The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 2 of 2)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning · English · Gutenberg #16646 · 900,340 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 2 of 2)
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Editor: Sir Frederic G. Kenyon
Release date: September 4, 2005 [eBook #16646]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16646
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTERS OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (VOLUME 2 OF 2) ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Lisa Reigel and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Notes: The letter "o" with a macron is indicated as [=o]
in this text. The oe ligature has been replaced with the letters "oe".
The original text had the word "Madame" written two ways: "Mad" followed
by superscripted "me" and "Ma" followed by superscripted "dme". All have
been rendered as Madme.]
[Illustration: _Robert Browning._
Rome 1854.
_From an Oil Painting by W. Fisher._]
THE LETTERS
OF
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
EDITED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL ADDITIONS
BY
FREDERIC G. KENYON
_WITH PORTRAITS_
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME II.
_THIRD EDITION_
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1898
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII
1851-1852
'Casa Guidi Windows'--Venice--Milan--Paris--London--Winter in Paris--The
Coup d'Etat--Louis Napoleon--Miss Mitford's 'Recollections'--George
Sand--Miss Mulock--Summer in England, 1
CHAPTER VIII
1852-1855
Return to Florence--Spiritualism--Robert Lytton--Bagni di
Lucca--Florence--Rome--Florence--The Crimean War--Death of Miss
Mitford, 91
CHAPTER IX
1855-1859
Visit to England--Tennyson's 'Maud'--Winter in Paris--Mr. Ruskin--Last
Visit to England--'Aurora Leigh'--Death of Mr. Kenyon--Return to
Florence--Carnival--Death of Mr. Barrett--Bagni di Lucca--Illness of
Lytton--Paris--Havre--Paris--Florence--Rome, 205
CHAPTER X
1859-1860
The Franco-Austrian War--Napoleon and
Italy--Villafranca--Florence--Siena--Italian Politics and
England--Landor--Florence--Rome, 305
CHAPTER XI
1860-1861
'Poems before Congress'--Napoleon and Savoy--France, Italy, and
England--Florence--Death of Mrs. Surtees Cook--Garibaldi--Rome--The
'Cornhill Magazine' and Thackeray--Increasing Weakness--Death of Mrs.
Browning, 363
INDEX, 455
PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BROWNING, ROME 1854, _Frontispiece_
FACSIMILE OF LETTER TO THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON, _to face p. 262_
THE LETTERS
OF
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII
1851-1852
Since they first settled in Florence the Brownings had made no long or
distant expeditions from their new home. Their summer excursions to
Vallombrosa, Lucca, or Siena had been of the nature of short holidays,
and had not taken them beyond the limits of Tuscany. Now they had
planned a far wider series of travels, which, beginning with Rome,
Naples, Venice, and Milan, should then be extended across the Alps, and
comprehend Brussels, Paris, and ultimately London. This ambitious
programme had to be curtailed by the omission of the southern tour to
Rome and Naples, as well as the digression to Brussels, but the rest of
the scheme was carried out, and about the beginning of June they left
Casa Guidi for an absence which extended over seventeen months.
The holiday had been well earned, especially by Mrs. Browning, who,
since the preparation of the new edition of her poems in the previous
year, had been writing the second part of 'Casa Guidi Windows.' It is
probably to this poem that she refers in the letter to Miss Browning
printed at the end of the last chapter, Miss Browning having on more
than one occasion helped both her brother and her sister-in-law in the
task of passing their poems through the press. The book appeared in
June, just as they were starting on their travels, and probably for this
reason we hear less in the letters of its reception. It was hardly to be
expected that the English public would take a very keen interest in a
poem dealing almost entirely with Italian politics, and half of it with
the politics of three years ago. Either in 1849 or in 1859 the interest
would have been livelier; but Italy was passing now through the valley
of the shadow, and, save for the horrors of the Neapolitan prisons, was
not much before the public for the moment. The intrigues of Louis
Napoleon and the ostentatious aggression of the Pope in England were the
matters of most interest in foreign politics, and both were overshadowed
by the absorbing topic of the Great Exhibition.
Another reason why 'Casa Guidi Windows' has received less appreciation
than it deserves, both at the time of its publication and since, is that
it stands rather apart from all the recognised species of poetry, and is
hard to classify and criticise. Its political and contemporary character
cut it off from the imaginative and historical subjects which form in
general the matter of poetry, while its genuinely poetic emotion and
language separate it from the political pamphlet or the occasional
verse. It is a poetic treatment of a political subject raised to a high
level by the genuine enthusiasm and fire with which it is inspired, and
these give it a value which lasts far beyond the moment of the events
which gave it birth. The execution, too, shows an advance on most of
Mrs. Browning's previous work. The dangerous experiments in rhyming
which characterised many of the poems in the volumes of 1844 are
abandoned; the licences of language are less frequent; the verse runs
smoothly and is more uniformly under command. It would appear as if the
heat of inspiration which produced the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
had left a permanent and purifying effect upon her style. The poem has
been neglected by those who take little interest in Italy and its
history, and adversely criticised by those who do not sympathise with
its political and religious opinions; but with those who look only to
its poetry and to its warm-hearted championship of a great cause, it
will always hold a high place of its own among Mrs. Browning's writings.
* * * * *
_To Miss I. Blagden_
Florence: May 1, [1851].
I am writing to you, dearest Miss Blagden, at last, you see; though you
must have excommunicated me before now as the most ungrateful of
correspondents and friends. Do forgive what you can--and your kindness
is so great that I believe you can, and shall go on to write as if you
did. We have been in the extremity of confusion and indecision. Remember
how the fairy princes used to do when they arrived at the meeting of
three roads, and had to consider what choice to make. How they used to
shake their heads and ponder, and end sometimes by drawing lots! Much in
the like perplexity have we been. Everything was ready for Rome--the day
fixed, the packing begun, the vettura bargained for. Suddenly, visions
of obstacles rose up. We were late in the season. We should be late for
the festas. May would be hot in Rome for Wiedeman. Then two journeys,
north and south, to Rome and Naples, besides Paris and England, pulled
fearfully at the purse-strings. Plainly we couldn't afford it. So
everything was stopped and changed. We gave up Rome and you, and are now
actually on the point of setting out for Venice; Venice is to console us
for Rome. We go to-morrow, indeed. The plan is to stay a fortnight at
Venice (or more or less, as the charm works), and then to strike across
to Milan; across the Splügen into Switzerland, and to linger there among
the hills and lakes for a part of the summer, so working out an
intention of economy; then down the Rhine; then by railroad to Brussels;
so to Paris, settling there; after which we pay our visit to England for
a few weeks. Early next spring we mean to go to Rome and return here,
either _for good_ (which is very possible) or for the purpose of
arranging our house affairs and packing up books and furniture. As it
is, we have our apartment for another year, and shall let it if we can.
It has been painted, cleaned, and improved in all ways, till my head and
Robert's ring again with the confusion of it all. Oh that we were gone,
since we are to go! When out of sight of Florence, we shall begin to
enjoy, I hope, the sight of other things, but as it is the impression is
only painful and dizzying. Our friends Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvy go with us as
far as Venice, and then leave us on a direct course for England, having
committed their children and nurses to the care of her sister at the
Baths of Lucca meantime. We take with us only Wilson.
Do write to me at Venice, Poste Restante, that I may know you are
thinking of me and excusing me kindly. If you knew how uncertain and
tormented we have been. I won't even ask Robert to add a line to this,
he is so overwhelmed with a flood of businesses; but he bids me speak to
you of him as affectionately and faithfully (because affectionately) as
I have reason to do. So kind it was in you to think of taking the
trouble of finding us an apartment! So really sensible we are to all
your warm-hearted goodness, with fullness of heart on our side too. And,
after all, we are not parting! Either we shall find you in Italy again,
or you will find us in Paris. I have a presentimental assurance of
finding one another again before long. Remember us and love us meantime.
As to your spiritual visitor--why, it would be hard to make out a system
of Romish doctrine from the most Romish version of the S.S.[1] The
differences between the Protestant version and the Papistical are not
certainly justifiable by the Greek original, on the side of the latter.
In fact, the Papistical version does not pretend to follow the Greek
text, but a Latin translation of the same--it's a translation from a
translation. Granting it, however, to be faithful, I must repeat that to
make out the Romish system from even _such_ a Romish version could not
be achieved. So little does Scripture (however represented) seem to me
to justify that system of ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline. I
answer your question because you bid me, but I am not a bit frightened
at the idea of your becoming a R.C., however you may try to frighten me.
You have too much intelligence and uprightness of intellect. We do hope
you have enjoyed Rome, and that dearest Miss Agassiz (give our kind love
to her) is better and looks better than we all thought her a little
while ago. I have a book coming out in England called 'Casa Guidi
Windows,' which will prevent everybody else (except you) from speaking
to me again. Do love me always, as I shall you. Forgive me, and _don't_
forget me. I shall try, after a space of calm, to behave better to you,
and more after my _heart_--for I am ever (as Robert is)
Your faithfully affectionate friend,
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
Venice: June 4, [1851].
My ever dearest Miss Mitford,--I must write to you from Venice, though
it can only be a few lines. So much I have to say and _feel_ in writing
to you, and thinking that you were not well when you wrote last to me, I
long to hear from you--and yet I can't tell you to-day where a letter
will find me. We are wanderers on the face of the world just now, and
with every desire of going straight from Venice to Milan to-morrow
(Friday) week, we shall more probably, at the Baths of Recoaro, be
lingering and lingering. Therefore will you write to the care of Miss
Browning, New Cross, Hatcham, near London? for so I shall not lose your
letter. I have been between heaven and earth since our arrival at
Venice. The heaven of it is ineffable. Never had I touched the skirts of
so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails
of water up between all that gorgeous colour and carving, the enchanting
silence, the moonlight, the music, the gondolas--I mix it all up
together, and maintain that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it, not
a second Venice in the world. Do you know, when I came first I felt as
if I never could go away. But now comes the earth side. Robert, after
sharing the ecstasy, grows uncomfortable, and nervous, and unable to eat
or sleep; and poor Wilson, still worse, in a miserable condition of
continual sickness and headache. Alas for these mortal Venices--so
exquisite and so bilious! Therefore I am constrained away from my joys
by sympathy, and am forced to be glad that we are going off on Friday.
For myself, it does not affect me at all. I like these moist, soft,
relaxing climates; even the scirocco doesn't touch me much. And the baby
grows gloriously fatter in spite of everything.
No, indeed and indeed, we are not going to England for the sake of the
Exposition. How could you fancy such a thing, even once. In any case we
shall not reach London till late, and if by any arrangement I could see
my sister Arabel in France or on the coast of England, we would persuade
Robert's family to meet us there, and not see London at all. Ah, if you
knew how abhorrent the thought of England is to _me_! Well, we must not
talk of it. My eyes shut suddenly when my thoughts go that way.
Tell me exactly how you are. I heartily rejoice that you have decided
at last about the other house, so as to avoid the danger of another
autumn and winter in the damp. Do you write still for Mr. Chorley's
periodical, and how does it go on? Here in Italy the fame of it does not
penetrate. As for Venice, you can't get even a 'Times,' much less an
'Athenæum.' We comfort ourselves by taking a box at the opera (the whole
box on the ground tier, mind) for two shillings and eightpence English.
Also, every evening at half-past eight, Robert and I are sitting under
the moon in the great piazza of St. Mark, taking excellent coffee and
reading the French papers. Can you fancy me so?
You will receive a copy of my new poem, 'Casa Guidi Windows,' soon after
this note. I have asked Sarianna Browning to see that you receive it
safely. I don't give away copies (having none to give away, according to
booksellers' terms), but I can't let you receive my little book from
another hand than the writer's. Tell me how you like the poem--honestly,
truly--which numbers of people will be sure to dislike profoundly and
angrily, perhaps. We think of going to Recoaro because Mr. Chorley
praised it to us years ago. Tell him so if you write.
Here are a heap of words tossed down upon paper. I can't put the stops
even. Do write _about yourself_, not waiting for the book.
Your ever attached
E.B.B.
At Paris how near we shall be! How sure to meet. Have you been to the
Exposition yourself? Tell me. And what is the general feeling _now_?
* * * * *
_To John Kenyon_
Paris: July 7, [1851].
My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--I have waited day after day during this week
that we have been here, to be able to tell you that we have decided this
or that--but the indecision lasts, and I can't let you hear from others
of our being in Paris when you have a right more than anybody almost to
hear all about us. I wanted to write to you, indeed, from Venice, where
we stayed a month, and much the same reason made me leave it undone, as
we were making and unmaking plans the whole time, and we didn't know
till the last few hours, for instance, whether or not we should go to
Milan. Venice is quite exquisite; it wrapt me round with a spell at
first sight, and I longed to live and die there--never to go away. The
gondolas, and the glory they swim through, and the silence of the
population, drifted over one's head across the bridges, and the
fantastic architecture and the coffee-drinking and music in the Piazza
San Marco, everything fitted into my lazy, idle nature and weakness of
body, as if I had been born to the manner of it and to no other. Do you
know I expected in Venice a dreary sort of desolation? Whereas there was
nothing melancholy at all, only a soothing, lulling, rocking atmosphere
which if Armida had lived in a city rather than in a garden would have
suited her purpose. Indeed Taglioni seems to be resting her feet from
dancing, there, with a peculiar zest, inasmuch as she has bought three
or four of the most beautiful palaces. How could she do better? And one
or two ex-kings and queens (of the more vulgar royalties) have wrapt
themselves round with those shining waters to forget the purple--or
dream of it, as the case may be. Robert and I led a true Venetian life,
I assure you; we 'swam in gondolas' to the Lido and everywhere else, we
went to a festa at Chioggia in the steamer (frightening Wilson by being
kept out by the wind till two o'clock in the morning), we went to the
opera and the play (at a shilling each, or not as much!), and we took
coffee every evening on St. Mark's Piazza, to music and the stars.
Altogether it would have been perfect, only what's perfect in the world?
While I grew fat, Wilson grew thin, and Robert could not sleep at
nights. The air was too relaxing or soft or something for them both, and
poor Wilson declares that another month of Venice would have killed her
outright. Certainly she looked dreadfully ill and could eat nothing. So
I was forced to be glad to go away, out of pure humanity and sympathy,
though I keep saying softly to myself ever since, 'What is there on
earth like Venice?'
Then, we slept at Padua on St. Anthony's night (more's the pity for us:
they made us pay sixteen zwanzigers for it!), and Robert and I, leaving
Wiedeman at the inn, took a calèche and drove over to Arqua, which I had
set my heart on seeing for Petrarch's sake. Did you ever see it, _you_?
And didn't it move you, the sight of that little room where the great
soul exhaled itself? Even Robert's man's eyes had tears in them as we
stood there, and looked through the window at the green-peaked hills.
And, do you know, I believe in 'the cat.'
Through Brescia we passed by moonlight (such a flood of white moonlight)
and got into Milan in the morning. There we stayed two days, and I
climbed to the topmost pinnacle of the cathedral; wonder at me! Indeed I
was rather overtired, it must be confessed--three hundred and fifty
steps--but the sight was worth everything, enough to light up one's
memory for ever. How glorious that cathedral is! worthy almost of
standing face to face with the snow Alps; and itself a sort of snow
dream by an artist architect, taken asleep in a glacier! Then the Da
Vinci Christ did not disappoint us, which is saying much. It is divine.
And the Lombard school generally was delightful after Bologna and those
soulless Caracci! I have even given up Guido, and Guercino too, since
knowing more of them. Correggio, on the other hand, is sublime at Parma;
he is wonderful! besides having the sense to make his little Christs and
angels after the very likeness of my baby.
From Milan we moved to Como, steamed down to Menaggio (opposite to
Bellaggio), took a calèche to Porlezza, and a boat to Lugano, another
calèche to Bellinzona, left Wiedeman there, and, returning on our steps,
steamed down and up again the Lago Maggiore, went from Bellinzona to
Faido and slept, and crossed the Mount St. Gothard the next day,
catching the Lucerne steamer at Fluellen. The scenery everywhere was
most exquisite, but of the great _pass_ I shall say nothing--it was like
standing in the presence of God when He is terrible. The tears
overflowed my eyes. I think I never _saw_ the sublime before. Do you
know I sate out in the coupé a part of the way with Robert so as to
apprehend the whole sight better, with a thick shawl over my head, only
letting out the eyes to see. They told us there was more snow than is
customary at this time of year, and it well might be so, for the passage
through it, cut for the carriage, left the snow-walls nodding over us at
a great height on each side, and the cold was intense.
Do you know we might yield the palm, and that Lucerne is far finer than
any of our Italian lakes? Even Robert had to confess it at once. I
wanted to stay in Switzerland, but we found it wiser to hasten our steps
and come to Paris; so we came. Yes, and we travelled from Strasburg to
Paris in four-and-twenty hours, night and day, never stopping except for
a quarter of an hour's breakfast and half an hour's dinner. So afraid I
was of the fatigue for Wiedeman! But between the unfinished railroad and
the diligence, there's a complication of risks of losing places just
now, and we were forced to go the whole way in a breath or to hazard
being three or four days on the road. So we took the coupé and resigned
ourselves, and poor little babe slept at night and laughed in the day,
and came into Paris as fresh in spirit as if just alighted from the
morning star, screaming out with delight at the shops! Think of that
child! Upon the whole he has enjoyed our journey as much as any one of
us, observing and admiring; though Robert and Wilson will have it that
some of his admiration of the _scenery_ we passed through was pure
affectation and acted out to copy ours. He cried out, clasping his
hands, that the mountains were 'due'--meaning a great number. His love
of beautiful buildings, of churches especially, no one can doubt about.
When first he saw St. Mark's, he threw up his arms in wonder, and then,
clasping them round Wilson's neck (she was carrying him), he kissed her
in an ecstasy of joy. And that was after a long day's journey, when most
other children would have been tired and fretful. But the sense of the
beautiful is certainly very strong in him, little darling. He can't say
the word 'church' yet, but when he sees one he begins to chant. Oh, he's
a true Florentine in some things.
Well, now we are in Paris and have to forget the 'belle chiese;' we have
beautiful shops instead, false teeth grinning at the corners of the
streets, and disreputable prints, and fascinating hats and caps, and
brilliant restaurants, and M. le Président in a cocked hat and with a
train of cavalry, passing like a rocket along the boulevards to an
occasional yell from the Red. Oh yes, and don't mistake me! for I like
it all extremely, it's a splendid city--a city in the country, as Venice
is a city in the sea. And I'm as much amused as Wiedeman, who stands in
the street before the printshops (to Wilson's great discomfort) and
roars at the lions. And I admire the bright green trees and gardens
everywhere in the heart of the town. Surely it is a most beautiful city!
And I like the restaurants more than is reasonable; dining _à la carte_,
and mixing up one's dinner with heaps of newspapers, and the 'solution'
by Emile de Girardin, who suggests that the next President should be a
tailor. Moreover, we find apartments very cheap in comparison to what we
feared, and we are in a comfortable quiet hotel, where it is possible,
and not ruinous, to wait and look about one.
As to England--oh England--how I dread to think of it. We talk of going
over for a short time, but have not decided when; yet it will be soon
perhaps--it may. If it were not for my precious Arabel, I would not go;
because Robert's family would come to him here, they say. But to give up
Arabel is impossible. Henrietta is in Somersetshire; it is uncertain
whether I shall see her, even in going, and she too might come to Paris
this winter. And you will come--you promised, I think?...
I feel here _near enough_ to England, that's the truth. I recoil from
the bitterness of being nearer. Still, it must be thought of.
Dearest cousin, dearest friend, in all this pleasant journey we have
borne you in mind, and gratefully! You must feel _that_ without being
told. I won't quite do like my Wiedeman, who every time he fires his gun
(if it's twenty times in five minutes) says, 'Papa, papa,' because
Robert gave him the gun, and the gratitude is as re-iterantly and loudly
explosive. But one's thoughts may say what they please and as often as
they please.
Arabel tells me that you are kind to the manner of my poem, though to
the matter obdurate. Miss Mitford, too, says that it won't receive the
sympathy proper to a home subject, because the English people don't care
anything for the Italians now; despising them for their want of
originality in _Art_! That's very good of the English people, really! I
fear much that dear Miss Mitford has suffered seriously from the effects
of the damp house last winter. What she says of herself makes me anxious
about her.
