5979. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 266–268.
Athenæum,
Nov: 19. [1867] [1]
Dearest Isa, I have left writing till a somewhat late hour, & shall have to be brief. I hope you won’t be caught in a corner, & found “homeless” when the cold winds come. [2] I daresay you are quite in the right about your politics: I can’t bear to think of any part of the whole mass of lies & intrigues,—I like no one man engaged in the matter, the King & the Emperor not a bit more than Garibaldi: [3] well, it seems ordained that if you believe in heroes you will be sorry for it, sooner or later. I have of course heard other versions of the thing, different from yours,—don’t know & hardly care which is the true, so bad is the best.
When I wrote I told you Pen was just going to Oxford: he is doing particularly well there, the experiment turning out exactly as I hoped: the impulse gained by a glimpse, or rather good gaze into the life of young men with a purpose to study, has done him great good. He writes to me often,—enjoys himself much, having his own boat there. Indeed, people are only too kind to him, & the magnates have him to breakfast &c in an unusual way. Did I—no, I did not tell you of the honor conferred on me,—seeing that the news came when your letter,—i.e, the letter to you,—was sealed or fastened: I was elected last month an Honorary Fellow of Balliol,—admitted to all the privileges,—minus the emoluments, of course. This is a very pretty compliment to me,—Pen at the college of which I am Fellow, is it not? I really don’t know what makes folks so kind all at once.
I part from Chapman, pursuant to my resolution taken when you were last in England, and go to Smith & Elder—who bring out a new Edition presently. I have had strange offers for the Poem,—which I shall give to Smith in all probability. It will be out about May next—I trust: it won’t appear a day before it is ready if I wait another two or three years: but it will soon be ready now, I think: I have all my time to myself: not only do more but with infinitely greater freshness. I should have liked to have seen Miss Cushman, and Hatty too: neither of them ever signify their presence to me, when they come to London: it don’t much matter. I saw Story,—here to execute a statue of Peabody, [4] —pleasant & kind he was.
Here’s the hour. I end abruptly, but always with the one entire feeling of affectionateness for my dear Snake [5] (—an image fresh in my mind from having a few minutes ago talked with dear Mat Arnold,—who is in the room somewhere.[)] Good bye, dearest Isa.
God bless you
Robert Browning.
How is Cottrell? Layard reports him very ailing & weak, poor fellow. You don’t see Lytton’s new books, [6] I suppose. Here they are, but I have not read them.
Publication: DI, pp. 284–286.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Year provided by RB’s mention of being “elected last month an Honorary Fellow of Balliol.”
2. Isa Blagden returned from Bagni di Lucca in October to find that her apartment in Villa Isetta had “turned out to be not only damp but mouldy” (see her letter to Beatrice Trollope, [9 February 1868], ms at Princeton). Consequently, she went back to stay at Bagni di Lucca until 16 December, when she moved into a ground-floor apartment in Villa Castellani, Bellosguardo (see letter from Frances Eleanor Trollope to Beatrice Trollope, 8 December 1867, ms at Princeton).
3. In September 1867, Garibaldi, with the tacit approval of King Victor Emmanuel, issued a proclamation urging Romans to overthrow the Papal government, to be timed with an assault on the city. Before the plan could be implemented, Garibaldi was arrested and sent back to Caprera. Nevertheless, a small uprising did occur on 22 October accompanied by a weak attack, both of which were put down. Soon afterwards, Garibaldi escaped from his island and led an army of 3000 volunteers toward Rome, achieving an initial victory over Papal forces at Monterotondo (24–26 October), about 16 miles north of the city. In early November, however, the Garibaldians were defeated by newly arrived French troops from Toulon, after which a French garrison was re-established in Rome for the Pope's protection. See Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870 (1970), pp. 288–291.
4. George Peabody (1795–1869), American merchant, financier, and philanthropist, had settled in London in 1837. Story’s commission was “paid for by funds raised through a general subscription … a gesture of England’s gratitude to Peabody for his contributions to the welfare of the British people” (see Jan M. Seidler, “A Critical Reappraisal of the Career of William Wetmore Story (1819–1895), American Sculptor and Man of Letters,” Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1985, pp. 584–585). Story was in London for preliminary modelling and sketching of the subject. The finished statue was unveiled in 1869 beside the Royal Exchange, London, where it still stands.
6. Chronicles and Characters (2 vols., 1868), published by Chapman and Hall on 16 November 1867.
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