whose house A. was to be, and when I could have done it, and got no invitation—to his surprise—the fact being, I suspect,—that Strangford is the man who wrote that memorable review of “Serbsky Pesme” in the Saturday, [5] —and may have his own likings or dislikings in the matter: I don’t think Lytton guesses this,—and what is the use of telling him? They may arrange it among themselves. Lytton looks older, very bearded, seems occupied with his child, [6] —in short is in good case, which you will be glad to hear.
All you say about the inadequate test of superiority in a young man which college honours indicate I know very well; I don’t want them, in fact,—only the ordinary proficiency as a step to something else,—tho’ I value learning too. I certainly shall feel it much if he can’t get into Balliol,—that difficulty tided over, I shall only exact the ordinary application and gaining of a degree. I shall not be long kept waiting now. I told you, I think, that Pen goes on a visit to Jowett next Monday—for a week: and that the matriculation takes place—or should—on the 2d of May. Pen is not nervous at all—is in excellent health & strength, and has worked really hard this month—not before then: in fact, he is immature, and could not realize the nearness of the trial and necessity of preparing for it– I should not allow him to study long at this rate—and his progress has been great for the time.
This is the season of dinners: I dined last eg. with Bright, [7] and other notables,—I liked him much, we talked about poetry of which he is very fond. It was funny to see him sitting by a Duke and bating no syllable of his radicalism. But I was at a still better entertainment last week [8] —dining with Ld Russell & Gladstone and only one other guest: the two talked unreservedly, and very interesting it was. I saw Gladstone at another party afterwards, looking radiant: also saw your friend Miss Elliot—and perhaps three hundred other people.
I told you I had not the least wish to be made Professor—I should just think not!—only wished to propitiate the Dons, and repay the young men for their partiality—which I am flattered with in a mild way. Three lectures would cost me as much pains to deliver as three tragedies to write. I do believe I forgot to tell you that I had seen Bowen & his wife lately at John Coleridge’s—(that admirable person)—and that we talked pleasantly together about you.
Indeed I don’t think you told me those particulars about those Tassinaris and so on,—tho’ you may have done so: at all events, I decidedly read and reread your letters always—as you very well know. I don’t care one brass farthing about the Tassinaris or Mrs Baker—yet—they are of Florence, and I never even see the name without a stir of heart– I am most sorry for the poor Cottrells—the annoyance to Cottrell is probably in the change in his fortunes—he began somewhat showily, flourishingly at all events,—and feels the altered figure he cuts in the eyes of foolish people more than those would who never had cared about their opinion: his wife’s ill health may depress her: after all, “five or six hundred pounds” contribute materially to oil the wheels of life, in the case of folks of moderate means. Kirkup wrote a long affectionate letter to me a few days before yours arrived—containing most of the matter that is in your note. Poor man! Provided they don’t stifle him or poison him, & afterward rob the house!
Good bye, dearest Isa: Sarianna & Pen send their kindest love—both are quite well moreover. The weather here is vile to an extraordinary degree. Garibaldi is just what I always took him for, once out of a mountain pass! [9] Give a kind of modified love, if you like, to Jessie. I have not seen Mrs Sartoris[’s] story [10] —nor any new English story this long while—so yours will find me fresh.
Ever affectionately yours
RB.
Publication: DI, pp. 257–260.
Source: Photocopy in editors’ file. [11]
1. Reviews of Isa Blagden’s novel Nora and Archibald Lee appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette (4 April 1867, pp. 10–11) and The Daily News (18 April 1867, p. 2).
2. According to Sarianna, in a letter to Joseph Milsand, the Lyttons arrived the “day before” the dinner at Forster’s, which took place on 7 March. She added that Lytton’s wife “seems a nice person, and he is as sugarily affectionate as ever” (see SD2881).
3. Elizabeth Edith Bulwer Lytton (1867–1942), second child and first daughter of Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831–91) and his wife Edith (née Villiers, 1841–1936), was born on 12 June.
4. Emily Anne Smythe (née Beaufort, 1826–87), wife of Percy Smyth (1826–69), 8th Viscount Strangford.
5. The Saturday Review of 23 March 1861 carried a damaging review of Lytton’s Serbski Pesme (1861); see letter 4866, note 4.
6. Edward Rowland John Bulwer Lytton (1865–71); see letter 5568, note 7.
7. John Bright (1811–89), radical politician and reformer. As indicated in SD2886, the dinner took place at Lord Hobart’s on 20 March. RB lists the other guests in a memorandum written on an enclosure with letter 5880.
8. On the 14th at Lady Russell’s (see letter 5873).
9. RB probably has in mind Garibaldi’s recent visit to Venice, where he made speeches in support of leftist candidates running in the Venetian March elections. In one such oration, from the balcony of his room, The Times of 8 March 1867 reported that he recalled “the days when Venice was the bulwark of civilization, and made head against ‘the crescent, the Turks, the Sultans, and the devil himself.’ Frantic applause greeted this climax. ‘This Venice,’ continued Garibaldi, ‘was afterwards abandoned, sold in the market like a lamb, sold by one tyrant to another tyrant. You know who the knaves (birbanti) are of whom I speak’” (p. 3). He went on to denounce “the priests and those who covenanted with them,” resulting in a small riot the next evening, during which the “people assembled … raised a cry of ‘Death to the priests’” (p. 3).
10. Adelaide Sartoris’s A Week in a French Country House was first published in The Cornhill Magazine as a serial in three parts from January to March 1867. Soon after, it was issued in book form by Smith, Elder & Co.
11. This letter was given to the publisher John Murray by T.J. Wise. Before the firm’s archives were dispersed, the editors obtained a photocopy of the letter, the present whereabouts of which is unknown.
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