Give my true love to dear Miss Bayley, and say how I repent in ashes for
not having written to her. But she is large-hearted and will forgive me,
and I shall make amends and send her sheet upon sheet. Barry Cornwall's
letter to Robert, of course, delighted as well as honoured me. Does it
appear in the new edition of his 'songs' &c.?
Mind, if ever I go to England I shall have no heart to go out of a very
dark corner. I shall just see you and that's all. It's only Robert who
is a patriot now, of us two. England, what with the past and the
present, is a place of bitterness to me, bitter enough to turn all her
seas round to wormwood! Airs and hearts, all are against me in England;
yet don't let me be ungrateful. No love is forgotten or less prized,
certainly not yours. Only I'm a citizeness of the world now, you see,
and float loose.
God bless you, dearest Mr. Kenyon, prays
Your ever affectionate
BA.
Robert's best love as always. He writes by this post to Mr. Procter. How
beautifully Sarianna has corrected for the press my new poem!
Wonderfully well, really. There is only one error of consequence, which
I will ask you to correct in any copy you can--of 'rail' _in the last
line_, to 'vail;' the allusion being of course to the Jewish temple--but
as it is printed nobody can catch any meaning, I fear. They tell me that
the Puseyite organ, the 'Guardian,' has been strong in attack. So best.
* * * * *
After a few weeks in Paris the travellers crossed over to England, which
they had not seen for nearly five years. Their visit to London lasted
about two months, from the end of July to the end of September, during
which time they stayed in lodgings at 26 Devonshire Street.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
26 Devonshire Street: Wednesday, [about August 1851].
My ever dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am not ungrateful after all, but I
wanted to write a long letter to you (having much to say), and even now
it is hard in this confusion to write a short one. We have been
overwhelmed with kindnesses, crushed with gifts, like the Roman lady;
and literally to drink through a cup of tea from beginning to end
without an interruption from the door-bell, we have scarcely attained to
since we came. For my part I refuse all dinner invitations except when
our dear friend Mr. Kenyon 'imposes himself as an exception,' in his
own words. But even in keeping the resolution there are necessary
fatigues; and, do you know, I have not been well since our arrival in
England. My first step ashore was into a puddle and a fog, and I began
to cough before we reached London. The quality of the air does _not_
agree with me, that's evident. For nearly five years I have had no such
cough nor difficulty of breathing, and my friends, who at first sight
thought me looking well, must forbear all compliments for the future, I
think, I get so much paler every day. Next week we send Wilson to see
her mother near Sheffield and _the baby with her_, which is a great
stroke of fortitude in me; only what I can't bear is to see him crying
because she is gone away. So we resolve on letting them both go
together. When she returns, ten days or a fortnight after, we shall have
to think of going to Paris again; indeed Robert begins to be nervous
about me--which is nonsense, but natural enough perhaps.
In regard to Colwall, you are both, my very dear friends, the kindest
that you can be. Ah, but dearest, dearest Mrs. Martin, you can
_understand_, with the same kindness that you use to me in other things.
There is only one event in my life which never loses its bitterness;
which comes back on me like a retreating wave, going and coming again,
which was and _is my grief--I never had but one brother who loved and
comprehended me_. And so there is just one thought which would be
unbearable if I went into your neighbourhood; and you won't set it down,
I am sure, as unpardonable weakness, much less as affectation, if I
confess to you that I _never could bear it_. The past would be too
strong for me. As to Hope End, it is nothing. I have been happier in my
own home since, than I was there and then. But Torquay has made the
neighbourhood of Hope End impossible to me. I could not eat or sleep in
that air. You will forgive me for the weakness, I am certain. You know a
little, if not entirely, how we loved one another; how I was first with
_him_, and _he_ with me; while God knows that death and separation have
no power over such love.
After all, we shall see you in Paris if not in England. We pass this
winter in Paris, in the hope of my being able to bear the climate, for
indeed Italy is too far. And if the winter does not disagree with me too
much we mean to take a house and settle in Paris, so as to be close to
you all, and that will be a great joy to me. You will pass through Paris
this autumn (won't you?) on your way to Pau, and I shall see you. I do
long to see you and make you know my husband....
So far from regretting my marriage, it has made the happiness and honour
of my life; and every unkindness received from my own house makes me
press nearer to the tenderest and noblest of human hearts _proved_ by
the uninterrupted devotion of nearly five years. Husband, lover,
nurse--not one of these, has Robert been to me, but all three together.
I neither regret my marriage, therefore, nor the manner of it, because
the manner of it was a necessity of the act. I thought so at the time, I
think so now; and I believe that the world in general will decide (if
the world is to be really appealed to) that my opinion upon this subject
(after five years) is worth more.
Dearest Mrs. Martin, do write to me. I keep my thoughts as far as I can
from bitter things, and the affectionateness of my dearest sisters is
indeed much on the other side. Also, we are both giddy with the kind
attentions pressed on us from every side, from some of the best in
England. It's hard to think at all in such a confusion. We met Tennyson
(the Laureate) by a chance in Paris, who insisted that we should take
possession of his house and servants at Twickenham and use them as long
as we liked to stay in England. Nothing could be more warmly kind, and
we accepted the note in which he gave us the right of possession for the
sake of the generous autograph, though we never intended in our own
minds to act out the proposition. Since then, Mr. Arnould, the Chancery
barrister, has begged us to go and live in his town house (we don't want
houses, you see); Mrs. Fanny Kemble called on and left us tickets for
her Shakespeare reading (by the way, I was charmed with her 'Hamlet');
Mr. Forster, of the 'Examiner,' gave us a magnificent dinner at Thames
Ditton in sight of the swans; and we breakfast on Saturday with Mr.
Rogers. Then we have seen the Literary Guild actors at the Hanover
Square rooms, and we have passed an evening with Carlyle (one of the
great sights in England, to my mind). He is a very warm friend of
Robert's, so that on every account I was delighted to see him face to
face. I can't tell you what else we have done or not done. It's a great
dazzling heap of things new and strange. Barry Cornwall (Mr. Procter)
came to see us every day till business swept him out of town, and dear
Mrs. Jameson left her Madonna for us in despite of the printers. Such
kindness, on all sides. Ah, there's kindness in England after all. Yet I
grew cold to the heart as I set foot on the ground of it, and wished
myself away. Also, the sort of life is not perhaps the best for me and
the sort of climate is really the worst.
You heard of Mr. Kenyon's goodness to us; I told Arabel to tell you.
But I must end here. Another time I will talk of Paris, which I do hope
will suit us as a residence. I was quite well there, the three weeks we
stayed, and am far from well just now. You see, the weight of the
atmosphere, which seems to me like lead, combined with the excitement,
is too much at once. Oh, it won't be very bad, I dare say. I mean to try
to be quiet, and abjure for the future the night air.
I should not omit to tell you in this quantity of egotism that my
husband's father and sister have received me most affectionately. She is
highly accomplished, with a heart to suit the head.
Now do write. Let me hear all about you, and how dear Mr. Martin and
yourself are. Robert's cordial regards with those of
Your ever affectionate and ever grateful
BA.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
26 Devonshire Street: Saturday, [about August 1851].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Day by day, and hour by hour almost, I have
wanted to thank you again and again for your remedy (which I did not
use, by the bye, being much better), and to answer your inquiry about
me, which really I could not deliver over to Arabel to answer; but the
baby did not go to the country with Wilson, and I have been 'devoted'
since she went away; _une âme perdue_, with not an instant out of the
four-and-twenty hours to call my own. It appeared, at the last, that
Wilson would have a drawback to her enjoyments in having the child, and
I did not choose that: she had only a fortnight, you see, after five
years, to be with her family. So I took her place with him; it was
necessary, for he was in a state of deplorable grief when he missed her,
and has refused ever since to allow any human being except me to do a
single thing for him. I hold him in my arms at night, dress and wash him
in the morning, walk out with him, and am not allowed either to read or
write above three minutes at a time. He has learnt to say in English 'No
more,' and I am bound to be obedient. Perhaps I may make out five
minutes just to write this, for he is playing in the passage with a
child of the house, but even so much is doubtful. He has made very good
friends with a girl here, and Arabel has sent her maid ever so often to
tempt him away for half an hour, so as to give me breathing time, but he
won't be tempted: he has it in his head that the world is in a
conspiracy against him to take 'mama' away after having taken 'Lily,'
and he is bound to resist it.
After all, the place of nursery maid is more suitable to me than that of
poetess (or even poet's wife) in this obstreperous London. I was nearly
killed the first weeks, what with the climate, and what with the
kindness (and what with the want of kindness), and looked wretchedly,
whether Reynolds Peyton saw it or not, and coughed day and night, till
Robert took fright, and actually fixed a day for taking me forthwith
back to Paris. I had to give up a breakfast at Rogers', and shut myself
up in two rooms for a week, and refuse, like Wiedeman, to be tempted out
anywhere, but, after that, I grew better, and the wind changed, and now
the cough, though not gone, is quieted, and I look a different person,
and have ceased to grow thin. But a racketing life will never do for me,
nor an English atmosphere, I am much afraid. The lungs seem to labour in
this heavy air. Oh, it is so unlike the air of the Continent; I say
nothing of Florence, but even of Paris, where I do wish to be able to
live, on account of the nearness to this dear detestable England.
Now let me tell you of Wimpole Street. Henry has been very kind in
coming not infrequently; he has a kind, good heart. Occy, too, I have
seen three or four times, Alfred and Sette once. My dearest Arabel is,
of course, here once if not twice a day, and for hours at a time,
bringing me great joy always, and Henrietta's dear kindness in coming to
London on purpose to see me, for a week, has left a perfume in my life.
Both those beloved sisters have been, as ever, perfect to me. Arabel is
vexed just now, and so am I, my brothers having fixed with papa to go
out of town directly, and she caring more to stay where I am....
I have not written to papa since our arrival through my fear of
involving Arabel; but as soon as they go to the country I shall
_hopelessly_ write. He is very well and in good spirits, thank God.
We have spent two days at New Cross with my husband's father and sister,
and she has been here constantly. Most affectionate they are to me, and
the babe is taken into adoration by Mr. Browning.
But here he is upon me again! Indeed, I have had wonderful luck in
having been able to write all this; and now, God bless both of you, my
dearest friends. Oh, I do feel to my heart all your kindness in wishing
to have us with you, and, indeed, Robert _would_ like to see
Herefordshire, but--
[_The remainder of this letter is wanting_]
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
26 Devonshire Street: Wednesday, [September 1851].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I write in haste to you to tell you some things
which you should hear without delay.
After Robert's letter to George had been sent three times to Wales and
been returned twice, it reached him, and immediately upon its reaching
him (to do George justice) he wrote a kind reply to apprise us that he
would be at our door the same evening. So the night before last he came,
and we are all good friends, thank God. I tenderly love him and the
rest, and must for ever deplore that such poor barriers as a pedantic
pride can set up should have interposed between long and strong and holy
affections for years. But it is past, and I have been very happy in
being held in his arms again, and seen in his eyes that I was still
something more to him than a stone thrown away. So, if you have thought
severely of him, you and dear Mr. Martin, do not any longer. Preserve
your friendship for him, my dearest friends, and let all this foolish
mistaken past be well past and forgotten. I think him looking thin,
though it does not strike them so in Wimpole Street, certainly.
For the rest, the pleasantness is not on every side. It seemed to me
right, notwithstanding that dear Mr. Kenyon advised against it, to
apprise my father of my being in England. I could not leave England
without trying the possibility of his seeing me once, of his consenting
to kiss my child once. So I wrote, and Robert wrote. A manly, true,
straightforward letter his was, yet in some parts so touching to me and
so generous and conciliating everywhere, that I could scarcely believe
in the probability of its being read in vain. In reply he had a very
violent and unsparing letter, with all the letters I had written to papa
through these five years _sent back unopened, the seals unbroken_. What
went most to my heart was that some of the seals were black with
black-edged envelopes; so that he might have thought my child or husband
dead, yet never cared to solve the doubt by breaking the seal. He said
he regretted to have been forced to keep them by him until now, through
his ignorance of where he should send them. So there's the end. I
cannot, of course, write again. God takes it all into His own hands, and
I wait.
We go on Tuesday. If I do not see you (as I scarcely hope to do now), it
will be only a gladness delayed for a few months. We shall meet in Paris
if we live. May God bless you both, dearest friends! I think of you and
love you. Dear Mr. Martin, don't stay too late in England this year, for
the climate seems to me worse than ever. Not that I have much cough
now--I am much better--but the quality of the atmosphere is unmistakable
to my lungs and air passages, and I believe it will be wise, on this
account, to go away quickly.
Your ever affectionate and grateful
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss E.F. Haworth_[2]
London: September 24, 1851.
My dear Miss Haworth,--I do hope you have not set us quite on the
outside of your heart with the unfeeling and ungrateful. I say 'us' when
I ought to have said 'me,' for you have known Robert, and you have not
known _me_, and I am naturally less safe with you than he is--less safe
in your esteem. We should both have gone to inquire after your health if
he had not been attacked with influenza, and unfit for anything until
the days you mentioned as the probable term of your remaining in town
had passed. I waited till he should be better, and the malady lingered.
Now he is well, and I do hope you may be so too. May it be! Bear us in
mind and love, for we go away to-morrow to Paris--where, however, we
shall _expect_ you before long. Thank you, thank you, for the books. I
have been struck and charmed with some things in the
'Companion'--especially, may I say, with the 'Modern Pygmalion,' which
catches me on my weak side of the _love of wonder_. By the way, what am
I to say of Swedenborg and mesmerism? So much I could--the books have so
drawn and held me (as far as I was capable of being drawn or held, in
this chaos of London)--that I will not speak at all. The note-page is
too small--the haste I write in, too great.
God bless you, and good bye. Robert bids me give you his love (of the
earnestest), and I have leave from you (have I not?) to be always
affectionately yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *
The journey to Paris was effected at the end of September, and for about
nine months they pitched their tent at No. 138 Avenue des
Champs-Elysées. It was a fortunate time to be in Paris for those who had
no personal nervousness, and liked to be near the scene of great
events--a most anxious time for any who were alarmed at disturbances, or
took keenly to heart the horrors of street fighting. Fortunately for the
Brownings, they, whether by temperament or through their Italian
experiences, were not unduly disturbed at revolutions, while the horrors
of Louis Napoleon's _coup d'état_ were, no doubt, only partly known to
Mrs. Browning at the time, and were palliated to her by the view she
took of Napoleon's character. She had not, it is true, raised him as yet
to the pinnacle on which his intervention on behalf of Italy
subsequently caused her to place him, but (perhaps owing to what Mr.
Kenyon called her 'immoral sympathy with power') she was always disposed
to put a favourable construction on his actions, and the _coup d'état_
was finally whitewashed for her by the approbation which the
_plébiscite_ of December 20 gave to his assumption of supreme power. Her
views are, however, so fully set forth in her own letters that they need
not be detailed here. For her husband's opinion of the character of
Louis Napoleon, at least as it appeared to him when looking back after
the lapse of years, it is only necessary to refer to 'Prince
Hohenstiel-Schwangau.'
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
October 21, [1851].
But didn't you, dearest friend, get 'Casa Guidi' and the portrait of
Madme de Goethe, left for you in the London house? I felt a _want_ of
leaving a word of adieu with these, and then the chaotic confusion in
which we left England stifled the better purpose out of me.
With such mixed feelings I went away. Leaving love behind is always
terrible, but it was not all love that I left, and there was relief in
the state of mind with which I threw myself on the sofa at Dieppe--yes,
indeed. Robert felt differently from me for once, as was natural, for it
had been pure joy to him with his family and his friends, and I do
believe he would have been capable of never leaving England again, had
such an arrangement been practicable for us on some accounts. Oh
England! I love and hate it at once. Or rather, where love of country
ought to be in the heart, there is the mark of the burning iron in mine,
and the depth of the scar shows the depth of the root of it. Well, I am
writing you an amusing letter to-day, I think. After all, I wasn't made
to live in England, or I should not cough there perpetually; while no
sooner do I get to Paris than the cough vanishes--it is all but gone
now. The lightness of the air here makes the place tenable--so far, at
least. We made many an effort to get an apartment near the Madeleine,
but we had to sacrifice sun or money, or breath, in going up to the top
of a house, and the sacrifice seemed too great upon consideration, and
we came off to the 'Avenue des Champs-Elysées,' on the sunshiny side of
the way, to a southern aspect, and pretty cheerful carpeted rooms--a
drawing room, a dressing and writing room for Robert, a small dining
room, two comfortable bedrooms and a third bedroom upstairs for the
_femme de service_, kitchen, &c., for two hundred francs a month. Not
too dear, we think. About the same that we paid, out of the season, in
London for the miserable accommodation we had there. But perhaps you
won't come near us now; we may be too much 'out of the way' for you. Is
it so indeed? Understand that close by us is a stand of _coupés_ and
_fiacres_, not to profane your ears with the mention of the continual
stream of omnibuses by means of which you may reach the other end of
Paris for six sous. And there might be a possibility of taking a small
apartment for you in this very house. See how I castle-build.
But if the Crystal Palace vanishes from the face of the earth, who shall
trust any more in castles? Will they really pull it down, do you think?
If it's a bubble, it's a glass bubble, and not meant, therefore, for
bursting in the air, it seems to me. And you do want a place in England
for sculpture, and also to show people how olives grow. What a beautiful
winter garden it would be! But they will pull it down, perhaps; and
then, the last we shall have seen of it will be in this description of
your letter, and _that's_ seeing it worthily, too.
We were from home last night; we went to Lady Elgin's reception, and met
a Madame Mohl, who was entertaining, and is to come to us this morning--
She came as I wrote those words. She knows _you_, among her other
advantages, and we have been talking of you, dear friend, and we are
going to her on Friday evening to see some of the French. I shall have
to go to prison very soon, I suppose, as usual, for the winter months,
for here is the twenty-first of October, though this is the first fire
we have had occasion for. It was colder this morning, but we have had
exquisite weather, really, ever since we left England.
The 'elf' is flourishing in all good fairyhood, with a scarlet rose leaf
on each cheek. Wilson says she never knew him to have such an
irreproachable appetite. He is charmed with Paris, and its magnificent
Punches, and roundabouts, and balloons--which last he says, looking up
after them gravely, 'go to God.' The child has curious ideas about
theology already. He is of opinion that God 'lives among the birds.' He
has taken to calling himself '_Peninni_,'[3] which sounds something like
a fairy's name, though he means it for 'Wiedeman.'
Robert is in good spirits, and inclined to like Paris increasingly. Do
you know I think you have an idea in England that you monopolise
comforts, and I, for one, can't admit it. These snug 'apartments'
exclude the draughty passages and staircases, which threaten your life
every time that you run to your bedroom for a pocket-handkerchief in
England. I much prefer the Continental houses to the English ones, both
for winter and summer, on this account.
So glad I am that you are nearly at the end of your work. To rest after
work, what more than rest that always is!
Write to us often--do! We are not in Italy, and you have no excuse for
even _seeming_ to forget us. We are full in sight still, remember.
Are you aware that Carlyle travelled with us to Paris? He left a deep
impression with me. It is difficult to conceive of a more interesting
human soul, I think. All the bitterness is love with the point reversed.
He seems to me to have a profound sensibility--so profound and turbulent
that it unsettles his general sympathies. Do you guess what I mean the
least in the world? or is it as dark as my writings are of course?
I hope on every account you will have no increase of domestic care. How
is Miss Procter? How kind everybody was to us in England, and how
affectionately we remember it! God bless you yourself! We love you for
the past and the present, besides the future in December.
Your attached
E.B.B.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
October 22, [1851].
The pause in writing has come from the confusion in living, my ever
dearest Miss Mitford, and no worse cause. It was a long while before we
could settle ourselves in a private apartment, and we had to stay at the
hotel and wander about like doves turned out of the dove-cote, and
seeking where to inhabit.... We have seen nothing in Paris, except the
shell of it, yet. No theatres--nothing but business. Yet two evenings
ago we hazarded going to a 'reception' at Lady Elgin's, in the Faubourg
St. Germain, and saw some French, but nobody of distinction. It is a
good house, I believe, and she has an earnest face which must mean
something. We were invited, and _are_ invited to go every Monday, and
that Monday in particular, between eight and twelve. You go in a morning
dress, and there is tea. Nothing can be more _sans façon_, and my
tremors (for, do you know, I was quite nervous on the occasion, and
charged Robert to keep close to me) were perfectly unjustified by the
event. You see it was an untried form of society--like trying a Turkish
bath. I expected to see Balzac's duchesses and _hommes de lettres_ on
all sides of me, but there was nothing very noticeable, I think, though
we found it agreeable enough. We go on Friday evening to a Madame
Mohl's, where we are to have some of the 'celebrities,' I believe, for
she seems to know everybody of all colours, from white to red. Then
Mazzini is to give us a letter to George Sand--come what will, we must
have a letter to George Sand--and Robert has one to Emile Lorquet of the
'National,' and Gavarni of the 'Charivari,' so that we shall manage to
thrust our heads into this atmosphere of Parisian journalism, and learn
by experience how it smells. I hear that George Sand is seldom at Paris
now. She has devoted herself to play-writing, and employs a houseful of
men, her son's friends and her own, in acting privately with her what
she writes--trying it on a home stage before she tries it at Paris. Her
son is a very ordinary young man of three-and-twenty, but she is fond of
him....
