SD2394. William Howitt to Editor of The Spiritual Magazine
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 356–357.
[?London]
[August 1860]
Sir,
I am much obliged by the perusal of the letter of “Ruth,” in defence of Mrs. Browning. I am glad to hear that Mrs. Browning has been for years so steadfast a Spiritualist. It is worthy of her genius; and I wish I could feel that she had in her late Poems before Congress, ascended above the earth-plane. In fact, the letter of her friend only confirms my suggestion of her being whilst writing them, “biologized from below.” A person biologized for the time, thinks, feels and perceives, precisely as his or her biologizer dictates. Is this not the case in Mrs. Browning’s astonishing infatuation regarding Napoleon III.? Ruth, in her generous vindication, quotes a passage in which we are told by the poetess, that Louis Napoleon’s “great deed was too great;” and that “we must wait” to form a correct judgment of him. Now, why should we wait? Has he not shown to all the world that his “great deed was too great” for him. That surely, must be the true reading. Had he, when he promised to “free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic,” done so, and done so without other fee or reward but the satisfaction and the glory of a noble action, he would have ensured himself eternal fame. But he stopped short; left the Austrian still in Italy; and yet insisted on the payment of his half-done deeds by the [sic] lopping off Nice and Savoy from Italy, and joining them to France, laying bare the frontiers of Switzerland, and alarming all Europe. Since then, he has refused to sanction the accession of Tuscany and the Legation to Sardinia, though they have voluntarily acceded by his own mode of universal suffrage. Are these the characteristics of a great man? True, Italy has unexpectedly taken herself, in a great measure out of his hands; there is yet a prospect that she will become free—but not by Napoleon’s act—but by the act and council of that Higher power who works with ambitious men differently to their intentions.
Need we wait to know that Napoleon by his 600,000 armed men, and by his enormous navy keeps all Europe armed to the teeth in a time of peace; keeps us and the continent at the enormous expenditure of war in a time of peace; thus exhausts all the energies of the people in support of a crushing taxation, and retards civilization and pushes back Christianity by founding the Moloch spirit of destruction? What we wait for is to be well rid of the Napoleon nuisance; and Spurgeon, in his letter from Baden-Baden, gives up hope that we shall not wait for ever. Europe sees with reviving cheerfulness that God, by that incurable disease which is wasting the disturber, will ere long give her relief.
Much as I admire the warm feeling which has prompted Ruth to stand up for her friend, Mrs. Browning, I cannot think that she has mended the matter by her explanation, that The Curse for a Nation was aimed at the United States, and was first published in an anti-slavery publication, and then put “promiscus,” as the London gamins say, into The Poems before Congress. Thus it appears that this “curse” is kept by the brilliant and energetic poetess, as a sort of cannon which she fires off according to circumstances. Having done duty against the Americans, it was mounted on her Italian battery, and discharged against England. If not against England, why put into that battery at all?
Let us trust that as the liberty-loving poetess is a staunch Spiritualist, she will learn what Spiritualists are early compelled to learn, “to discern spirits.” Had “the angel” come to me, as Mrs. Browning says he did to her, and bade me write a curse, whether on an individual, or on a nation, I should have said, “Get thee behind me, Satan! for I am a Christian, and my religion says, ‘Bless, and Curse not.’” Nothing is so requisite for Spiritualist or Christian, if there can be a distinction betwixt those two names, as to be on the guard against imposing spirits; and if we are to take this “curse,” as a bonâ fide spiritual communication, which it professes to be, and of which it certainly has the form—“This is the curse! Write;”—there cannot be a doubt but that it came from a false and anti-Christian source. Cursing is no part of Christianity. This, too, confirms my supposition that the extraordinary fascination in favour of the one man who disturbs all Europe, is precisely a demoniac spell, impressed on purpose to becloud and mislead, and if possible, destroy the genius of the amiable poetess. Every Spiritualist ought to pray for her enfranchisement from it. Once discharged of this unfortunate bewitchment which makes her best friends continually exclaim, “Why will she do these things?” and her mind opened up to the influences of more heavenly and friendly spirits, we might expect far higher and more potential strains from her pen than we have received hitherto. May it be so.
Yours faithfully,
william howitt.
Text: The Spiritual Magazine, September 1860, pp. 405–406.
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