SD2503. Emelyn Story to Sarah Blake Shaw
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 306–308 (in part).
Hotel des Diablerets,
Vallie des Ormonts—
dessus
August 24th ’61–
My dear Sarah,
Ever since dear Mrs Browning’s death I have been upon the point of writing to you some of the details which I knew you were most naturally longing for.
Today comes your note, enclosing one (already on its way to Browning) & this serves but to quicken my intention. I wrote to you just as we were about leaving Rome for a somewhat uncertain summer destination—whether this letter even reached you is matter of no great consequence, yet as it contained matters confidential I should be glad to know that it had not gone astray. After that we settled ourselves for a fortnights bathing at Leghorn. Little notes for & to Casa Guidi in this time were daily sent. At first Mrs Browning’s illness gave me great uneasiness & Browning wrote “she will be better in a few days & then we will all go to Siena for the summer,” by this time we had agreed with them to take the old Villas at Siena & to renew there the old life– Mrs Browning occasionally added a post script & her last I will copy for you. Again he wrote “I do not leave her for a moment by day or night but she thinks the Physician is making too aggravated a case of it.” The next day came a line from Miss Blagden & we knew that it was all over– With all speed, we, William, Edith & I went to Florence & at once to Casa Guidi. There we found poor B. looking like one who had passed through a long severe illness & yet prostrated by it– W. staid with him listening to the details of those last hours—which it seemed to give B comfort to tell over– At Sunset on the next day we followed her to her Grave & laid her in her dear Florentine earth. All that was simplest & quietest in the final arrangements was followed—and we added the laurel crown to Edith’s garland of white roses & there we left her to the songbirds & the murmuring of the bending cypresses–
On the next day we spent the entire morning at Casa Guidi with Browning– All this time he talked of her, reviewing the happy 13 years of their married life– He took down her books looked over their copious M.S.S. notes & we said how meekly all that learning was carried about. Her Hebrew Bible with scarcely a page unwrote her copies of the Greek plays swimming over with notes, all indicating how much study & research!
And yet to us who knew her well all this learning & the great intellect which fused it into burning words, is as nothing to the great heart which beat under it all sending its echoes into every phase of human life, with all its joys as its sorrows. What have we all lost, what a loss to the world!– How rich the other world is fast becoming in the choicest & best, how poor this!– Well, we talked over it all & then we left poor Browning to arrange Casa Guidi, & scatter his belongings there, then to turn his back on his Italian life to go to England to be again An Englishman– Somewhat too near we are to his past life for him at once to take up with letter writing to us but yesterday came one of those long candid letters full of sadness but of a sadness which has utterance & so does not altogether stifle, he is now on the seaside in France living in profoundest retirement with his Father Sister & Penini– He says that he had thought to go at once to England to see Arabel Barrett (Mrs B’s sister) but found the associations on the old familiar route too strong for him & he has been obliged to halt for a month or so. Penini is well & is to go to school or have a Tutor to fit him for an English University.
You will ask did she take leave of this dear husband & child, did she know how soon the veil was to be lifted for her. Browning says that while in so many words she said again & again I shall be better soon, yet as she poured out in reiterated phrases of affection her love of him her happiness with him during her life with him & as she left no term of tenderness unspoken it was like the tenderest adieu– No devotion could be like his & she knew it,—it kept her here—long years ago that poor frail body must have found the perpetual struggle with life too much for it, but for the strong love which supported it & made the way easy– With her arms thrown up into the air she seemed to welcome the new life. Again & again this wild motion & as she lay in her husbands arms with a smile on her divine face she closed her eyes upon our world & its fatigues– Who of us could wish her back again & yet how much we miss her & long for her sympathy. I have written a long detailed account of the last hours & days as I heard them from Browning, but I did not send it to the friend in America for whom it was destined fearful lest in some way its details might creep into the Public Press.