Never expect me to agree with you in that _cause célèbre_ of 'ladies and
gentlemen' against people of letters. I don't like the sort of veneer
which passes in society--yes, I like it, but I don't love it. I know
what the thing is worth as a matter of furniture-accomplishment, and
there an end. I should rather look at the scratched silent violin in the
corner, with the sense that music has come out of it or will come. I am
grateful to the man who has written a good book, and I recognise
reverently that the roots of it are in him. And, do you know, I was not
disappointed at all in what I saw of writers of books in London; no, not
at all. Carlyle, for instance, I liked infinitely more in his
personality than I expected to like him, and I saw a great deal of him,
for he travelled with us to Paris and spent several evenings with us, we
three together. He is one of the most interesting men I could imagine
even, deeply interesting to me; and you come to understand perfectly,
when you know him, that his bitterness is only melancholy, and his scorn
sensibility. Highly picturesque too he is in conversation. The talk of
writing men is very seldom as good.
And, do you know, I was much taken, in London, with a young authoress,
Geraldine Jewsbury. You have read her books. There's a French sort of
daring, half-audacious power in them, but she herself is quiet and
simple, and drew my heart out of me a good deal. I felt inclined to love
her in our half-hour's intercourse. And I liked Lady Eastlake too in
another way, the 'lady' of the 'Letters from the Baltic,' nay, I liked
her better than the 'lady'....
Do write to me and tell me of your house, whether you are settling down
in it comfortably[4]. In every new house there's a good deal of bird's
work in treading and shuffling down the loose sticks and straws, before
one can feel it is to be a nest. Robert laughs at me sometimes for
pushing about the chairs and tables in a sort of distracted way, but
it's the very instinct of making a sympathetical home, that works in me.
We were miserably off in London. I couldn't tuck myself in anyhow. And
we enjoy in proportion these luxurious armchairs, so good for the
Lollards.
People say that the troops which pass before our windows every few days
through the 'Arc de l'Étoile' to be reviewed will bring the President
back with them as 'emperor' some sunny morning not far off. As to
waiting till _May_, nobody expects it. There is a great inward
agitation, but the surface of things is smooth enough. Be constant, be
constant! Constancy is a rare virtue even where it is not an undeniable
piece of wisdom. Vive Napoleon II.!
As to the book, ah, you are always, and have always been, too good to
_me_, that's quite certain; and if you are not too good to my husband,
it is only because I am persuaded in my secret soul nobody _can_ be too
good to him.
He sends you his warm regards, and I send you a kiss of baby's, who is
finishing his Babylonish education, unfortunate child, by learning a
complement of French. I assure you he understands everything you can say
to him in English as well as Italian, so that he won't be utterly
denationalised.
God bless you. Say how you are and write soon.
Your ever affectionate
E.B.B.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
November 12, 1851.
I see your house, my beloved friend, and clap my hands for pleasure. It
will suit you admirably, I see, plainly from Paris, and how right you
are about the pretty garden, not to make it fine and modern; you have
the right instincts about such things, and are too strong for Mrs.
Loudon and the landscape gardeners. The only defect apparent to me at
this distance is the size of the sitting room.... If you were to see
what we call 'an apartment' in Paris! We have just a slip of a kitchen,
and no passage, no staircase to take up the space, which is altogether
_spent_ upon sitting and sleeping rooms. Talk of English comforts! It's
a national delusion. The comfort of the Continental way of life has only
to be tested to be recognised (with the exception of the locks of doors
and windows, which are _barbaric_ here, there's no other word for it).
The economy of a habitation is understood in Paris. You have the
advantages of a large house without the disadvantages, without the
coldness, without the dearness. And the beds, chairs, and sofas are
perfect things.
But the climate is not perfect, it seems, for we have had very cold
weather the last ten days, and I am a prisoner as usual. Our friends
swear to us that it is exceptional weather and that it will be warmer
presently, and I listen with a sort of 'doubtful doubt' worthy of a
metaphysician. It is some comfort to hear that it's below zero in London
meanwhile, and that Scotland stands eight feet deep in snow.
We have a letter for George Sand (directed _à Madame George Sand_) from
Mazzini, and we hear that she is to be in Paris within twelve days. Then
we must make a rush and present it, for her stay here is not likely to
be long, and I would not miss seeing her for a great deal, though I have
not read one of her late dramas, and only by faith understand that her
wonderful genius has conquered new kingdoms. Her last romance, 'Le
Château des Déserts,' is treated disdainfully in the 'Athenæum.' I have
not read _that_ even, but Mr. Chorley is apt to be cold towards French
writers and I don't expect his judgment as final therefore. Have you
seen M. de la Mare's correspondence with Mirabeau? And do you ever catch
sight of the 'Revue des Deux Mondes'? In the August number is an
excellent and most pleasant article on my husband, elaborately written
and so highly appreciatory as well nigh to satisfy _me_.[5] 'Set you
down this' that there has sprung up in France lately an ardent
admiration of the present English schools of poetry, or rather of the
poetry produced by the present English schools, which they consider _an
advance upon the poetry of the ages_. Think of _this_, you English
readers who are still wearing broad hems and bombazeens for the Byron
and Scott glorious days!
Let me think what I can tell you of the President. I have never seen his
face, though he has driven past me in the boulevards, and past these
windows constantly, but it is said that he is very like his
portraits--and, yes, rumour and the gazettes speak of his riding well.
Wilson and Wiedeman had an excellent view of him the other day as he
turned into a courtyard to pay some visit, and she tells me that his
carriage was half full of petitions and nosegays thrown through the
windows. What a fourth act of a play we are in just now! It is difficult
to guess at the catastrophe. Certainly he must be very sure of his hold
on the people to propose repealing the May edict,[6] and yet there are
persons who persist in declaring that nobody cares for him and that even
a revision of the constitution will not bring about his re-election. _I_
am of an opposite mind; though there is not much overt enthusiasm of the
population in behalf of his person. Still, this may arise from a quiet
resolve to keep him where he is, and an assurance that he can't be
ousted in spite of the people and army. It is significant, I think, that
Emile de Girardin should stretch out a hand (a little dirty, be it
observed in passing), and that Lamartine, after fasting nineteen days
and nights (a miraculous fast, without fear of the 'prefect'), should
murmur a 'credo' in favour of his honesty. As to honesty, 'I do believe
he's honest;' that is to say, he has acted out no dishonesty _as yet_,
and we have no right to interpret doubtful texts into dishonorable
allegations. But for ambition--for ambition! Answer from the depth of
your conscience, 'de profundis.' Is he or is he not an ambitious man?
Does he or does he not mean in his soul to be Napoleon the Second? Yes,
yes--I think, you think, we all think.
Robert's father and sister have been paying us a visit during the last
three weeks. They are very affectionate to me, and I love them for his
sake and their own, and am very sorry at the thought of losing them,
which we are on the point of doing. We hope, however, to establish them
in Paris if we can stay, and if no other obstacle should arise before
the spring, when they must leave Hatcham. Little Wiedeman _draws_; as
you may suppose, he is adored by his grandpapa; and then, Robert! they
are an affectionate family and not easy when removed one from another.
Sarianna is full of accomplishment and admirable sense, even-tempered
and excellent in all ways--devoted to her father as she was to her
mother: indeed, the relations of life seem reversed in their case, and
the father appears the child of the child....
Perhaps you have not seen Eugène Sue's 'Mystères de Paris'--and I am not
deep in the first volume yet. Fancy the wickedness and stupidity of
trying to revive the distinctions and hatreds of race between the Gauls
and Franks. The Gauls, please to understand, are the 'prolétaires,' and
the capitalists are the Frank invaders (call them Cosaques, says Sue)
out of the forests of Germany!...
I saw no Mr. Harness; and no Talfourd of any kind. The latter was a kind
of misadventure, as Lady Talfourd was on the point of calling on me when
Robert would not let her. We were going away just then. Mr. Horne I had
the satisfaction of seeing several times--you know how much regard I
feel for him. One evening he had the kindness to bring his wife miles
upon miles just to drink tea with us, and we were to have spent a day
with them somehow, half among the fields, but engagements came betwixt
us adversely. She is less pretty and more interesting than I
expected--looking very young, her black glossy hair hanging down her
back in ringlets; with deep earnest eyes, and a silent listening manner.
He was full of the 'Household Words,' and seems to write articles
together with Dickens--which must be highly unsatisfactory, as Dickens's
name and fame swallow up every sort of minor reputation in the shadow of
his path. I shouldn't like, for my part (and if I were a fish), to herd
with crocodiles. But I suppose the 'Household Words' _pay_--and that's a
consideration. 'Claudie' I have not read. We have only just subscribed
to a library, and we have been absorbed a good deal by our visitors....
Write and don't leave off loving me. I will tell you of everybody
noticeable whom I happen to see, and of George Sand among the first.
Love your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
December 10, [1851].
I receive your letter, dearest friend, and hasten to write a few brief
words to save the post.
We have suffered neither fear nor danger--and I would not have missed
the grand spectacle of the second of December[7] for anything in the
world--scarcely, I say, for the sight of the Alps.
On the only day in which there was much fighting (Thursday), Wiedeman
was taken out to walk as usual, under the precaution of keeping in the
immediate neighbourhood of this house. This will prove to you how little
we have feared for ourselves.
But the natural emotion of the situation one could not escape from, and
on Thursday night I sate up in my dressing gown till nearly one,
listening to the distant firing from the boulevards. Thursday was the
only day in which there was fighting of any serious kind. There has been
_no resistance_ on the part of the real people--nothing but sympathy for
the President, I _believe_, if you except the natural mortification and
disappointment of baffled parties. To judge from our own tradespeople:
'il a bien fait! c'est le vrai neveu de son oncle!' such phrases rung on
every tone expressed the prevailing sentiment.
For my own part I have not only more hope in the situation but more
faith in the French people than is ordinary among the English, who
really try to exceed one another in discoloration and distortion of the
circumstances. The government was in a deadlock--what was to be done?
Yes, all parties cried out, 'What was to be done?' and felt that we were
waist deep a fortnight ago in a state of crisis. In throwing back the
sovereignty from a 'representative assembly' which had virtually ceased
to represent, into the hands of the people, I think that Louis Napoleon
did well. The talk about 'military despotism' is absolute nonsense. The
French army is eminently civic, and nations who take their ideas from
the very opposite fact of a _standing army_ are far from understanding
how absolutely a French soldier and French citizen are the same thing.
The independence of the elections seems to be put out of reach of
injury; and intelligent men of adverse opinions to the government think
that the majority will be large in its favour. Such a majority would
certainly justify Louis Napoleon, or _should_--even with you in England.
I think you quite understate the amount of public virtue in France. The
difficulties of statesmanship here are enormous. I do not accuse even M.
Thiers of want of public virtue. What he has wanted, has been length and
breadth of view--purely an intellectual defect--and his petty, puny
_tracasseries_ destroyed the Republican Assembly just as it destroyed
the throne of Louis Philippe, in spite of his own intentions.
There is a conflict of ideas in France, which we have no notion of in
England, but we ought to understand that it does not involve the failing
of _principle_, in the elemental moral sense. Be just to France, dear
friend, you who are more than an Englishwoman--a Mrs. Jameson!
Everything is perfectly tranquil in Paris, I assure you--theatres full
and galleries open as usual. At the same time, timid and discouraged
persons say, 'Wait till after the elections,' and of course the public
emotion will be a good deal excited at that time. Therefore, judge for
yourself. For my own part I have not had the slightest cause for alarm
of any kind--and there is my child! Judge....
The weather is exquisite, and I am going out to walk directly. It is
scarcely possible to bear a fire, and some of our friends sit with the
window open. We are all well.
This should have gone to you yesterday, but we had visitors who talked
past post time. The delay, however, has allowed of my writing more than
I meant to have done in beginning this letter. Robert's best love.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
Robert says that according to the impression of the wisest there can be
no danger. Don't wait till after the elections. The time is most
interesting, and it is well worth your while to come and see for
yourself.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
December 11, [1851].
To show how alive I am, dearest Mrs. Martin, I will tell you that I have
just come home from a long walk to the Tuileries. We took a carriage to
return, that's true. Then yesterday I was out, besides, and last
Saturday, _the 6th_, we drove down the boulevards to see the field of
action on the terrible Thursday (the only day on which there was any
fighting of consequence), counting the holes in the walls bored by the
cannon, and looking at the windows smashed in. Even then, though the
asphalte was black with crowds, the quiet was absolute, and most of the
shops reopened. On Sunday the theatres were as full as usual, and our
Champs-Elysées had quite its complement of promenaders. Wiedeman's
prophecy had not been carried out, any more than the prophecies of the
wiser may--the soldiers had not shot Punch.
And now I do beg you not to be down-hearted. See, if French blood runs
in your veins, that you don't take a pedantic view of this question like
an Englishwoman. Constitutional forms and essential principles of
liberty are so associated in England, that they are apt to be
confounded, and are, in fact, constantly confounded. For my part, I am
too good a democrat to be afraid of being thrown back upon the primitive
popular element, from impossible paper constitutions and unrepresenting
representative assemblies. The situation was in a deadlock, and all the
conflicting parties were full of dangerous hope of taking advantage of
it; and I don't see, for my part, what better could be done for the
French nation than to sweep the board clear and bid them begin again.
With no sort of prejudice in favour of Louis Napoleon (except, I confess
to you, some artistical admiration for the consummate ability and
courage shown in his _coup d'état_), with no particular faith in the
purity of his patriotism, I yet hold him justified _so far_, that is, I
hold that a pure patriot would be perfectly justifiable in taking the
same steps which up to this moment he has taken. He has broken,
certainly, the husk of an oath, but fidelity to the intention of it
seems to me reconcilable with the breach; and if he had not felt that he
had the great mass of the people to back him, he is at least too able a
man, be certain, if not too honest a man, to have dared what he has
dared. You will see the result of the elections. As to Paris, don't
believe that Paris suffers violence from Louis Napoleon. The result of
my own impressions is a conviction that _from the beginning_ he had the
sympathy of the whole population here with him, to speak generally, and
exclusively of particular parties. All our tradespeople, for instance,
milkman, breadman, wine merchant, and the rest, yes, even the shrewd old
washerwoman, and the concierge, and our little lively servant were in a
glow of sympathy and admiration. 'Mais, c'est le vrai neveu de son
oncle! il est admirable! enfin la patrie sera sauvée.' The bourgeoisie
has now accepted the situation, it is admitted on all hands. 'Scandalous
adhesion!' say some. 'Dreadful apathy!' say others. Don't _you_ say
either one or the other, or I think you will be unjust to Paris and
France.
The French people are very democratical in their tendencies, but they
must have a visible type of hero-worship, and they find it in the bearer
of that name Napoleon. That name is the only tradition dear to them, and
it is deeply dear. That a man bearing it, and appealing at the same time
to the whole people upon democratical principles, should be answered
from the heart of the people, should neither astonish, nor shame, nor
enrage anybody.
An editor of the 'National,' a friend of ours, feels this so much, that
he gnashes his teeth over the imprudence of the extreme Reds, who did
not set themselves to trample out the fires of Buonapartism while they
had some possibility of doing it. 'Ce peuple a la tête _dure_,' said he
vehemently.
As to military despotism, would France bear _that_, do you think? Is the
French army, besides, made after the fashion of standing armies, such as
we see in other countries? Are they not eminently _civic_, flesh of the
people's flesh? I fear no military despotism for France, oh, none. Every
soldier is a citizen, and every citizen is or has been a soldier.
Altogether, instead of despairing, I am full of hope. It seems to me
probable that the door is open to a wider and calmer political liberty
than France has yet enjoyed. Let us wait.
The American _forms_ of republicanism are most uncongenial to this
artistic people; but democratical institutions will deepen and broaden,
I think, even if we should soon all be talking of the 'Empire.'
As to the repressive measures, why, grant the righteousness of the
movement, and you must accept its conditions. Don't believe the
tremendous exaggerations you are likely to hear on all sides--don't, I
beseech you.
The President rode under our windows on December 2, through a shout
extending from the Carrousel to the Arc de l'Etoile. The troups poured
in as we stood and looked. No sight could be grander, and I would not
have missed it, not for the Alps, I say.
You say nothing specific. How I should like to know _why_ exactly you
are out of spirits, and whether dear Mr. Martin is sad too. Robert and I
have had some domestic _émeutes_, because he hates some imperial names;
yet he confessed to me last night that the excessive and contradictory
nonsense he had heard among Legitimists, Orleanists, and _English_,
against the movement inclined him almost to a revulsion of feeling.
I would have written to you to-day, even if I had not received your
letter. You will forgive that what I have written should have been
scratched in the utmost haste to save the post. I can't even read it
over. There's the effect of going out to walk the first thing in the
morning....
Your ever affectionate
BA--to both of you.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
Christmas Eve, [1851].
What can you have thought of me? That I was shot or deserved to be?
Forgive in the first instance, dearest friend, and believe that I won't
behave so any more, if in any way I can help it.
Tell me your thought now about L. Napoleon. He rode under our windows on
December 2 through an immense shout from the Carrousel to the Arc de
l'Etoile. There was the army and the sun of Austerlitz, and even I
thought it one of the grandest of sights; for he rode there in the name
of the people, after all....
But we know men most opposed to him, writers of the old 'Presse' and
'National,' and Orleanists, and Legitimists, and the fury of all such I
can scarcely express to you after the life. Emile de Girardin and his
friends had a sublime scheme of going over in a body to England, and
establishing a Socialist periodical, inscribing on their new habitation,
'Ici c'est la France.' He actually advertised for sale his beautiful
house close by in the Champs-Elysées, asked ten thousand pounds
(English) for it; and would have been 'rather disappointed,' as one of
his sympathising friends confessed to us, if the offer had been
accepted. I heard a good story the other day. A lady visitor was
groaning politically to Madame de Girardin over the desperateness of the
situation. 'Il n'y a que Celui, qui est en haut, qui peut nous en
tirer,' said she, casting up her eyes. 'Oui, c'est vrai,' replied
Madame, 'il le pourrait, lui,' glancing towards the second floor, where
Emile was at work upon feuilletons. Not that she mistakes him habitually
for her deity, by any manner of means, if scandal is to be listened to.
I hear that Lamennais is profoundly disgusted. He said to a friend of
ours, that the French people were 'putrefied to the heart.' Which means
that they have one tradition still dear to them (the name of Napoleon)
and that they put no faith in the Socialistic prophets. Wise or unwise
they may be accordingly; but an affection and an apprehension can't
reasonably be said to amount to a 'putrefaction,' I think. No, indeed.
Louis Napoleon is said to say (a bitter foe of his told me this) that
'there will be four phases of his life.' The first was all rashness and
imprudence, but 'it was necessary to make him known:' the second, 'the
struggle with and triumph over anarchy:' the third, 'the settlement of
France and the pacification of Europe:' the fourth, a _coup de pistolet.
Se non è vero, è ben trovato._ Nothing is more likely than the
catastrophe in any case; and the violence of the passions excited in the
minority makes me wonder at his surviving a day even. Do you know I
heard your idol of a Napoleon (the antique hero) called the other
evening through a black beard and gnashing teeth, 'le plus grand
scélérat du monde,' and his empire, 'le règne du Satan,' and his
marshals, 'les coquins.' After that, I won't tell you that 'le neveu' is
reproached with every iniquity possible to anybody's public and private
life. Perhaps he is not 'sans reproche' in respect to the latter, not
altogether; but one can't believe, and oughtn't, even infinitesimally,
the things which are talked on the subject....
Ah, I am so vexed about George Sand. She came, she has gone, and we
haven't met! There was a M. François who pretended to be her very very
particular friend, and who managed the business so particularly ill,
from some motive or some incapacity, that he did not give us an
opportunity of presenting our letter. He did not '_dare_' to present it
for us, he said. She is shy--she distrusts bookmaking strangers, and she
intended to be incognita while in Paris. He proposed that we should
leave it at the theatre, and Robert refused. Robert said he wouldn't
have our letter mixed up with the love letters of the actresses, or
perhaps given to the 'premier comique' to read aloud in the green room,
as a relief to the 'Chère adorable,' which had produced so much
laughter. Robert was a little proud and M. François very stupid; and I,
between the two, in a furious state of dissent from either. Robert tries
to smooth down my ruffled plumage now, by promising to look out for some
other opportunity, but the late one has gone. She is said to have
appeared in Paris in a bloom of recovered beauty and brilliancy of eyes,
and the success of her play, 'Le Mariage de Victorine,' was complete. A
strange, wild, wonderful woman, certainly. While she was here, she used
a bedroom which belongs to her son--a mere 'chambre de garçon'--and for
the rest, saw whatever friends she chose to see only at the 'café,'
where she breakfasted and dined. She has just finished a romance, we
hear, and took fifty-two nights to write it. She writes only at night.
People call her Madame Sand. There seems to be no other name for her in
society or letters.
Now listen. Alexandre Dumas _does_ write his own books, that's a fact.
You know I always maintained it, through the odour of Dumas in the
books, but people swore the contrary with great foolish oaths worth
nothing. Maquet prepares historical materials, gathers together notes,
and so on, but Dumas writes every word of his books with his own hand,
and with a facility amounting to inspiration, said my informant. He
called him a great savage negro child. If he has twenty sous and wants
bread, he buys a pretty cane instead. For the rest, 'bon enfant,' kind
and amiable. An inspired negro child! In debt at this moment, after all
the sums he has made, said my informant--himself a most credible witness
and highly cultivated man.
I heard of Eugène Sue, too, yesterday. Our child is invited to a
Christmas tree and party, and Robert says he is too young to go, but I
persist in sending him for half an hour with Wilson--oh, really I
must--though he will be by far the youngest of the thirty children
invited. The lady of the house, Miss Fitton, an English resident in
Paris, an elderly woman, shrewd and kind, said to Robert that she had a
great mind to have Eugène Sue, only he was so scampish. I think that was
the word, or something alarmingly equivalent. Now I should like to see
Eugène Sue with my little innocent child in his arms; the idea of the
combination pleases me somewhat. But I sha'n't see it in any case. We
had three cold days last week, which brought back my cough and took away
my voice. I am dumb for the present and can't go out any more....
At last I have caught sight of an advertisement of your book. A very
catching title, and if I mayn't compliment you upon it, I certainly do
your publisher. I dare say the book is charming, and the more of
yourself in it, the more charming.
Write, and say how you are always when you write. Say, too, how you
continue to like your new house. We heard a good deal of you from Mr.
Fields, though he came to us only once. With him came Mr. Longfellow,
the poet's brother, who is at present in Paris--I mean the brother, not
the poet. Robert's love, may I say?
Wiedeman has struck up two friendships: one, with the small daughter of
our concierge and one with a little Russian princess, a month younger
than himself. He calls them both 'boys,' having no idea yet of the less
sublime sex, but he likes the plebeian best. May God make you happy on
this and other seasons!
Love your affectionate and grateful
BA.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
January 17, [1852].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--If you think I have not written to you, you
must be (as you are) the most lenient of friends, not to give me up for
ever. I answered your first letter by return of post and at great
length. About a fortnight ago, Robert heard from Madame Mohl, who heard
from somebody at Pau that you were 'waiting anxiously to hear from me,'
upon which I wrote a second letter. And that, too, did not reach you? Is
it possible? But I am innocent, innocent, innocent. See how innocent.
Now, if M. le Président has stopped my letters, or if he ponders in his
imperial mind how to send me out of Paris, he is as ungrateful as a
king, because I have been taking his part all this time at a great cost
of domestic _émeutes_. So you would have known, if you had received my
letters. The _coup d'état_ was a grand thing, dramatically and
poetically speaking, and the appeal to the people justified it in my
eyes, considering the immense difficulty of the circumstances, the
impossibility of the old constitution and the impracticability of the
House of Assembly. Now that's all over. For the rest--the new
constitution--I can't say as much for it; it disappoints me immensely.
Absolute government, _no_, while the taxes and acceptance of law lies,
as he leaves it, with the people; but there are stupidities undeniable,
I am afraid, and how such a constitution is to _work_, and how marshals
and cardinals are to help to work it, remains to be seen. I fear we have
not made a good change even from the 'constitution Marrast'[8] after
all. The English newspapers have made me so angry, that I scarcely know
whether I am as much ashamed, yet the shame is very great. As if the
people of France had not a right to vote as they pleased![9] We
understand nothing in England. As Cousin said, long ago, we are
'insular' of understanding. France may be mistaken in her speculations,
as she often is; and if any mistake has been lately committed, it will
be corrected by herself in a short time. Ignoble in her speculations she
never is....
I must tell you, my dearest friend, that for some days past I have been
very much upset, and am scarcely now fairly on my feet again, in
consequence of becoming suddenly aware of a painful indiscretion
committed by an affectionate and generous woman. I refer to Miss
Mitford's account of me in her new book.[10] We heard of it in a strange
way, through M. Philaret Chasles, of the Collège de France, beginning a
course of lectures on English literature, and announcing an extended
notice of E.B.B., 'the veil from whose private life had lately been
raised by Miss Mitford.' Somebody who happened to be present told us of
it, and while we were wondering and uncomfortable, up came a writer in
the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' to consult Robert upon a difficulty he was
in. He was engaged, he said, upon an article relating to me, and the
proprietors of the review had sent him a number of the 'Athenæum,' which
contained an extract from Miss M.'s book, desiring him to make use of
the biographical details. Now it struck him immediately, he said, on
reading the passage, that it was likely to give me great pain, and he
was so unwilling to be the means of giving me more pain that he came to
Robert to ask him how he should act. Do observe the delicacy and
sensibility of this man--a man, a foreigner, a Frenchman! I shall be
grateful to him as long as I live.[11]
Robert has seen the extract in the 'Athenæum.' It refers to the great
affliction of my life, with the most affectionate intentions and the
obtusest understanding. I know I am morbid, but this thing should not
have been done indeed. Now, I shall be liable to see recollections
dreadful to me, thrust into every vulgar notice of my books. I shall be
afraid to see my books reviewed anywhere. Oh! I have been so deeply
shaken by all this. _You_ will understand, I am certain, and I could not
help speaking of it to you, because I was certain.
I am answering your note, observe, by return of post. Do let me know if
you receive what I write this time. Robert will direct for me, having
faith in his superior legibleness, and I accept the insult implied in
the opinion.
God bless you. Do write. And never doubt my grateful affection for you,
whether posts go ill or well.
Robert is going out to inquire about 'My Novel.' His warm regards with
mine to dear Mr. Martin and yourself. This is a scratch rather than a
letter, but I would rather send it to you in haste than wait for another
post.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
The following letter marks the beginning of a new friendship, with Miss
Mulock, afterwards Mrs. Craik, the authoress of 'John Halifax,
Gentleman.' The subsequent letters are in very affectionate tones, but
it does not appear that the correspondence ever reached any very
extended dimensions.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mulock_
Paris, 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
January 21, [1852].
I hear from England that you have dedicated a book to me with too kind
and most touching words. To thank you for such a proof of sympathy, to
thank you from my heart, cannot surely be a wrong thing to do, it seems
so natural and comes from so irresistible an impulse.
I read a book of yours once at Florence, which first made [me] know you
pleasantly, and afterwards (that was at Florence, too) there came a
piercing touch from a hand in the air--whether yours also, I cannot dare
to guess--which has preoccupied me a good deal since. If I speak to you
in mysteries, forgive me. Let it be clear at least, that I am very happy
to be grateful to you for the honor you have done me in your dedication,
and that my husband, moved more, as he always is, by honor paid to me
than to himself, thanks you beside. I will not keep back his thanks,
which are worth more than mine can be.
For the rest, we have, neither of us, seen the book yet, nor even read
an exact copy of the words in question. Only the rumour of them appears
to run that I am 'not likely ever to see you.' And why am I never to see
you, pray? Unlikelier pleasures have been granted to me, and I will not
indeed lose hold of the hope of this pleasure.
Allow it to
Your always obliged
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
[January-February 1852].
My very dear friend, let me begin what I have to say by recognising you
as the most generous and affectionate of friends. I never could mistake
the least of your intentions; you were always, from first to last, kind
and tenderly indulgent to me--always exaggerating what was good in me,
always forgetting what was faulty and weak--keeping me by force of
affection in a higher place than I could aspire to by force of vanity;
loving me always, in fact. Now let me tell you the truth. It will prove
how hard it is for the tenderest friends to help paining one another,
since _you_ have pained _me_. See what a deep wound I must have in me,
to be pained by the touch of such a hand. Oh, I am morbid, I very well
know. But the truth is that I have been miserably upset by your book,
and that if I had had the least imagination of your intending to touch
upon certain biographical details in relation to me, I would have
conjured you by your love to me and by my love to you, to forbear it
altogether. You cannot understand; no, you cannot understand with all
your wide sympathy (perhaps, because you are not morbid, and I am), the
sort of susceptibility I have upon one subject. I have lived heart to
heart (for instance) with my husband these five years: I have never yet
spoken out, in a whisper even, what is in me; never yet could find heart
or breath; never yet could bear to hear a word of reference from his
lips. And now those dreadful words are going the round of the
newspapers, to be verified here, commented on there, gossiped about
everywhere; and I, for my part, am frightened to look at a paper as a
child in the dark--as unreasonably, you will say--but what then? what
drives us mad is our unreason. I will tell you how it was. First of all,
an English acquaintance here told us that she had been hearing a lecture
at the Collège de France, and that the professor, M. Philaret Chasles,
in the introduction to a series of lectures on English poetry, had
expressed his intention of noticing Tennyson, Browning, &c., and
E.B.B.--'from whose private life the veil had been raised in so
interesting a manner lately by Miss Mitford.' In the midst of my anxiety
about this, up comes a writer of the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' to my
husband, to say that he was preparing a review upon me and had been
directed by the editor to make use of some biographical details
extracted from your book into the 'Athenæum,' but that it had occurred
to him doubtfully whether certain things might not be painful to me, and
whether I might not prefer their being omitted in his paper. (All this
time we had seen neither book nor 'Athenæum.') Robert answered for me
that the omission of such and such things would be much preferred by me,
and accordingly the article appears in the 'Revue' with the passage from
your book garbled and curtailed as seemed best to the quoter. Then
Robert set about procuring the 'Athenæum' in question. He tells me (and
_that_ I perfectly believe) that, for the facts to be given at all, they
could not possibly be given with greater delicacy; oh, and I will add
for myself, that for them to be related by anyone during my life, I
would rather have _you_ to relate them than another. But why should they
be related during my life? There was no need, no need. To show my
nervous susceptibility in the length and breadth of it to you, I _could
not_ (when it came to the point) _bear to read_ the passage extracted in
the 'Athenæum,' notwithstanding my natural anxiety to see exactly what
was done. I could not bear to do it. I made Robert read it aloud--with
omissions--so that I know all your kindness. I feel it deeply; through
tears of pain I feel it; and if, as I dare say you will, you think me
very very foolish, do not on that account think me ungrateful.
Ungrateful I never can be to you, my much loved and kindest friend.
I hear your book is considered one of your best productions, and I do
not doubt that the opinion is just. Thank you for giving it to us, thank
you.
I don't like to send you a letter from Paris without a word about your
hero--'handsome,' I fancy not, nor the imperial type. I have not seen
his face distinctly. What do you think about the constitution? Will it
work, do you fancy, now-a-days in France? The initiative of the laws,
put out of the power of the legislative assembly, seems to me a
stupidity; and the senators, in their fine dresses, make me wink a
little. Also, I hear that the 'senatorial cardinals' don't please the
peasants, who hate the priesthood as much as they hate the 'Cossacks.'
On the other hand, Montalembert was certainly in bed the other day with
vexation, because 'nobody could do anything with Louis Napoleon--he was
obstinate;' 'nous nous en lavons les mains,' and that fact gives me hope
that not too much indulgence is intended to the Church. There's to be a
ball at the Tuileries with 'court dresses,' which is 'un peu fort' for
a republic. By the way, rumour (with apparent authority justifying it)
says, that a black woman opened her mouth and prophesied to him at Ham,
'he should be the head of the French nation, and be assassinated in a
ball-room.' I was assured that he believes the prophecy firmly, 'being
in all things too superstitious' and fatalistical.
I was interrupted in this letter yesterday. Meantime comes out the
decree against the Orleans property, which I disapprove of altogether.
It's the worst thing yet done, to my mind. Yet the Bourse stands fast,
and the decree is likely enough to be popular with the ouvrier class.
There are rumours of tremendously wild financial measures, only I
believe in no rumours just now, and apparently the Bourse is as
incredulous on this particular point. If I thought (as people say) that
we are on the verge of a 'law' declaring the Roman Catholic religion the
State religion, I should give him up at once; but this would be contrary
to the traditions of the Empire, and I can't suppose it to be probable
on any account.
Observe, I am no Napoleonist. I am simply a _democrat_, and hold that
the majority of a nation has the right of choice upon the question of
its own government, _even where it makes a mistake_. Therefore the
outcry of the English newspapers is most disgusting to me. For the rest,
one can hardly do strict justice, at this time of transition, to the
ultimate situation of the country; we must really wait a little, till
the wind and rain shall have ceased to dash so in one's eyes. The wits
go on talking, though, all the same; and I heard a suggestion yesterday,
that, for the effaced 'Liberté, égalité, fraternité,' should be written
up, 'Infanterie, cavallerie, artillerie.' That's the last 'mot,' I
believe. The salons are very noisy. A lady was ordered to her country
seat the other day for exclaiming, 'Et il n'y a pas de Charlotte
Corday.'
Forgive, with this dull letter, my other defects. Always I am frank to
you, saying what is in my heart; and there is always there, dearest Miss
Mitford, a fruitful and grateful affection to you from your
E.B.B.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 15, [1852].
Thank you, thank you, my beloved friend. Yes; I do understand in my
heart all your kindness. Yes, I do believe that on some points I am full
of disease; and this has exposed me several times to shocks of pain in
the ordinary intercourse of the world, which for bystanders were hard, I
dare say, to make out. Once at the Baths of Lucca I was literally nearly
struck down to the ground by a single word said in all kindness by a
friend whom I had not seen for ten years. The blue sky reeled over me,
and I caught at something, not to fall. Well, there is no use dwelling
on this subject. I understand your affectionateness and tender
consideration, I repeat, and thank you; and love you, which is better.
Now, let us talk of reasonable things.
Béranger lives close to us, and Robert has seen him in his white hat
wandering along the asphalte. I had a notion somehow that he was very
old; but he is only elderly, not much indeed above sixty (which is the
prime of life now-a-days), and he lives quietly and keeps out of scrapes
poetical and political, and if Robert and I had but a little less
modesty we are assured that we should find access to him easy. But we
can't make up our minds to go to his door and introduce ourselves as
vagrant minstrels, when he may probably not know our names. We never
_could_ follow the fashion of certain authors who send their books about
without intimations of their being likely to be acceptable or not, of
which practice poor Tennyson knows too much for his peace. If, indeed, a
letter of introduction to Béranger were vouchsafed to us from any benign
quarter, we should both be delighted, but we must wait patiently for
the influence of the stars. Meanwhile, we have at last sent our letter
(Mazzini's) to George Sand, accompanied with a little note signed by
both of us, though written by me, as seemed right, being the woman. We
half despaired in doing this, for it is most difficult, it appears, to
get at her, she having taken vows against seeing strangers in
consequence of various annoyances and persecutions in and out of print,
which it's the mere instinct of a woman to avoid. I can understand it
perfectly. Also, she is in Paris for only a few days, and under a new
name, to escape from the plague of her notoriety. People said to us:
'She will never see you; you have no chance, I am afraid.' But we
determined to try. At last I pricked Robert up to the leap, for he was
really inclined to sit in his chair and be proud a little. 'No,' said I,
'you _shan't_ be proud, and I _won't_ be proud, and we _will_ see her. I
won't die, if I can help it, without seeing George Sand.' So we gave our
letter to a friend who was to give it to a friend, who was to place it
in her hands, her abode being a mystery and the name she used unknown.
The next day came by the post this answer:
Madame,--J'aurai l'honneur de vous recevoir dimanche prochain
rue Racine 3. C'est le seul jour que je puisse passer chez
moi, et encore je n'en suis pas absolument certaine. Mais j'y
ferai tellement mon possible, que ma bonne étoile m'y aidera
peut-être un peu.
Agréez mille remercîments de coeur, ainsi que Monsieur
Browning, que j'espère voir avec vous, pour la sympathie que
vous m'accordez.
GEORGE SAND.
Paris: 12 février, 52.
This is graceful and kind, is it not? And we are going to-morrow; I,
rather at the risk of my life. But I shall roll myself up head and all
in a thick shawl, and we shall go in a close carriage, and I hope I
shall be able to tell you about the result before shutting up this
letter.
One of her objects in coming to Paris this time was to get a commutation
of the sentence upon her friend Dufraisse, who was ordered to Cayenne.
She had an interview accordingly with the President. He shook hands with
her and granted her request, and in the course of conversation pointed
to a great heap of 'Decrees' on the table, being hatched 'for the good
of France.' I have heard scarcely anything of him, except from his
professed enemies; and it is really a good deal the simple recoil from
manifest falsehoods and gross exaggerations which has thrown me on the
ground of his defenders. For the rest, it remains to be _proved_, I
think, whether he is a mere ambitious man, or better--whether his
personality or his country stands highest with him as an object. I
thought and still think that a Washington might have dissolved the
Assembly as he did, and appealed to the people. Which is not saying,
however, that he is a Washington. We must wait, I think, to judge the
man. Only it is right to bear in mind one fact, that, admitting the
lawfulness of the _coup d'état_, you must not object to the
dictatorship. And, admitting the temporary necessity of the
dictatorship, it is absolute folly to expect under it the liberty and
ease of a regular government.
What has saved him with me from the beginning was his appeal to the
people, and what makes his government respectable in my eyes is the
answer of the people to that appeal. Being a democrat, I dare to be so
_consequently_. There never was a more legitimate chief of a State than
Louis Napoleon is now--elected by seven millions and a half; and I do
maintain that, ape or demi-god, to insult him where he is, is to insult
the people who placed him there. As to the stupid outcry in England
about forced votes, voters pricked forward by bayonets--why, nothing can
be more stupid. Nobody not blinded by passion could maintain such a
thing for a moment. No Frenchman, however blinded by passion, has
maintained it in my presence.
A very philosophically minded man (French) was talking of these things
the other day--one of the most thoughtful, liberal men I ever knew of
any country, and high and pure in his moral views--also (let me add)
more _anglomane_ in general than I am. He was talking of the English
press. He said he 'did it justice for good and noble intentions' (more
than I do!), 'but marvelled at its extraordinary ignorance. Those
writers did not know the A B C of France. Then, as to Louis Napoleon,
whether he was right or wrong, they erred in supposing him not to be in
earnest with his constitution and other remedies for France. The fact
was, he not only was in earnest--he was even _fanatical_.'
There is, of course, much to deplore in the present state of
affairs--much that is very melancholy. The constitution is not a model
one, and no prospect of even comparative liberty of the Press has been
offered. At the same time, I hope still. As tranquillity is established,
there will be certain modifications; this, indeed, has been intimated,
and I think the Press will by degrees attain to its emancipation.
Meanwhile, the 'Athenæum' and other English papers say wrongly that
there is a censure established on books. There is a censure on pamphlets
and newspapers--on _books_, no. Cormenin is said to have been the
adviser of the Orleans confiscation....
* * * * *
_To John Kenyon_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 15, 1852.
My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--Robert sends you his Shelley,[12] having a very
few copies allowed to him to dispose of. I think you have Shelley's
other letters, of which this volume is the supplement, and you will not
be sorry to have Robert's preface thrown in, though he makes very light
of it himself.