You will see by her Poem “Pan” lately published in the Cornhill Mag how much she dreaded having the privacy of her Life dragged before the Public– Not that there was any thing in it but a lesson for the best & a model for the purest, but she liked to hug it up as her own & keep it apart from the world. I suppose or rather I hope for I have no means of knowing it, that Browning will himself prepare for the Press some Biography of her– She had such a peculiar shrinking from the morbid curiosity of the Public, that I am not sure that he will ever be induced to say anything–
There are a few fugitive Poems as yet unpublished but nothing of any great length. Her last unfinished letter was to Professor Matteucci & touched upon the Roman Question in a most able & wise manner. Our only difference with her which ever brought about discussion, grew out of her great faith in the Emperor Napoleon & this continued to the day of her death a faith which it is the best thing we know of him that he was able to inspire.
How eagerly she followed the Italian Question,—what confidence she had in the issue! her life came to her with its successes & certain death seemed iminent on its reverses– Villa Franca & the death of Cavour, seemed for the time to rob her of all vitality– I never shall forget how shattered & weak she looked after Villa Franca– I meant to have taken a copy of her last words to Mat[t]eucci, for B. agreed that I should do so, but at the last it escaped my mind.
For the past two years Peni has taken all his lessons at our house in Rome during the winter & at our Sienese Villa during the Summer, from the Abbè Venturini with Edith—& every evening when we had no engagement in common Mr Browning has come to us & we have talked into the small hours of the night—for Mrs Browning used to send him off to us when she went as she always did to bed at eight o’clock– Every day for two months of last winter Mr Browning, modelled for two hours in the morning at W’s studio, taking lessons of him. So you see our life in Italy is no longer the old thing—it has lost its best charm & as we turn our faces thitherward now it is with no glow of enthusiasm as of old– Italy is wiped off our map too & we have the North Pole in its stead speaking socially. I am growing old dear Sarah. I feel it not in my bones but in my heart for there are aches & pains & fears & apprehensions in the place of hopes & faiths & great ardent glows–
Just now too comes the news of Mrs Longfellows sudden & terrible luck, causing great sorrow to us all & a sense of the fearful vo[l]cano on which we slumber– Then too our disgraceful reverses at Bulls run come to sap our faith in the great Northern Army now fighting for the cause– And yet, and yet I know that “He who keepeth thee will never slumber,” & that these things must right themselves after all. Gen McClellan is my cousin, & I follow his career so far with pleasure– But after all we are sadly crestfallen– W’s statue of Mr Quincey is at a stand still as the funds are wanting to carry it on & as he has already spent so much upon it & upon his studio generally that his diminished & diminishing income forces him to discontinue it until better times. I hope that the Cleopatra & the Sibyl may go to the great English Exhibition next year– Mr Gaskell, husband of the Author of Ruth &c, has just been making us a visit. We like him very much & find him full of intelligence & refinement– He is a Unitarian & to be this openly in England demands great independence it would seem– I have thought much of the sacrifice you have made in sending off your only son to the war! May heaven keep him–
My boys have grown a bit sturdier in this Alpine air & Edith & I have got rid of our too persistent headaches. W. is not much improved by this bracing air which rather excites & irritates his nerves & for this reason we shall soon go down into the valley– We hope to see the dome of St Peters before the 20th of October & to shake down into winter quarters early– Pray send me a line soon. You see how little encouragement I need to ripen into a Story without an end sort of correspondent– Common friends Margaret & Maria to begin with have made me feel nearer to you than our own personal relations perhaps may justify– You know, I suppose, the story about Mary Page-Williams—it is another chapter in that tragedy—this last might without doubt have been avoided had Emma been left as a companion & guide to her flighty sister but Page thought otherwise & this is the result– That good Emma is perpetually a sacrifice to one or other member of the family– I have not yet [heard] how Mrs W. is received by her friends at home—poor thing the want of home discipline is at the root of it all!–
Best Love to all of you from us all,
God bless you
Yours very cordially
Emelyn Story
Edith was 17 years old yesterday!!–
I will send you a photograph of Mrs Browning, one taken within a month of her death. I have six of them but wait to hear that the negative has not been destroyed before I give any away.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Harvard University.
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