You never write a word to us, and so I don't mean to send you a letter
to-day--only as few lines as I can drop in a sulky fit, repenting as I
go on. As to politics, you know you have all put me in the corner
because I stand up for universal suffrage, and am weak enough to fancy
that seven millions and a half of Frenchmen have some right to an
opinion on their own affairs. It's really fatal in this world to be
consequent--it leads one into damnable errors. So I shall not say much
more at present. You must bear with me--dear Miss Bayley and all of
you--and believe of me, if I am ever so wrong, that I do at least pray
from my soul, 'May the right prevail!'--loving right, truth, justice,
and the people through whatever mistakes. As it was in the beginning,
from 'Casa Guidi Windows,' so it is now from the Avenue des
Champs-Elysées. I am most humanly liable, of course, to make mistakes,
and am by temperament perhaps over hopeful and sanguine. But I do see
with my own eyes and feel with my own spirit, and not with other
people's eyes and spirits, though they should happen to be the
dearest--and that's the very best of me, be certain, so don't quarrel
with it too much.
As to the worst of the President, let him have vulture's beak, hyena's
teeth, and the rattle of the great serpent, it's nothing to the
question. Let him be Caligula's horse raised to the consulship--what
then? I am not a Buonapartist; I am simply a 'democrat,' as you say. I
simply hold to the fact that, such as he is, the people chose him, and
to the opinion that they have a right to choose whom they please. When
your English Press denies the _fact of the choice_ (a fact which the
most passionate of party-men does not think of denying here), _I_ seem
to have a right to another opinion which might strike you as unpatriotic
if I uttered it in this place. _Hic tacet_, then, rather _jacet_.
For the rest, for heaven's sake and the truth's, do let us try to take
breath a little and be patient. Let us wait till the dust of the
struggle clears away before we take measures of the circus. We can't
have the liberty of a regular government under a dictatorship. And if
the 'constitution' which is coming is not model, it may wear itself into
shape by being worked calmly. These new boots will be easier to the feet
after half an hour's walking. Not that I like the pinching meanwhile.
Not that stringencies upon the Press please _me_--no, nor arrests and
imprisonments. I like these things, God knows, as little as the loudest
curser of you all, but I don't think it necessary and lawful to
exaggerate and over-colour, nor to paint the cheeks of sorrows into
horrors, nor to talk, like the 'Quarterly Review' (betwixt excuses for
the King of Naples), of two thousand four hundred persons being cut to
mincemeat in the streets of Paris, nor to call boldness hypocrisy
(because hypocrisy is the worse word), and the appeal to the sovereignty
of the people usurpation, and universal suffrage the pricking of
bayonets. Above all, I would avoid insulting the whole French nation,
who have judged their own position and acted accordingly. If Louis
Napoleon disappoints their expectation, he won't sit long where he is.
Of that I feel satisfactory assurance; and, considering the national
habits of insurrection, I really think that others may.
Meanwhile it is just to tell you that the two deepest-minded persons
whom we have known in Paris--one an ultra-Republican of European
reputation (I don't like mentioning names), and the other a
Constitutionalist of the purest and noblest moral nature--are both
inclined to take favorable views of the President's personal character
and intentions. For my part, I don't pretend to an opinion. He may be,
as they say, '_bon enfant_,' '_homme de conscience_,' and 'so much in
earnest as to be fanatical,' or he may be a wretch and a reptile, as you
say in England. That's nothing to the question as I see it. I don't take
it up by that handle at all. Caligula's horse or the people's
'Messiah,' as I heard him called the other day--what then? You are
wonderfully intolerant, you in England, of equine consulships, you who
bear with quite sufficient equanimity a great rampancy of beasts all
over the world--Mr. Forster not blowing the trumpet of war, and Mrs.
Alfred Tennyson not loading the rifles.
There now--I've done with politics to-day. Only just let me tell you
that Cormenin is said to be the adviser in the matter of the Orleans
decrees. So much the worse for him.
Whom do you think I saw yesterday? George Sand. Oh, I have been in such
fear about it! It's the most difficult thing to get access to her, and,
notwithstanding our letter from Mazzini, we were assured on all sides
that she would not see us. She has been persecuted by bookmakers--run to
ground by the race, and, after having quite lost her on her former visit
to Paris, it was in half despair that we seized on an opportunity of
committing our letter of introduction to a friend of a friend of hers,
who promised to put it into her own hands. With the letter I wrote a
little note--I writing, as I was the woman, and both of us signing it.
To my delight, we had an answer by the next day's post, gracious and
graceful, desiring us to call on her last Sunday.
So we went. Robert let me at last, though I had a struggle for even
that, the air being rather over-sharp for me. But I represented to him
that one might as well lose one's life as one's peace of mind for ever,
and if I lost seeing her I should with difficulty get over it. So I put
on my respirator, smothered myself with furs, and, in a close carriage,
did not run much risk after all.
She received us very kindly, with hand stretched out, which I, with a
natural emotion (I assure you my heart beat), stooped and kissed, when
she said quickly, 'Mais non, je ne veux pas,' and kissed my lips. She is
somewhat large for her height--not tall--and was dressed with great
nicety in a sort of grey serge gown and jacket, made after the ruling
fashion just now, and fastened up to the throat, plain linen collarette
and sleeves. Her hair was uncovered, divided on the forehead in black,
glossy bandeaux, and twisted up behind. The eyes and brow are noble, and
the nose is of a somewhat Jewish character; the chin a little recedes,
and the mouth is not good, though mobile, flashing out a sudden smile
with its white projecting teeth. There is no sweetness in the face, but
great moral as well as intellectual capacities--only it never _could_
have been a beautiful face, which a good deal surprised me. The chief
difference in it since it was younger is probably that the cheeks are
considerably fuller than they used to be, but this of course does not
alter the type. Her complexion is of a deep olive. I observed that her
hands were small and well-shaped. We sate with her perhaps
three-quarters of an hour or more--in which time she gave advice and
various directions to two or three young men who were there, showing her
confidence in us by the freest use of names and allusion to facts. She
seemed to be, in fact, _the man_ in that company, and the profound
respect with which she was listened to a good deal impressed me. You are
aware from the newspapers that she came to Paris for the purpose of
seeing the President in behalf of certain of her friends, and that it
was a successful mediation. What is peculiar in her manners and
conversation is the absolute simplicity of both. Her voice is low and
rapid, without emphasis or variety of modulation. Except one brilliant
smile, she was grave--indeed, she was speaking of grave matters, and
many of her friends are in adversity. But you could not help seeing
(both Robert and I saw it) that in all she said, even in her kindness
and pity, there was an under-current of scorn. A scorn of pleasing she
evidently had; there never could have been a colour of coquetry in that
woman. Her very freedom from affectation and consciousness had a touch
of disdain. But I liked her. I did not love her, but I felt the burning
soul through all that quietness, and was not disappointed in George
Sand. When we rose to go I could not help saying, 'C'est pour la
dernière fois,' and then she asked us to repeat our visit next Sunday,
and excused herself from coming to see us on the ground of a great press
of engagements. She kissed me again when we went away, and Robert kissed
her hand.
Lady Elgin has offered to take him one day this week to visit Lamartine
(who, we hear, will be glad to see us, having a cordial feeling towards
England and English poets), but I shall wait for some very warm day for
that visit, not meaning to run mortal risks, except for George Sand.
_Nota bene._ We didn't see her smoke.
Robert has ventured to send to your house, my dearest friend, two copies
of 'Shelley' besides yours--one for Mr. Procter, and one for Mrs.
Jameson, with kindest love, both. There is no hurry about either, you
know. We wanted another for dear Miss Bayley, but we have only six
copies, and don't keep one for ourselves, and she won't care, I dare
say.
Your ever most affectionate and grateful
BA.
Will you let your servant put this letter into the post for Miss
Mitford? She upset me by her book, but had the most affectionate
intentions, and I am obliged to her for what she meant. Then I am
morbid, I know.
Tell dearest Miss Bayley, with my love, I shall write to her soon.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
February 26, [1852].
Never believe of me so bad a thing as that I could have received from
you, my ever dear and very dear friend, such a letter as you describe,
and rung hollow in return. I did not get your letter, so how could I
send an answer? Your letter's lost, like some other happy things. But I
thank you for it fervently, guessing from what you say the sympathy and
affection of it. I thank you for it most gratefully.
As for poor dear Miss Mitford's book, I was entirely upset by the
biography she thought it necessary or expedient to give of me. Oh, if
our friends would but put off anatomising one till after one was safely
dead, and call to mind that, previously, we have nerves to be agonised
and morbid brains to be driven mad! I am morbid, I know. I can't bear
some words even from Robert. Like the lady who lay in the grave, and was
ever after of the colour of a shroud, so I am white-souled, the past has
left its mark with me for ever. And now (this is the worst) every
newspaper critic who talks of my poems may refer to other things. I
shall not feel myself safe a moment from references which stab like a
knife.
But poor dear Miss Mitford, if we don't forgive what's meant as
kindness, how are we to forgive what's meant as injury? In my first
agitation I felt it as a real vexation that I couldn't be angry with
her. How could I, poor thing? She has always loved me, and been so
anxious to please me, and this time she seriously thought that Robert
and I would be delighted. Extraordinary defect of comprehension!
Still, I did not, I could not, conceal from her that she had given me
great pain, and she replied in a tone which really made me almost feel
ungrateful for being pained, she said 'rather that her whole book had
perished than have given me a moment's pain.' How are you to feel after
_that_?
For the rest, it appears that she had merely come forward to the rescue
of my reputation, no more than so. Sundry romantic tales had been in
circulation about me. I was 'in widow's weeds' in my habitual
costume--and, in fact, before I was married I had grievously scandalised
the English public (the imaginative part of the public), and it was
expedient to 'tirer de l'autre coté.'
Well, I might have laughed at _that_--but I didn't. I wrote a very
affectionate letter, for I really love Miss Mitford, though she
understands me no more under certain respects than you in England
understand Louis Napoleon and the French nation. Love's love. She meant
the best to me--and so, do you, who have a much more penetrating sense
of delicacy, forgive her for my sake, dear friend....
Of the memoirs of Madame Ossoli, I know only the extracts in the
'Athenæum.' She was a most interesting woman to me, though I did not
sympathise with a large portion of her opinions. Her written works are
just _naught_. She said herself they were sketches, thrown out in haste
and for the means of subsistence, and that the sole production of hers
which was likely to represent her at all would be the history of the
Italian Revolution. In fact, her reputation, such as it was in America,
seemed to stand mainly on her conversation and oral lectures. If I
wished anyone to do her justice, I should say, as I have indeed said,
'Never read what she has written.' The letters, however, are individual,
and full, I should fancy, of that magnetic personal influence which was
so strong in her. I felt drawn in towards her, during our short
intercourse; I loved her, and the circumstances of her death shook me to
the very roots of my heart. The comfort is, that she lost little in this
world--the change could not be loss to her. She had suffered, and was
likely to suffer still more.
And now, am I to tell you that I have seen George Sand twice, and am to
see her again? Ah, there is no time to tell you, for I must shut up this
letter. She sate, like a priestess, the other morning in a circle of
eight or nine men, giving no oracles, except with her splendid eyes,
sitting at the corner of the fire, and warming her feet quietly, in a
general silence of the most profound deference. There was something in
the calm disdain of it which pleased me, and struck me as
characteristic. She was George Sand, that was enough: you wanted no
proof of it. Robert observed that 'if any other mistress of a house had
behaved so, he would have walked out of the room'--but, as it was, no
sort of incivility was meant. In fact, we hear that she 'likes us very
much,' and as we went away she called me 'chère Madame' and kissed me,
and desired to see us both again.
I did not read myself the passage in question from Miss M.'s book. I
couldn't make up my mind, my courage, to look at it. But I understood
from Robert.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 27, [1852].
I get your second letter, my dearest Mrs. Martin, before I answer your
first, which makes me rather ashamed.
... Dearest friend, it is true that I have seldom been so upset as by
this act of poor dear Miss Mitford's, and the very impossibility of
being vindictive on this occasion increased my agitation at the
moment....
There are defects in delicacy and apprehensiveness, one cannot deny it,
and yet I assure you that a more generous and fervent woman never lived
than dear Miss Mitford is, and if you knew her you would do her this
justice. She is better in herself than in her books--more large, more
energetic, more human altogether. I think I understand her better on the
whole than she understands me (which is not saying much), and I admire
her on various accounts. She talks better, for instance, than most
writers, male or female, whom I have had any intercourse with. And
affectionate in the extreme, she has always been to me.
So I have mystified you and disgusted you with my politics, and my
friends in England have put me in the corner; just so....
The French nation is very peculiar. We choose to boast ourselves of
being different in England, but we have simply _les qualités de nos
défauts_ after all. The clash of speculative opinions is dreadful here,
practical men catch at the ideal as if it were a loaf of bread, and they
literally set about cutting out their Romeos 'into little stars,' as if
that were the most natural thing in the world. As for the socialists, I
quite agree with you that various of them, yes, and some of their chief
men, are full of pure and noble aspiration, the most virtuous of men and
the most benevolent. Still, they hold in their hands, in their clean
hands, ideas that kill, ideas which defile, ideas which, if carried out,
would be the worst and most crushing kind of despotism. I would rather
live under the feet of the Czar than in those states of perfectibility
imagined by Fourier and Cabet, if I might choose my 'pis aller.' All
these speculators (even Louis Blanc, who is one of the most rational)
would revolutionalise, not merely countries, but the elemental
conditions of humanity, it seems to me; none of them seeing that
antagonism is necessary to all progress. A man, in walking, must set one
foot before another, and in climbing (as Dante observed long ago) the
foot behind 'è sempre il più basso.' Only the gods (Plato tells us) keep
both feet joined together in moving onward. It is not so, and cannot be
so, with men.
But I think that not only in relation to the socialists, but to the
monarchies, is L.N. the choice of the French people. I think that they
will not _bear_ the monarchies, they will not have either of them, they
put them away. It seems to me that the French people is essentially
democratical, and that by the vote in question they never meant to give
away either rights or liberties. The extraordinary part of the actual
position is that the Government, with these ugly signs of despotism in
its face, stands upon the democracy (is no 'military despotism,'
therefore, in any sense, as the English choose to say), and may be
thrown, and will be thrown, on that day when it disappoints the popular
expectation. For my part, I am hopeful both for this reason and for
others. I hope we shall do better, when there is greater calm; that
presently there will be relaxation where there is stringency, and room
to breathe and speak. At present it is a dictatorship, and we can't
expect at such a time the ease and liberty of a regular government. The
constitution itself may be modified, as the very terms of it imply, and
the laws of the Press not carried out. Even as it is, all the English
papers, infamous in their abuse of the Government (because of their
falsifications and exaggerations properly called infamous) and highly
immoral in their tone towards France generally, come in as usual,
without an official finger being lifted up to hinder them. Louis
Philippe would not admit Punch, you remember, on account of a few
personal sarcasms....
So much there is to say, and the post going. Can you read as I write on
at a full gallop? Don't be out of heart. Do let us trust France--not L.
Napoleon, but _France_....
Dearest friends, think of me as your
Ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
April 7, 1852.
What a time seems to have passed since I wrote to you, my ever loved
friend! Again and again I have been on the point of writing, and
something has stopped me always. I have wished to wait till I had more
about this and that to gossip of, and so the time went on. Now I am
getting impatient to have news of you, and to learn whether the lovely
spring has brought you any good yet as to health and strength. Don't
take vengeance on my silence, but write, write....
Yes, I want to see Béranger, and so does Robert. George Sand we came to
know a great deal more of. I think Robert saw her six times. Once he
met her near the Tuileries, offered her his arm, and walked with her the
whole length of the gardens. She was not on that occasion looking as
well as usual, being a little too much 'endimanchée' in terrestrial
lavenders and supercelestial blues--not, in fact, dressed with the
remarkable taste which he has seen in her at other times. Her usual
costume is both pretty and quiet, and the fashionable waistcoat and
jacket (which are a spectacle in all the 'Ladies' Companions' of the
day) make the only approach to masculine _wearings_ to be observed in
her. She has great nicety and refinement in her personal ways, I think,
and the cigarette is really a feminine weapon if properly understood.
Ah, but I didn't see her smoke. I was unfortunate. I could only go with
Robert three times to her house, and once she was out. He was really
very good and kind to let me go at all, after he found the sort of
society rampant around her. He didn't like it extremely, but, being the
prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires and yielded the point.
She seems to live in the abomination of desolation, as far as regards
society--crowds of ill-bred men who adore her _à genoux bas_, betwixt a
puff of smoke and an ejection of saliva. Society of the ragged Red
diluted with the lower theatrical. She herself so different, so apart,
as alone in her melancholy disdain! I was deeply interested in that poor
woman, I felt a profound compassion for her. I did not mind much the
Greek in Greek costume who tutoyéd her, and kissed her, I believe, so
Robert said; or the other vulgar man of the theatre who went down on his
knees and called her 'sublime.' 'Caprice d'amitié,' said she, with her
quiet, gentle scorn. A noble woman under the mud, be certain. _I_ would
kneel down to her, too, if she would leave it all, throw it off, and be
herself as God made her. But she would not care for my kneeling; she
does not care for me. Perhaps she doesn't care for anybody by this
time--who knows? She wrote one, or two, or three kind notes to me, and
promised to 'venir m'embrasser' before she left Paris; but she did not
come. We both tried hard to please her, and she told a friend of ours
that she 'liked us'; only we always felt that we couldn't
penetrate--couldn't really _touch_ her--it was all vain. Her play
failed, though full of talent. It didn't draw, and was withdrawn
accordingly. I wish she would keep to her romances, in which her real
power lies.
We have found out Jadin, Alexandre Dumas' friend and companion in the
'_Speronare_.' He showed Robert at his house poor Louis Philippe's
famous 'umbrella,' and the Duke of Orleans' uniform, and the cup from
which Napoleon took his coffee, which stood beside him as he signed the
abdication. Then there was a picture of 'Milord' hanging up. I must go
to see too. Said Robert: 'Then Alexandre Dumas doesn't write romances
always?' (You know it was like a sudden spectacle of one of Leda's
eggs.) 'Indeed,' replied Jadin, 'he wrote the true history of his own
travels, only, of course, seeing everything, like a poet, from his own
point of view.' Alfred de Musset was to have been at M. Buloz's, where
Robert was a week ago, on purpose to meet him, but he was prevented in
some way. His brother Paul de Musset, a very different person, was there
instead--but we hope to have Alfred on another occasion. Do you know his
poems? He is not capable of large grasps, but he has poet's life and
blood in him, I assure you. He is said to be at the feet of Rachel just
now, and a man may nearly as well be with a tigress in a cage. He began
with the Princess Belgiojoso--followed George Sand--Rachel finishes, is
likely to 'finish' in every sense. In the intervals, he plays at chess.
There's the anatomy of a _man_!
We are expecting a visit from Lamartine, who does a great deal of honour
to both of us, it appears, in the way of appreciation, and is kind
enough to propose to come. I will tell you all about it.
But now tell _me_. Oh, I want so to hear how you are. Better, stronger,
I hope and trust. How does the new house and garden look in the spring?
Prettier and prettier, I dare say....
The dotation of the President is enormous certainly, and I wish for his
own sake it had been rather more moderate. Now I must end here. Post
hour strikes. God bless you.
Do love me as much as you can, always, and think how I am your ever
affectionate
BA.
Our darling is well; thank God.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
[Paris]: 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
April 12, Monday, 1852.
Your letter was pleasant and not so pleasant, dearest Monna Nina; for it
was not so pleasant indeed to hear how ill you had been--and yet to be
lifted into the hope, or rather certainty, of seeing you next week
pleased us extremely of course, and the more that your note through Lady
Lyell had thrown us backward into a slough of despond and made me
sceptical as to your coming here at all....
What a beautiful Paris it is! I walked out a little yesterday with
Robert, and we both felt penetrated with the sentiment of southern life
as we watched men, women, and children sitting out in the sun, taking
wine and coffee, and enjoying their _fête_ day with good happy faces.
The mixture of classes is to me one of the most delicious features of
the South, and you have it here exactly as in Italy. The colouring too,
the brightness, even the sun--oh, come and enjoy it all with us. We have
had a most splendid spring beginning with February. Still, I have been
out very seldom, being afraid of treacherous winds combined with burning
sunshine, but I have enjoyed the weather in the house and by opening
the windows, and have been revived and strengthened much by it, and
shall soon recover my summer power of walking, I dare say. What do you
think I did the other night? Went to the Vaudeville to see the 'Dame aux
Camélias' on above the fiftieth night of the representation. I disagree
with the common outcry about its immorality. According to my view, it is
moral and human. But I never will go to see it again, for it almost
broke my heart and split my head. I had a headache afterwards for
twenty-four hours. Even Robert, who gives himself out for _blasé_ on
dramatic matters, couldn't keep the tears from rolling down his cheeks.
The exquisite acting, the too literal truth to nature everywhere, was
_exasperating_--there was something profane in such familiar handling of
life and death. Art has no business with real graveclothes when she
wants tragic drapery--has she? It was too much altogether like a bull
fight. There's a caricature at the shop windows of the effect produced,
the pit protecting itself with multitudinous umbrellas from the tears of
the boxes. This play is by Alexandre Dumas _fils_--and is worthy by its
talent of Alexandre Dumas _père_.
Only that once have I been in a Parisian theatre. I couldn't go even to
see 'Les Vacances de Pandolphe' when George Sand had the goodness to
send us tickets for the first night. She failed in it, I am sorry to
say--it did not 'draw,' as the phrase is. Now she has left Paris, but is
likely to return.
I am sure it will do you great good to have change and liberty and
distraction in various ways. The '_anxiety_' you speak of--oh, I do hope
it does not relate to Gerardine. I always think of her when you seem
anxious.
I shall be very glad if, when you come, you should be inclined to give
your attention, you with your honest and vigorous mind, to the facts of
the political situation, not the facts as you hear them from the
English, or from our friend Madme Mohl, who confessed to me one day
that she liked exaggerations because she hated the President. She is a
clever shrewd woman, but most eminently and on all subjects a woman; her
passions having her thoughts inside them, instead of her thoughts her
passions. That's the common distinction between women and men, is it
not?
Robert, too, will tell you that he hates all Buonapartes, past, present,
or to come, but then _he_ says _that_ in his self-willed, pettish way,
as a manner of dismissing a subject he won't think about--and knowing
very well that he doesn't think about it, not mistaking a feeling for a
reason, not for a moment. There's the difference between women and men.
Well, but you won't come here to knit your brows about politics, but
rather to forget all sorts of anxieties and distresses, and be well and
happy, I do hope. You deserve a holiday after all that work. God bless
you, dear friend.
Our united love goes to you and stays with you.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mulock_
[Paris]: 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
April 27, [1852].
I am afraid you must think me--what can you have thought of me for not
immediately answering a letter which brought the tears both to my eyes
and my husband's? I was going to write just _so_, but he said: 'No, do
not write yet; wait till we get the book and then you can speak of it
with knowledge.' And I waited.
But the misfortune is that Messrs. Chapman & Hall waited too, and that
up to the present time 'The Head of the Family' has not arrived. Mr.
Chapman is slow in finding what he calls his opportunities.
Therefore I can't wait any more, no indeed. The voice which called
'Dinah' in the garden--which was true, because certainly I did call from
Florence with my whole heart to the writer of these verses[13] (how
deeply they moved me!)--will have seemed to you by this time as fabulous
as the garden itself. And we had no garden at Florence, I must confess
to you, only a terrace facing the grey wall of San Felice church, where
we used to walk up and down on the moonlight nights. But San Felice was
always a good saint to me, and when I had read and cried over those
verses from the 'Athenæum' (my husband wrote them out for me at the
reading room) and when I had vainly written to England to find out the
poet, and when I had all as vainly, on our visit to England last summer,
inquired of this person and that person, it turns out after all that
'Dinah' answers me. Do you not think I am glad?
The beautiful verses touched me to the quick, so does your letter. We
shall be in London again perhaps in two months for a few weeks, and then
you will let us see you, I hope, will you not? And, in the meanwhile,
you will believe that we do not indeed think of you as a stranger. Ah,
your dream flattered me in certain respects! Yet there was some truth in
it, as I have told you, even though you saw in the dreamlight more roses
than were growing.
Certainly Mr. Chapman will at last send me 'The Head of the Family,' and
then I will write again of course.
Dear Miss Mulock, may I write myself down now, because I _must_,
Affectionately yours and gratefully,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris],138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
May 9, [1852].
I began a long letter to you in the impulse left by yours upon me, and
then destroyed it by accident. That hindered me from writing as soon as
I should have done, for indeed I am anxious to have other news of you,
my dearest dear Miss Mitford, and to know, if possible, that you are a
little better.... Tell me everything. Why, you looked really well last
summer; and I want to see you looking well this summer, for we shall
probably be in London in June--more's the pity, perhaps! The gladness I
have in England is so leavened through and through with sadness that I
incline to do with it as one does with the black bread of the monks of
Vallombrosa, only pretend to eat it and drop it slyly under the table.
If it were not for some ties I would say 'Farewell, England,' and never
set foot on it again. There's always an east wind for _me_ in England,
whether the sun shines or not--the moral east wind which is colder than
any other. But how dull to go on talking of the weather: _Sia come
vuole_, as we say in Italy.
To-morrow is the great _fête_ of your Louis Napoleon, the distribution
of the eagles. We have done our possible and impossible to get tickets,
because I had taken strongly into my head to want to go, and because
Robert, who didn't care for it himself, cared for it for me; but here's
the eleventh hour and our prospects remain gloomy. We did not apply
sufficiently soon, I am afraid, and the name of the applicants has been
legion. It will be a grand sight, and full of significances.
Nevertheless, the empire won't come _so_; you will have to wait a little
for the Empire. Who were your financial authorities who praised Louis
Napoleon? and do the same approve of the late measure about the three
per cents.? I am so absolutely _bête_ upon such subjects that I don't
even _pretend_ to be intelligent; but I heard yesterday from a direct
source that Rothschild expressed a high admiration of the President's
financial ability. A friend of that master in Israel said it to our
friend Lady Elgin. Commerce is reviving, money is pouring in, confidence
is being restored on all sides. Even the Press palpitates again--ah, but
I wish it were a little freer of the corset. This Government is not
after my heart after all. I only tolerate what appear to me the
necessities of an exceptional situation. The masses are satisfied and
hopeful, and the President stronger and stronger--not by the sword, may
it please the English Press, but by the democracy.
I am delighted to see that the French Government has protested against
the reactionary iniquities of the Tuscan Grand Duke, and every day I
expect eagerly some helping hand to be stretched out to Rome. I have
looked for this from the very first, and certainly it is significant
that the Prince of Canino, the late President of the Roman Republic,
should be in favour at the Elysée. Pio Nono's time is but short, I
fancy--that is, reforms will be forced upon him.
When George Sand had audience with the President, he was very kind; did
I tell you that? At the last he said: 'Vous verrez, vous serez contente
de moi.' To which she answered, 'Et vous, vous serez content de moi.' It
was repeated to me as to the great dishonour of Madame Sand, and as a
proof that she could not resist the influence of power and was a bad
republican. I, on the contrary, thought the story quite honourable to
both parties. It was for the sake of her _rouge_ friends that she
approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched
out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same,
being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant.
Victor Cousin and Villemain refuse to take the oath, and lose their
situations in the Academy accordingly; but they retire on pensions, and
it's their own fault of course. Michelet and Quinet should have an
equivalent, I think, for what they have lost; they are worthy, as poets,
orators, dreamers, speculative thinkers--as anything, in fact, but
instructors of youth.
No, there is a brochure, or a little book somewhere, pretending to be a
memoir of Balzac, but I have not seen it. Some time before his death he
had bought a country place, and there was a fruit tree in the garden--I
think a walnut tree--about which he delighted himself in making various
financial calculations after the manner of César Birotteau. He built the
house himself, and when it was finished there was just one defect--it
wanted a staircase. They had to put in the staircase afterwards. The
picture gallery, however, had been seen to from the first, and the great
writer had chalked on the walls, 'Mon Raffaelle,' 'Mon Corrège,' 'Mon
Titien,' 'Mon Léonard de Vinci,' the pictures being yet unattained. He
is said to have been a little loth to spend money, and to have liked to
dine magnificently at the restaurant at the expense of his friends,
forgetting to pay for his own share of the entertainment. For the rest,
the 'idée fixe' of the man was to be rich one day, and he threw his
subtle imagination and vital poetry into pounds, shillings, and pence
with such force that he worked the base element into spiritual
splendours. Oh! to think of our having missed seeing that man. It is
painful. A little book is published of his 'thoughts and maxims,' the
sweepings of his desk I suppose; broken notes, probably, which would
have been wrought up into some noble works, if he had lived. Some of
these are very striking.
Lamartine has not yet paid us the promised visit. Just as we were
beginning to feel vexed we heard that the intermediate friend who was to
have brought him had been caught up by the Government and sent off to
Saint-Germain to 'faire le mort,' on pain of being sent farther. I mean
Eugène Belleton. If he talked in many places as he talked in this room,
I can't be very much surprised, but I am really very sorry. He is one of
those amiable domestic men who delight in talking 'battle, murder, and
sudden death.'
[_The end of this letter is wanting_]
* * * * *
_To Miss Mulock_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
June 2, [1852].
My husband went directly to Rue Vivienne and came back without the book.
We waited and waited, but at last it reached us, and we have read it,
and since then I have let some days go by through having been unwell.
You seemed to let me sit still in my chair and do nothing; you did not
call too loud. So was it with most other things in the universe. Now,
having awakened from my somnolency, recovered from 'La Grippe' (or what
mortal Londoners call the influenza), the first person and first book I
think of must naturally be you and yours.
So I thank you much, much, for the book. It has interested me, dear Miss
Mulock, as a book should, and I am delighted to recognise everywhere
undeniable talent and faculty, combined with high and pure aspiration. A
clever book, a graceful book, and with the moral grace besides--thank
you. Many must have thanked you as well as myself.
At the same time, precisely because I feel particularly obliged to you,
I mean to tell you the truth. Your hero is heroic from his own point of
view--accepting his own view of the situation, which I, for one, cannot
accept, do you know, for I am of opinion that both you and he are rather
conventional on the subject of his marriage. I don't in the least
understand, at this moment, why he should not have married in the first
volume; no, not in the least. It was a matter of income, he would tell
me, and of keeping two establishments; and I would answer that it ought
rather to have been a matter of faith in God and in the value of God's
gifts, the greatest of which is love. I am romantic about love--oh, much
more than you are, though older than you. A man's life does not develop
rightly without it, and what is called an 'improvident marriage' often
appears to me a noble, righteous, and prudent act. Your Ninian was a man
before he was a brother. I hold that he had no right to sacrifice a
great spiritual good of his own to the worldly good of his family,
however he made it out. He should have said: 'God gives me this gift, He
will find me energy to work for it and suffer for it. We will all live
together, struggle together if it is necessary, a little more poorly, a
little more laboriously, but keeping true to the best aims of life, all
of us.'
That's what _my_ Ninian would have said. I don't like to see noble
Ninians crushed flat under family Juggernauts, from whatever heroic
motives--not I. Do you forgive me for being so candid?
I must tell you that Mrs. Jameson, who is staying in this house, read
your book in England and mentioned it to me as a good book, 'very
gracefully written,' before I read it, quite irrespectively, too, of my
dedication, which was absent from the copy she saw at Brighton. It was
mentioned as one of the novels which had pleased her most lately.
I shall like to show you my child, as you like children, and as I am
vain--oh, past endurance vain, about him. You won't understand a word he
says, though, for he speaks three languages at once, and most of the
syllables of each wrong side foremost.
No, don't call me a Bonapartist. I am not a Bonapartist indeed. But I am
a Democrat and singularly (in these days) consequent about universal
suffrage. Also, facts in England have been much mis-stated; but there's
no room for politics to-day.
When I thank you, remember that my husband thanks you. We both hope to
see you before this month shall be quite at an end, and then you will
know me better, I hope; and though I shall lose a great deal by your
knowing me, of course, yet you won't, _after that_, make such mistakes
as you 'confess' in this note which I have just read over again. Did I
think you 'sentimental'? Won't you rather think _me_ sentimental to-day?
Through it all,
Your affectionate
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
June 16, [1852].
My first word must be to thank you, my dearest kind friend, for your
affectionate words to me and mine, which always, from you, sink deeply.
It was, on my part, great gratification to see you and talk to you and
hear you talk, and, above all, perhaps, to feel that you loved me still
a little. May God bless you both! And may we meet again and again in
Paris and elsewhere; in London this summer to begin with! As the
Italians would say in relation to any like pleasure: 'Sarebbe una
_benedizione_.'
We are waiting for the English weather to be reported endurable in order
to set out. Mrs. Streatfield, who has been in England these twelve days,
writes to certify that it is past the force of a Parisian imagination to
imagine the state of the skies and the atmosphere; yet, even in Paris,
we have been moaning the last four days, because really, since then, we
have gone back to April, and a rather cool April, with alternate showers
and sunshine--a crisis, however, which does not call for fires, nor
inflict much harm on me. It was the thunder, we think, that upset the
summer.
You seem to have had a sort of inkling about my brittleness when you
were here. It was the beginning of a bad attack of cough and pain in the
side, the consequence of which was that I turned suddenly into the
likeness of a ghost and frightened Robert from his design of going to
England. About that I am by no means regretful; he was not wanted, as
the event proved abundantly. The worst was that he was annoyed by the
number of judicious observers and miserable comforters who told him I
was horribly changed and ought to be taken back to Italy forthwith. I
knew it was nothing but an accidental attack, and that the results would
pass away, as they did. I kept quiet, applied mustard poultices, and am
now looking again (tell dear Mr. Martin) 'as if I had shammed.' So all
these misfortunes are strictly historical, you are to understand.
To-night we are going to Ary Scheffer's to hear music and to see ever so
many celebrities. Oh, and let me remember to tell you that M. Thierry,
the blind historian, has sent us a message by his physician to ask us to
go to see him, and as a matter of course we go. Madame Viardot, the
prima donna, and Leonard, the first violin player at the Conservatoire,
are to be at M. Scheffer's.
After all, you are too right. The less amused I am, clearly the better
for me. I should live ever so many years more by being shut up in a
hermitage, if it were warm and dry. More's the pity, when one wants to
see and hear as I do. The only sort of excitement and fatigue which does
me no harm, but good, is _travelling_. The effect of the continual
change of air is to pour in oil as the lamp burns; so I explain the
extraordinary manner in which I bear the fatigue of being
four-and-twenty hours together in a diligence, for instance, which many
strong women would feel too much for them.
All this talking of myself when I want to talk of you and to tell you
how touched I was by the praises of your winning little Letitia!
Enclosed is a note to Chapman & Hall which will put her 'bearer' (if she
can find one in London) in possession of the two volumes in question. I
shall like her to have them, and she must try to find my love, as the
King of France did the poison (a 'most unsavoury simile,' certainly),
between the leaves. I send with them, in any case, my best love. Ah, so
sorry I am that she has suffered from the weather you have had. She is a
most interesting child, and of a nature which is rare....
Robert's warm regards, with those of your
Ever affectionate and grateful
BA.
Madame Viardot is George Sand's heroine Consuelo. You know that
beautiful book.
* * * * *
With the last days of June the long stay in Paris came to an end, and
the Brownings paid their second visit to London. Their residence on this
occasion was at 58 Welbeck Street ('very respectable rooms this time,
and at a moderate price'), and here they stayed until the beginning of
November. Neither husband nor wife seems to have written much poetry
during this year, either in Paris or in London.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[London], 58 Welbeck Street: Saturday,
[June-July 1852].
... We saw your book in Paris, the Galignani edition, and I read it all
except the one thing I had not courage to read. Thank you, thank you. We
are both of us grateful to you for your most generous and heartwarm
intentions to us. As to the book, it's a book made to go east and west;
it's a popular book with flowers from the 'village' laid freshly and
brightly between the critical leaves. I don't always agree with you. I
think, for instance, that Mary Anne Browne should never be compared to
George Sand in 'passion,' and I can't grant to you that your extracts
from her poems bear you out to even one fiftieth degree in such an
opinion. I agree with you just as little with regard to Dr. Holmes and
certain others. But to _have_ your opinion is always a delightful thing,
and 'it is characteristic of your generosity,' to say the least, we say
to ourselves when we are 'dissidents' most.
I am writing in the extremest haste, just a word to announce our arrival
in England. We are in very comfortable rooms in 58 Welbeck Street, and
my sister Henrietta is some twenty doors away. To-morrow Robert and I
are going to Wimbledon for a day to dear Mr. Kenyon, who looks radiantly
well and has Mr. Landor for a companion just now. Imagine the uproar and
turmoil of our first days in London, and believe that I think of you
faithfully and tenderly through all. I am overjoyed to see my sisters,
who look well on the whole ... and they and everybody assure me that I
show a very satisfactory face to my country, as far as improved looks
go.
What nonsense one writes when one has but a moment to write in. I find
people talking about the 'facts in the "Times"' touching Louis Napoleon.
Facts in the 'Times'!
The heat is _stifling_. Do send one word to say how you are, and love me
always as I love you.
Your most affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
58 Welbeck Street: Friday, July 31, 1852 [postmark].
I want to hear about you again, dear, dearest Miss Mitford, and I can't
hear. Will you send me a line or a word.... I mean to go down to see you
one day, but certainly we must account it right not to tire you while
you are weak, and not to spoil our enjoyment by forestalling it. Two
months are full of days; we can afford to wait. Meantime let us have a
little gossip such as the gods allow of.
Dear Mr. Kenyon has not yet gone to Scotland, though his intentions
still stand north. He passed an evening with us some evenings ago, and
was brilliant and charming (the two things together), and good and
affectionate at the same time. Mr. Landor was staying with him (perhaps
I told you that), and went away into Worcestershire, assuring me, when
he took leave of me, that he would never enter London again. A week
passes, and lo! Mr. Kenyon expects him again. Resolutions are not always
irrevocable, you observe.
I must tell you what Landor said about Louis Napoleon. You are aware
that he loathed the first Napoleon and that he hates the French nation;
also, he detests the present state of French affairs, and has foamed
over in the 'Examiner' 'in prose and rhyme' on the subject of them.
Nevertheless, he who calls 'the Emperor' 'an infernal fool' expresses
himself to this effect about the President: 'I always knew him to be a
man of wonderful genius. I knew him intimately, and I was persuaded of
what was in him. When people have said to me, "How can you like to waste
your time with so trifling a man?" I have answered: "If all your Houses
of Parliament, putting their heads together, could make a head equal to
this trifling man's head it would be well for England."
It was quite unexpected to me to hear Mr. Landor talk so.
He, Mr. Landor, is looking as young as ever, as full of life and
passionate energy.
Did Mr. Horne write to you before he went to Australia? Did I speak to
you about his going? Did you see the letter which he put into the papers
as a farewell to England? I think of it all sadly.
Mazzini came to see us the other day, with that pale spiritual face of
his, and those intense eyes full of melancholy illusions. I was
thinking, while he sate there, on what Italian turf he would lie at last
with a bullet in his heart, or perhaps with a knife in his back, for to
one of those ends it will surely come. Mrs. Carlyle came with him. She
is a great favorite of mine: full of thought, and feeling, and
character, it seems to me.
London is emptying itself, and the relief will be great in a certain
way; for one gets exhausted sometimes. Let me remember whom I have seen.
Mrs. Newton Crosland, who spoke of you very warmly; Miss Mulock, who
wrote 'The Ogilvies' (that series of novels), and is interesting,
gentle, and young, and seems to have worked half her life in spite of
youth; Mr. Field we have not seen, only heard of; Miss ----, no--but I
am to see her, I understand, and that she is an American Corinna in
yellow silk, but pretty. We drove out to Kensington with Monckton Milnes
and his wife, and I like her; she is quiet and kind, and seems to have
accomplishments, and we are to meet Fanny Kemble at the Procters some
day next week. Many good faces, but the best wanting. Ah, I wish Lord
Stanhope, who shows the spirits of the sun in a crystal ball, could show
us _that_! Have you heard of the crystal ball?[14] We went to meet it
and the seer the other morning, with sundry of the believers and
unbelievers--among the latter, chief among the latter, Mr. Chorley, who
was highly indignant and greatly scandalised, particularly on account of
the combination sought to be established by the lady of the house
between lobster salad and Oremus, spirit of the sun. For my part, I
endured both luncheon and spiritual phenomena with great equanimity. It
was very curious altogether to my mind, as a sign of the times, if in no
other respect of philosophy. But I love the marvellous. Write a word to
me, I beseech you, and love me and think of me, as I love and think of
you. God bless you. Robert's love.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
58 Welbeck Street: Tuesday, [July-October 1852].
Dearest Monna Nina,--Here are the verses. I did them all because that
was easiest to me, but of course you will extract the two you want.
It has struck me besides that you might care to see this old ballad
which I find among my papers from one of the Percy or other antiquarian
Society books, and which I transcribed years ago, modernising slightly
in order to make out some sort of rhythm as I went on. I did this
because the original poem impressed me deeply with its pathos. I wish I
could send you the antique literal poem, but I haven't it, nor know
where to find it; still, I don't think I quite spoilt it with the very
slight changes ventured by me in the transcription.
God bless you. Let us meet on Wednesday. Robert's best love, with that
of your ever affectionate
BA.
STABAT MATER
Mother full of lamentation,
Near that cross she wept her passion,
Whereon hung her child and Lord.
Through her spirit worn and wailing,
Tortured by the stroke and failing,
Passed and pierced the prophet's sword.
Oh, sad, sore, above all other,
Was that ever blessed mother
Of the sole-begotten one;
She who mourned and moaned and trembled
While she measured, nor dissembled,
Such despairs of such a son!
Where's the man could hold from weeping,
If Christ's mother he saw keeping
Watch with mother-heart undone?
Who could hold from grief, to view her,
Tender mother true and pure,
Agonising with her Son?
For her people's sins she saw Him
Down the bitter deep withdraw Him
'Neath the scourge and through the dole!
Her sweet Son she contemplated
Nailed to death, and desolated,
While He breathed away His soul.
E.B.B.
BALLAD--_Beginning of Edward II.'s Reign_
'Stand up, mother, under cross,
Smile to help thy Son at loss.
Blythe, O mother, try to be!'
'Son, how can I blythely stand,
Seeing here Thy foot and hand
Nailèd to the cruel tree?'
'Mother, cease thy weeping blind.
I die here for all mankind,
Not for guilt that I have done.'
'Son, I feel Thy deathly smart.
The sword pierces through my heart,
Prophesied by Simeon.'
'Mother, mercy! let me die,
Adam out of hell to buy,
And his kin who are accurst.'
'Son, what use have I for breath?
Sorrow wasteth me to death--
Let my dying come the first.'
'Mother, pity on thy Son!
Bloody tears be running down
Worse to bear than death to meet!'
'Son, how can I cease from weeping?
Bloody streams I see a-creeping
From Thine heart against my feet.'
'Mother, now I tell thee, I!
Better is it one should die
Than all men to hell should go.'
'Son, I see Thy body hang
Foot and hand in piercèd pang.
Who can wonder at my woe?'
'Mother, now I will thee tell,
If I live, thou goest to hell--
I must die here for thy sake.'
'Son, Thou art so mild and kind,
Nature, knowledge have enjoined
I, for Thee, this wail must make.'
'Mother, ponder now this thing:
Sorrow childbirth still must bring,
Sorrow 'tis to have a son!'
'Ay, still sorrow, I can tell!
Mete it by the pain of hell,
Since more sorrow can be none.'
'Mother, pity mother's care!
Now as mother dost thou fare,
Though of maids the purest known.'
'Son, Thou help at every need
All those who before me plead--
Maid, wife--woman, everyone.'
'Mother, here I cannot dwell.
Time is that I pass to hell,
And the third day rise again.'
'Son, I would depart with Thee.
Lo! Thy wounds are slaying me.
Death has no such sorrow--none.'
When He rose, then fell her sorrow.
Sprang her bliss on the third morrow.
A blythe mother wert thou so!
Lady, for that selfsame bliss,
Pray thy Son who peerless is,
Be our shield against our foe.
Blessed be thou, full of bliss!
Let us not heaven's safety miss,
Never! through thy sweet Son's might.
Jesus, for that selfsame blood
Which Thou sheddest upon rood,
Bring us to the heavenly light.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
58 Welbeck Street: Thursday, [September 2, 1852].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Your letters always make me glad to see them,
but this time the pleasure was tempered by an undeniable pain in the
conscience. Oh, I ought to have written long and long ago. I have
another letter of yours unanswered. Also, there was a proposition in it
to Robert of a tempting character, and he put off the 'no'--the
ungracious-sounding 'no'--as long as he could. He would have liked to
have seen Mrs. Flood, as well as you; she is a favorite with us both.
But he finds it impossible to leave London. We have had no less than
eight invitations into the country, and we are forced to keep to London,
in spite of all 'babbling about' and from 'green fields.' Once we went
to Farnham, and spent two days with Mr. and Mrs. Paine there in that
lovely heathy country, and met Mr. Kingsley, the 'Christian Socialist,'
author of 'Alton Locke,' 'Yeast,' &c. It is only two hours from town (or
less) by railroad, and we took our child with us and Flush, and had a
breath of fresh air which ought to have done us good, but didn't. Few
men have impressed me more agreeably than Mr. Kingsley. He is original
and earnest, and full of a genial and almost tender kindliness which is
delightful to me. Wild and theoretical in many ways he is of course, but
I believe he could not be otherwise than good and noble, let him say or
dream what he will. You are not to confound this visit of ours to
Farnham with the 'sanitary reform' picnic (!) to the same place, at
which the newspapers say we were present. We were _invited_--that is
true--but did not go, nor thought of it. I am not up to picnics--nor
_down_ to some of the company perhaps; who knows? Don't think me grown,
too, suddenly scornful, without being sure of the particulars....
Mr. Tennyson has a little son, and wrote me such three happy notes on
the occasion that I really never liked him so well before. I do like men
who are not ashamed to be happy beside a cradle. Monckton Milnes had a
brilliant christening luncheon, and his baby was made to sweep in India
muslin and Brussels lace among a very large circle of admiring guests.
Think of my vanity turning my head completely and admitting of my taking
Wiedeman there (because of an express invitation). He behaved like an
angel, everybody said, and looked very pretty, I said myself; only he
disgraced us all at last by refusing to kiss the baby, on the ground of
his being 'troppo grande.' He has learnt quantities of English words,
and is in consequence more unintelligible than ever. Poor darling! I am
in pain about him to-day. Wilson goes to spend a fortnight with her
mother, and I don't know how I shall be comforter enough. There will be
great wailing and gnashing of teeth certainly, and I shall be in prison
for the next two weeks, and have to do all the washing and dressing
myself....
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
58 Welbeck Street:
Saturday, September 14, 1852 [postmark].
My dearest Miss Mitford,--I am tied and bound beyond redemption for the
next fortnight at least, therefore the hope of seeing you must be for
_afterwards_. I dare say you think that a child can be stowed away like
other goods; but I do assure you that my child, though quite capable of
being amused by his aunts for a certain number of half-hours, would
break his little heart if I left him for a whole day while he had not
Wilson. When she is here, he is contented. In her absence he is
sceptical about happiness, and suspicious of complete desolation. Every
now and then he says to me, 'Will mama' (saying it in his pretty,
broken, unquotable language) 'go away and leave Peninni all alone?' He
won't let a human being touch him. I wash and dress him, and have him to
sleep with me, and Robert is the only other helper he will allow of.
'There's spoiling of a child!' say you. But he is so good and tender and
sensitive that we can't go beyond a certain line. For instance, I was
quite frightened about the effect of Wilson's leaving him. We managed to
prepare him as well as we could, and when he found she was actually
gone, the passion of grief I had feared was just escaped. He struggled
with himself, the eyes full of tears, and the lips quivering, but there
was not any screaming and crying such as made me cry last year on a like
occasion. He had made up his mind.
You see I can't go to you just now, whatever temptations you hold out.
Wait--oh, we must wait. And whenever I do go to you, you will see Robert
at the same time. He will like to see _you_; and besides, he would as
soon trust me to travel to Reading alone as I trust Peninni to be alone
here. I believe he thinks I should drop off my head and leave it under
the seat of the rail-carriage if he didn't take care of it....
I ought to have told you that Mr. Kingsley (one of the reasons why I
liked him) spoke warmly and admiringly of you. Yes, I ought to have told
you that--his praise is worth having. Of course I have heard much of Mr.
Harness from Mr. Kenyon and you, as well as from my own husband. But
there is no use in measuring temptations; I am a female St. Anthony, and
_won't_ be overcome. The Talfourds wanted me to dine with them on
Monday. Robert goes alone. You don't mention Mr. Chorley. Didn't he find
his way to you?
Mr. Patmore told us that Tennyson was writing a poem on Arthur--_not_ an
epic, a collection of poems, ballad and otherwise, united by the
subject, after the manner of 'In Memoriam,' but in different measures.
The work will be full of beauty, whatever it is, I don't doubt.
I am reading more Dumas. He never flags. I _must_ see Dumas when I go
again to Paris, and it will be easy, as we know his friend Jadin.
Did you read Mrs. Norton's last book--the novel, which seems to be so
much praised? Tell me what it is, in your mind....
I will write no more, that you may have the answer to my kind
proposition as soon as possible. _After the fortnight._
God bless you.
Your ever affectionate
E.B.B.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
58 Welbeck Street: Tuesday, [September 1852].
Alas, no; I cannot go to you before the Saturday you name, nor for some
days after, dearest friend. It is simply impossible. Wilson has not come
back, nor will till the end of next week, and though I can get away from
my child for two or three hours at once during the daytime, for the
whole day I could not go. What would become of him, poor darling?...
And I can't go to you this week, nor next week, probably. How vexatious!
My comfort is that you seem to be better--much, much better--and that
you have courage to think of the pony carriages and the Kingsleys of the
earth. That man impressed me much, interested me much. The more you see
of him, the more you will like him, is my prophecy. He has a volume of
poems, I hear, close upon publication, and Robert and I are looking
forward to it eagerly.
Mr. Ruskin has been to see us (did I tell you that?)... We went to
Denmark Hill yesterday by agreement, to see the Turners--which, by the
way, are divine. I like Mr. Ruskin much, and so does Robert. Very
gentle, yet earnest--refined and truthful. I like him very much. We
count him among the valuable acquaintances made this year in England....
Mr. Kenyon has come back, and most other people are gone away; but he is
worth more than most other people, so the advantage remains to the
scale. I am delighted that you should have your dear friend Mr. Harness
with you, and, for my own part, I do feel grateful to him for the good
he has evidently done you. Oh, continue to be better! Don't overtire
yourself--don't use improvidently the new strength. Remember the winter,
and be wise; and let me see you, before it comes, looking as bright and
well as I thought you last year. God bless you always.
Love your ever affectionate
BA.
Robert's love.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
London: Friday, [October 6, 1852].
My dearest Miss Mitford,--I am quite in pain to have to write a farewell
to you after all. As soon as Wilson had returned--and she stayed away
much longer than last year--we found ourselves pushed to the edge of our
time for remaining in England, and the accumulation of business to be
done before we could go pressed on us. I am almost mad with the amount
of things to be done, as it is; but I should have put the visit to you
at the head of them, and swept all the rest on one side for a day, if it
hadn't been for the detestable weather, and my horrible cough which
combines with it. When Wilson came back she found me coughing in my old
way, and it has been without intermission up to now, or rather waxing
worse and worse. To have gone down to you and inflicted the noise of it
on you would have simply made you nervous, while the risk to myself
would have been very great indeed. Still, I have waited and waited,
feeling it scarcely possible to write to you to say, 'I am not coming
this year.' Ah, I am so very sorry and disappointed! I hoped against
hope for a break in the weather, and an improvement in myself; now we
must go, and there is no hope. For about a fortnight I have been a
prisoner in the house. This climate won't let me live, there's the
truth. So we are going on Monday. We go to Paris for a week or two, and
then to Florence, and then to Rome, and then to Naples; but we shall be
back next year, if God pleases, and then I shall seize an early summer
day to run down straight to you and find you stronger, if God blesses me
so far. Think of me and love me a little meanwhile. I shall do it by
you. And do, _do_--since there is no time to hear from you in
London--send a fragment of a note to Arabel for me, that I may have it
in Paris before we set out on our long Italian journey. Let me have the
comfort of knowing exactly how you are before we set out. As for me, I
expect to be better on crossing the Channel. How people manage to live
and enjoy life in this fog and cold is inexplicable to me. I understand
the system of the American rapping spirits considerably better....
The Tennysons in their kindest words pressed us to be present at their
child's christening, which took place last Tuesday, but I could not go;
it was not possible. Robert went alone, therefore, and nursed the baby
for ten or twelve minutes, to its obvious contentment, he flatters
himself. It was christened Hallam Tennyson. Mr. Hallam was the
godfather, and present in his vocation. That was touching, wasn't it? I
hear that the Laureate talks vehemently against the French President and
the French; but for the rest he is genial and good, and has been quite
affectionate to us....
So I go without seeing you. Grieved I am. Love me to make amends.
Robert's love goes with me.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To John Kenyon_
[Paris,] Hôtel de la Ville-l'Évêque, Rue Ville-l'Évêque:
Thursday, [November 1852].
My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--I cannot do better to-day than keep my promise
to you about writing. We have done our business in Paris, but we linger
from the inglorious reason that we, experienced travellers as we are,
actually left a desk behind us in Bentinck Street, and must get it
before we go farther. Meanwhile, it's rather dangerous to let the charm
of Paris work--the honey will be clogging our feet very soon, and make
it difficult to go away. What an attractive place this is, to be sure!
How the sun shines, how the blue sky spreads, how the life lives, and
how kind the people are on all sides! If we were going anywhere but to
Italy, and if I were a little less plainly mortal with this disagreeable
cough of mine, I would gladly stay and see in the Empire with M.
Proudhon in the tail of it, and sit as a watcher over whatever things
shall be this year and next spring at Paris. As it is, we have been very
fortunate, as usual, in being present in a balcony on the boulevard, the
best place possible for seeing the grandest spectacle in the world, the
reception of Louis Napoleon last Saturday. The day was brilliant, and
the sweep of sunshine over the streaming multitude, and all the military
and civil pomp, made it difficult to distinguish between the light and
life. The sunshine seemed literally to push back the houses to make room
for the crowd, and the wide boulevards looked wider than ever. If you
had cursed the sentiment of the day ever so, you would have had eyes for
its picturesqueness, I think, so I wish you had been there to see.
Louis Napoleon showed his usual tact and courage by riding on horseback
quite alone, at least ten paces between himself and his nearest escort,
which of course had a striking effect, taking the French on their weak
side, and startling even Miss Cushman (who had been murmuring
displeasure into my ear for an hour) into an exclamation of 'That's
fine, I must say.' Little Wiedeman was in a state of ecstasy, and has
been recounting ever since how he called '"Vive Napoléon!" _molto molto
duro_,' meaning _very loud_ (his Italian is not very much more correct,
you know, than his other languages), and how Napoleon took off his hat
to him directly. I don't see the English papers, but I conclude you are
all furious. You must make up your minds to it nevertheless--the Empire
is certain, and the feeling of all but unanimity (whatever the motive)
throughout France obvious enough. Smooth down the lion's mane of the
'Examiner,' and hint that roaring over a desert is a vain thing. As to
Victor Hugo's book, the very enemies of the present state of affairs
object to it that _he lies_ simply. There is not enough truth in it for
an invective to rest on, still less for an argument. It's an
inarticulate cry of a bird of prey, wild and strong irrational, and not
a book at all. For my part I did wave my handkerchief for the new
Emperor, but I bore the show very well, and said to myself, 'God bless
the people!' as the man who, to my apprehension, represents the
democracy, went past. A very intelligent Frenchman, caught in the crowd
and forced to grope his way slowly along, told me that the expression of
opinion everywhere was curiously the same, not a dissenting mutter did
he hear. Strange, strange, all this! For the drama of history we must
look to France, for startling situations, for the 'points' which thrill
you to the bone....
May God bless you meantime! Take care of yourself for the sake of us all
who love you, none indeed more affectionately and gratefully than
R.B. and E.B.B.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Holy Scriptures.
[2] Miss Haworth was a friend of Mr. Browning from very early days, and
was commemorated by him in 'Sordello' under the name of 'Eyebright' (see
Mrs. Orr's _Life_, p. 86). Her acquaintance with Mrs. Browning began
with this visit to London, and ripened into a warm friendship. One
subject of interest which they had in common was mesmerism, with the
attendant mysteries of spiritualism and Swedenborgianism; and references
to these are frequent in Mrs. Browning's letters to her.
[3] So spelt in the earlier letters, but subsequently modified to
'Penini.'
[4] Miss Mitford had lately moved into her new home at Swallowfield,
about three miles from the old cottage at Three Mile Cross, commemorated
in 'Our Village.'
[5] The article was by M. Joseph Milsand, and led to the formation of
the warm friendship between him and Mr. Browning which lasted until the
death of the former in 1886.
[6] The May edict restricted the franchise to electors who had resided
three years in the same district. In October Louis Napoleon proposed to
repeal it, and the refusal of the Assembly no doubt strengthened his
hold on the democracy.
[7] The _coup d'état_ took place in the early morning of December 2.
[8] The constitution of 1848.
[9] The point was rather whether they had the _power_.
[10] Miss Mitford's _Recollections of a Literary Life_ contained a
chapter relating to Robert and Elizabeth Browning, in which, with the
best intentions in the world, she told the story of the drowning of
Edward Barrett, and of the gloom cast by it on his sister's life. It was
this revival of the greatest sorrow of her life that so upset Mrs.
Browning.
[11] No doubt M. Milsand was the writer in question.
[12] The (forged) _Letters of Shelley_, to which Mr. Browning wrote an
introduction, dealing rather with Shelley in general than with the
letters.
[13] 'Lines to Elizabeth Barrett Browning on her Later Sonnets', printed
in the _Athenæum_ for February 15, 1851. The allusion to the voice which
called 'Dinah' must refer to something in Miss Mulock's letter. Dinah
was Miss Mulock's Christian name.
[14] In another letter, written about the same date to Mrs. Martin, Mrs.
Browning says: 'Perhaps you never heard of the crystal ball. The
original ball was bought by Lady Blessington from an "Egyptian
magician," and resold at her sale. She never could understand the use of
it, but others have looked deeper, or with purer eyes, it is said; and
now there is an optician in London who makes and sells these balls, and
speaks of a "great demand," though they are expensive. "Many persons,"
said Lord Stanhope, "use the balls, without the moral courage to confess
it." No doubt they did.
CHAPTER VIII
1852-55
The middle of November found the travellers back again in Florence, and
it was nearly three years before they again quitted Italy. No doubt,
after the excitement of the _coup d'état_ in Paris, and the subsequent
manoeuvres of Louis Napoleon, which culminated in this very month in
his exchanging the title of President for that of Emperor, Florence must
have seemed very quiet, if not dull. The political movement there was
dead; the Grand Duke, restored by Austrian bayonets, had abandoned all
pretence at reform and constitutional progress. In Piedmont, Cavour had
just been summoned to the head of the administration, but there were no
signs as yet of the use he was destined to make of his power. Of
politics, therefore, we hear little for the present.
Nor is there much to note at this time in respect of literature. A new
edition of Mrs. Browning's poems was called for in 1853; but beyond some
minor revisions of detail it did not differ from the edition of 1850.
Her husband's play, 'Colombe's Birthday,' was produced at the Haymarket
Theatre during April, with Miss Faucit (Lady Martin) in the principal
part; but the poet had no share in the production, and his literary
activity must have been devoted to the composition of some of the fine
poems which subsequently formed the two volumes of 'Men and Women,'
which appeared in 1855. Mrs. Browning had also embarked on her longest
poem, 'Aurora Leigh,' and speaks of being happily and busily engaged in
work; but we hear little of it as yet in her correspondence. Her little
son and her Florentine friends and visitors form her principal subjects;
and we also see the beginning of a topic which for the next few years
occupied a good deal of her attention--namely, Spiritualism.
The temperament of Mrs. Browning had in it a decidedly mystical vein,
which predisposed her to believe in any communication between our world
and that of the spirits. Hence when a number of people professed to have
such communication, she was not merely ready to listen to their claims,
but was by temperament inclined to accept them. The immense vogue which
spiritualism had during 'the fifties' tended to confirm her belief. It
was easy to say that where there was so much smoke there must be fire.
And what she believed, she believed strongly and with a perfect
conviction that no other view could be right. Just as her faith in Louis
Napoleon survived the _coup d'état_, and even Villafranca, so her belief
in communications with the spirit world was proof against any exposure
of fraud on the part of the mediums. Not that she was guilty of the
absurdities which marked many of the devotees of spiritualism. She had a
great horror of submitting herself to mesmeric influences. She
recognised that very many of the supposed revelations of the spirits
were trivial, perhaps false; but to the fact that communications did
exist she adhered constantly.
It is not of much interest now to discuss the ethics or the metaphysics
of the 'rapping spirits;' but the subject deserves more than a passing
mention in the life of Mrs. Browning, because it has been said, and
apparently with authority, that 'the only serious difference which ever
arose between Mr. Browning and his wife referred to the subject of
spiritualism.'[15] It is quite certain that Mr. Browning did not share
his wife's belief in spiritualism; a reference to 'Sludge the Medium'
is sufficient to establish his position in the matter. But it is easy to
make too much of the supposed 'difference.' Certainly it has left no
trace in Mrs. Browning's letters which are now extant. There is no sign
in them that the divergence of opinion produced the slightest discord in
the harmony of their life. No doubt Mr. Browning felt strongly as to the
character of some of the persons, whether mediums or their devotees,
with whom his wife was brought into contact, and he may have relieved
his feelings by strong expressions of his opinion concerning them; but
there is no reason to lay stress on this as indicating any serious
difference between himself and his wife.
It has seemed necessary to say so much, lest it should be supposed that
any of the omissions, which have been made in order to reduce the bulk
of the letters within reasonable limits, cover passages in which such a
difference is spoken of. In no single instance is this the case. The
omissions have been made in the interests of the reader, not in order to
affect in any way the representation which the letters give of their
writer's feelings and character. With this preface they may be left to
tell their own tale.
* * * * *
_To Miss Browning_
Florence: November 14, 1852 [postmark].
My dearest Sarianna,--You can't think how pleased I am to find myself in
Florence again in our own house, everything looking exactly as if we had
left it yesterday. Scarcely I can believe that we have gone away at all.
But Robert has been perfectly demoralised by Paris, and thinks it all as
dull as possible after the boulevards: 'no life, no variety.' Oh, of
course it _is_ very dead in comparison! but it's a beautiful death, and
what with the lovely climate, and the lovely associations, and the sense
of repose, I could turn myself on my pillow and sleep on here to the end
of my life; only be sure that I _shall do no such thing_. We are going
back to Paris; you will have us safe. Peninni had worked himself up to a
state of complete agitation on entering Florence, through hearing so
much about it. First he kissed me and then Robert again and again, as if
his little heart were full. '_Poor Florence_' said he while we passed
the bridge. Certainly there never was such a darling since the world
began.... I suffered extremely through our unfortunate election of the
Mont Cenis route (much more my own fault than Robert's), and was
extremely unwell at Genoa, to the extent of almost losing heart and
hope, which is a most unusual case with me, but the change from Lyons
had been too sudden and severe. At Genoa the weather was so exquisite,
so absolutely June weather, that at the end of a week's lying on the
sofa, I had rallied again quite, only poor darling Robert was horribly
vexed and out of spirits all that time, as was natural. I feel myself,
every now and then (and did then), like a weight round his neck, poor
darling, though he does not account it so, for his part. Well, but it
passed, and we were able to walk about beautiful Genoa the last two
days, and visit Andrea Doria's palace and enjoy everything together.
Then we came on by a night and day's diligence through a warm air, which
made me better and better. By the way, Turin is nearly as cold as
Chambéry; you can't believe yourself to be in Italy. Susa, at the foot
of the Alps, is warmer. We were all delighted to hear the sound of our
dear Italian, and inclined to be charmed with everything; and Peninni
fairly expressed the kind of generalisations we were given to, when he
observed philosophically, 'In Italy, pussytats don't never _scwatch_,
mama.' This was in reply to an objection I had made to a project of his
about kissing the head of an enchanting pussy-cat who presented herself
in vision to him as we were dining at Turin.... God bless and preserve
you. We love you dearly, and talk of you continually--of both of you.
Your most affectionate sister,
BA.
Best love to your father.--Peninni.
* * * * *
_To John Kenyon_
Casa Guidi: November 23, 1852.
We flatter ourselves, dearest Mr. Kenyon, that as we think so much of
you, you may be thinking a little of us, and will not be sorry--who
knows?--to have a few words from us.
November 24.
Just as I was writing, had written, that sentence yesterday, came the
letter which contained your notelet. Thank you, thank you, dearest
friend, it is very pleasant to have such a sign from your hand across
the Alps of kindness and remembrance. As to my sins in the choice of the
Mont Cenis route, 'Bradshaw' was full of temptation, and the results to
me have so entirely passed away now, that even the wholesome state of
repentance is very faded in the colours. What chiefly remains is the
sense of wonderful contrast between climate and climate when we found
ourselves at Genoa and in June. I can't get rid of the astonishment of
it even now. At Turin I had to keep up a fire most of the night in my
bedroom, and at Genoa, with all the windows and doors open, we were
gasping for breath, languid with the heat, blue burning skies overhead,
and not enough stirring air for refreshment. Nothing less, perhaps,
would have restored me so soon, and it was delightful to be able during
our last two days of our ten days there to stand on Andrea Doria's
terrace, and look out on that beautiful bay with its sweep of marble
palaces. My 'unconquerable mind' even carried me halfway up the
lighthouse for the sake of the 'view,' only there I had to stop
ingloriously, and let Robert finish the course alone while I rested on a
bench: aspiration is not everything, either in literature or
lighthouses, you know, let us be ever so 'insolvent.'
Well, and since we left Turin, everywhere in Italy we have found summer,
summer--not a fire have we needed even in Florence. Such mornings, such
evenings, such walkings out in the dusk, such sunsets over the Arno!
ah, Mr. Kenyon, you in England forget what life is in this out-of-door
fresh world, with your cloistral habits and necessities! I assure you I
can't help fancying that the winter is over and gone, the past looks so
cold and black in the warm light of the present. We have had some rain,
but at night, and only thundery frank rains which made the next day
warmer, and I have all but lost my cough, and am feeling very well and
very happy.
Oh, yes, it made me glad to see our poor darling Florence again; I do
love Florence when all's said against it, and when Robert (demoralised
by Paris) has said most strongly that the place is dead, and dull, and
flat, which it is, I must confess, particularly to our eyes fresh from
the palpitating life of the Parisian boulevards, where we could scarcely
find our way to Prichard's for the crowd during our last fortnight
there. Poor Florence, so dead, as Robert says, and as we both feel, so
trodden flat in the dust of the vineyards by these mules of Austria and
these asses of the Papacy: good heavens! how long are these things to
endure? I do love Florence, when all's said. The very calm, the very
dying stillness is expressive and touching. And then our house, our
tables, our chairs, our carpets, everything looking rather better for
our having been away! Overjoyed I was to feel myself _at home_ again!
our Italians so pleased to see us, Wiedeman's nurse rushing in, kissing
my lips away almost, and seizing on the child, 'Dio mio, come è bellino!
the tears pouring down her cheeks, not able to look, for emotion, at the
shawl we had brought her from England. Poor Italians! who can help
caring for them, and feeling for them in their utter prostration just
now? The unanimity of despair on all sides is an affecting thing, I can
assure you. There is no mistake _here_, no possibility of mistake or
doubt as to the sentiment of the people towards the actual régime; and
if your English newspapers earnestly want to sympathise with an
oppressed people, let them speak a little for Tuscany. The most hopeful
word we have heard uttered by the Italians is, 'Surely it cannot last.'
It is the hope of the agonising.
But our 'carta di soggiorno' was sent to us duly. The government is not
over learned in literature, oh no....
And only Robert has seen Mr. Powers yet, for he is in the crisis of
removal to a new house and studio, a great improvement on the last, and
an excellent sign of prosperity of course. He is to come to us some
evening as soon as he can take breath. We have had visits from the
attachés at the English embassy here, Mr. Wolf, and Mr. Lytton,[16] Sir
E. Bulwer Lytton's son, and I think we shall like the latter, who (a
reason for my particular sympathy) is inclined to various sorts of
spiritualism, and given to the magic arts. He told me yesterday that
several of the American rapping spirits are imported to Knebworth, to
his father's great satisfaction. A very young man, as you may suppose,
the son is; refined and gentle in manners. Sir Henry Bulwer is absent
from Florence just now.
As to our house, it really looks better to my eyes than it used to look.
Mr. Lytton wondered yesterday how we could think of leaving it, and so
do I, almost. The letting has answered well enough; that is, it has paid
all expenses, leaving an advantage to us of a house during _six months_,
at our choice to occupy ourselves or let again. Also it might have been
let for a year (besides other offers), only our agent expecting us in
September, and mistaking our intentions generally, refused to do so. Now
I will tell you what our plans are. We shall stay here till we can let
our house. If we don't let it we shall continue to occupy it, and put
off Rome till the spring, but the probability is that we shall have an
offer before the end of December, which will be quite time enough for a
Roman winter. In fact, I hear of a fever at Rome and another at Naples,
and would rather, on every account, as far as I am concerned, stay a
little longer in Florence. I can be cautious, you see, upon some points,
and Roman fevers frighten me for our little Wiedeman.
As to your 'science' of 'turning the necessity of travelling into a
luxury,' my dearest cousin, do let me say that, like some of the occult
sciences, it requires a good deal of gold to work out. Your too generous
kindness enabled us to do what we couldn't certainly have done without
it, but nothing would justify us, you know, in not considering the
cheapest way of doing things notwithstanding. So Bradshaw, as I say,
tempted us, and the sight of the short cut in the map (pure delusion
those maps are!) beguiled us, and we crossed the 'cold valley' and the
'cold mountain' when we shouldn't have done either, and we have bought
experience and paid for it. Never mind! experience is nearly always
worth its price. And I have nearly lost my cough, and Robert is dosing
me indefatigably with cod's liver oil to do away with my thinness....
Robert's best love, with that of your most
Gratefully affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss I. Blagden_
[Florence: winter 1852-3.]
[_The beginning of the letter is lost_]
The state of things here in Tuscany is infamous and cruel. The old
serpent, the Pope, is wriggling his venom into the heart of all
possibilities of free thought and action. It is a dreadful state of
things. Austria the hand, the papal power the brain! and no energy in
the victim for resistance--only for hatred. They do hate here, I am glad
to say.
But we linger at Florence in spite of all. It was delightful to find
ourselves in the old nest, still warm, of Casa Guidi, to sit in our own
chairs and sleep in our own beds; and here we shall stay as late
perhaps as March, if we don't re-let our house before. Then we go to
Rome and Naples. You can't think how we have caught up our ancient
traditions just where we left them, and relapsed into our former
soundless, stirless hermit life. Robert has not passed an evening from
home since we came--just as if we had never known Paris. People come
sometimes to have tea and talk with us, but that's all; a few
intelligent and interesting persons sometimes, such as Mr. Tennyson (the
poet's brother) and Mr. Lytton (the novelist's son) and Mr. Stuart, the
lecturer on Shakespeare, whom once I named to you, I fancy. Mr. Tennyson
married an Italian, and has four children. He has much of the atmosphere
poetic about him, a dreamy, speculative, shy man, reminding us of his
brother in certain respects; good and pure-minded. I like him. Young Mr.
Lytton is very young, as you may suppose, with all sorts of high
aspirations--and visionary enough to suit _me_, which is saying
much--and affectionate, with an apparent liking to us both, which is
engaging to us, of course. We have seen the Trollopes once, the younger
ones, but the elder Mrs. Trollope was visible neither at that time nor
since....
I sit here reading Dumas' 'last,' notwithstanding. Dumas is astonishing;
he never _will_ write himself out; there's no dust on his shoes after
all this running; his last books are better than his first.
Do your American friends write ever to you about the rapping spirits? I
hear and would hear much of them. It is said that at least fifteen
thousand persons in America, of all classes and society, are _mediums_,
as the term is. Most curious these phenomena.
[_The end of the letter is lost_]
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
Casa Guidi, Florence: February [1853].
I had just heard of your accident from Arabel, my much loved friend, and
was on the point of writing to you when your letter came. To say that I
was shocked and grieved to hear such news of you, is useless indeed; you
will feel how I have felt about it. May God bless and restore you, and
make me very thankful, as certainly I must be in such a case....
The comfort to me in your letter is the apparent good spirits you write
in, and the cheerful, active intentions you have of work for the delight
of us all. I clap my hands, and welcome the new volumes. Dearest friend,
I do wish I had heard about the French poetry in Paris, for there I
could have got at books and answered some of your questions. The truth
is, I don't know as much about French modern poetry as I ought to do in
the way of _métier_. The French essential poetry seems to me to flow out
into prose works, into their school of romances, and to be least
poetical when dyked up into rhythm. Mdme. Valmore I never read, but she
is esteemed highly, I think, for a certain _naïveté_, and happy
surprises in the thought and feeling, _des mots charmants_. I wanted to
get her books in Paris, and missed them somehow; there was so much to
think of in Paris. Alfred de Musset's poems I read, collected in a
single volume; it is the only edition I ever met with. The French value
him extremely for his _music_; and there is much in him otherwise to
appreciate, I think; very beautiful things indeed. He is best to my mind
when he is most lyrical, and when he says things in a breath. His
elaborate poems are defective. One or two Spanish ballads of his seem to
me perfect, really. He has great power in the introduction of familiar
and conventional images without disturbing the ideal--a good power for
these days. The worst is that the moral atmosphere is _bad_, and that,
though I am not, as you know, the very least bit of a prude (not enough
perhaps), some of his poems must be admitted to be most offensive. Get
St. Beuve's poems, they have much beauty in them you will grant at once.
Then there is a Breton[17] poet whose name Robert and I have both of us
been ungrateful enough to forget--we have turned our brains over and
over and can't find the name anyhow--and who, indeed, deserves to be
remembered, who writes some fresh and charmingly simple idyllic poems,
one called, I think, 'Primel et Nola.' By that clue you may hunt him out
perhaps in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes.' There's no strong imagination,
understand--nothing of that sort! but you have a sweet, fresh, cool
sylvan feeling with him, rare among Frenchmen of his class. Edgar Quinet
has more positive genius. He is a man of grand, extravagant conceptions.
Do you know the 'Ahasuerus'?
I wonder if the Empress pleases you as well as the Emperor. For my part,
I approve altogether, and none the less that he has offended Austria by
the mode of announcement. Every cut of the whip in the face of Austria
is an especial compliment to me--or, _so I feel it_. Let him head the
democracy and do his duty to the world, and use to the utmost his great
opportunities. Mr. Cobden and the Peace Society are pleasing me
infinitely just now in making head against the immorality (that's the
word) of the English press. The tone taken up towards France is immoral
in the highest degree, and the invasion cry would be idiotic if it were
not something worse. The Empress, I heard the other day from good
authority, is 'charming and good at heart.' She was educated 'at a
respectable school at Bristol' (Miss Rogers's, Royal Crescent, Clifton),
and is very 'English,' which doesn't prevent her from shooting with
pistols, leaping gates, driving 'four-in-hand,' and upsetting the
carriage when the frolic requires it, as brave as a lion and as true as
a dog. Her complexion is like marble, white, pale and pure; her hair
light, rather 'sandy,' they say, and she powders it with gold dust for
effect; but there is less physical and more intellectual beauty than is
generally attributed to her. She is a woman of 'very decided opinions.'
I like all that, don't you? and I liked her letter to the Préfet, as
everybody must. Ah, if the English press were in earnest in the cause of
liberty, there would be something to say for our poor trampled-down
Italy--much to say, I mean. Under my eyes is a people really oppressed,
really groaning its heart out. But these things are spoken of with
measure.
We are reading Lamartine and Proudhon on '48. We have plenty of French
books here; only the poets are to seek--the moderns. Do you catch sight
of Moore in diary and letters? Robert, who has had glimpses of him, says
the 'flunkeyism' is quite humiliating. It is strange that you have not
heard more of the rapping spirits. They are worth hearing of were it
only in the point of view of the physiognomy of the times, as a sign of
hallucination and credulity, if not more. Fifteen thousand persons in
all ranks of society, and all degrees of education, are said to be
_mediums_, that is _seers_, or rather hearers and recipients, perhaps.
Oh, I can't tell you all about it; but the details are most curious. I
understand that Dickens has caught a wandering spirit in London and
showed him up victoriously in 'Household Words' as neither more nor less
than the 'cracking of toe joints;' but it is absurd to try to adapt such
an explanation to cases in general. You know I am rather a visionary,
and inclined to knock round at all the doors of the present world to try
to get out, so that I listen with interest to every goblin story of the
kind, and, indeed, I hear enough of them just now.
We heard nothing, however, from the American Minister, Mr. Marsh, and
his wife, who have just come from Constantinople in consequence of the
change of Presidency, and who passed an evening with us a few days ago.
She is pretty and interesting, a great invalid and almost blind, yet she
has lately been to Jerusalem, and insisted on being carried to the top
of Mount Horeb. After which I certainly should have the courage to
attempt the journey myself, if we had money enough. Going to the Holy
Land has been a favorite dream of Robert's and mine ever since we were
married, and some day you will wonder why I don't write, and hear
suddenly that I am lost in the desert. You will wonder, too, at our
wandering madness, by the way, more than at any rapping spirit extant;
we have 'a spirit in our feet,' as Shelley says in his lovely Eastern
song--and our child is as bad as either of us. He says, 'I _tuite_ tired
of _Flolence_. I want to go to _Brome_,' which is worse than either of
us. I never am tired of Florence. Robert has had an application from
Miss Faucit (now Mrs. Martin) to bring out his 'Colombe's Birthday' at
the Haymarket.
[_The remainder of this letter is missing_]
* * * * *
_To Miss I. Blagden_
Florence: March 3, 1853.
My dearest Isa, ... You have seen in the papers that Sir Edward Lytton
Bulwer has had an accident in the arm, which keeps him away from the
House of Commons, and even from the Haymarket, where they are acting his
play ('Not so bad as we seem') with some success. Well, here is a
curious thing about it. Mr. Lytton told us some time ago, that, by
several clairvoyantes, without knowledge or connection with one another,
an impending accident had been announced to him, 'not fatal, but
serious.' Mr. Lytton said, 'I have been very uneasy about it, and
nervous as every letter arrived, but nearly three months having passed,
I began to think they must have made a mistake--only it is curious that
they all should _all_ make a mistake of the same kind precisely.' When
after this we saw the accident in the paper, it was effective, as you
may suppose!
Profane or not, I am resolved on getting as near to a solution of the
spirit question as I can, and I don't believe in the least risk of
profanity, seeing that whatever is, must be permitted; and that the
contemplation of whatever is, must be permitted also, where the
intentions are pure and reverent. I can discern no more danger in
psychology than in mineralogy, only intensely a greater interest. As to
the spirits, I care less about what they are capable of communicating,
than of the fact of there being communications. I certainly wouldn't set
about building a system of theology out of their oracles. God forbid.
They seem abundantly foolish, one must admit. There is probably,
however, a mixture of good spirits and bad, foolish and wise, of the
lower orders perhaps, in both kinds....
Isa, you and I must try to make head against the strong-minded women,
though really you half frighten me prospectively....
---- ----, one of the strong-minded, we just escaped with life from in
London, and again in Paris. In Rome she has us! What makes me talk so
ill-naturedly is the information I have since received, that she has put
everybody unfortunate enough to be caught, into a book, and published
them at full length, in American fashion. Now I do confess to the
greatest horror of being caught, stuck through with a pin, and
beautifully preserved with other butterflies and beetles, even in the
album of a Corinna in yellow silk. I detest that particular sort of
victimisation....
We are invited to go to Constantinople this summer, to visit the
American Minister there. There's a temptation for you!
God bless you, dearest Isa. I shall be delighted to see you again, and
so will Robert! I always feel (I say to him sometimes) that you love me
a little, and that I may rest on you. Your ever affectionate friend,
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
Florence: March 15, [1853].
... The spring has surprised us here just as we were beginning to murmur
at the cold. Think of somebody advising me the other day not to send out
my child without a double-lined parasol! There's a precaution for March!
The sun is powerful--we are rejoicing in our Italian climate. Oh, that I
could cut out just a mantle of it to wrap myself in, and so go and see
you. Your house is dry, you say. Is the room you occupy airy as well as
warm? Because being confined to a small room, with you who are so used
to liberty and out of door life, must be depressing to the vital
energies. Do you read much? No, no, you ought not to think of the press,
of course, till you are strong. Ah--if you should get to London to see
our play, how glad I should be! We, too, talk of London, but somewhat
mistily, and not so early in the summer. Mr. and Mrs. Marsh--he is the
American Minister at Constantinople--have been staying in Florence, and
passing some evenings with us. They tempt us with an invitation to
Constantinople this summer, which would be irresistible if we had the
money for the voyage, perhaps, so perhaps it is as well that we have
not. Enough for us that we are going to Rome and to Naples, then
northward. I am busy in
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