Two-Way Mirror

by Fiona Sampson

  p. 21

  London Morning Post, 1831.

  EBB ‘Untitled Essay’, c.early 1840s, Kelley and Hudson, eds, The Brownings’ Correspondence vol. 1, pp. 360–62.

  Elizabeth Moulton to EBB c.May 1817, #45.

  To lose only one child is a remarkable achievement at a time when one child in three dies before the age of five: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality [retrieved 1 August 2018]. Mary is memorialised as a footnote to her parents’ memorial tablet on the east wall of the north transept of Ledbury Parish Church.

  p. 22

  EBB identifies the poodle in ‘Untitled Essay’. The miniaturist Charles Hayter paints Ba aged around nine. William Artaud paints the six eldest children in two groups of three.

  William Artaud to Wager Tayler 29 March 1818, SD283.

  ‘Poet-Laureat…’ Edward B MB to EBB 24 April 1814, #11; EBB, ‘Glimpses’, pp. 348–56.

  p. 23

  EBB to E B MB 27 April 1814, #12; EBB to Mary MB 1 May 1814 #13; EBB to Henrietta MB 14 May 1814, #14; EBB to E B MB 28 May 1814, #15.

  EBB, ‘Glimpses’, p. 350.

  EBB, ‘My Own Character’, pp. 347–48.

  p. 24

  ‘Ardent…’ EBB, ‘My Character and Bro’s Compared’ in Kelley and Hudson, eds, The Brownings’ Correspondence vol. 1, pp. 357–58. Precociously, Ba understands that even her desire to be truthful about herself is vanity. ‘Theology… more mad!’ EBB, ‘Glimpses’ p. 353. Artaud SD283. ‘At eleven…’ EBB, ‘Glimpses’, p. 351.

  The Latin tutor is an Irishman called Daniel McSwiney. Letter, in my translation, is EBB to Samuel Moulton-Barrett c.July 1817, #50.

  EBB, ‘To Summer’, 4 May 1819.

  p. 25

  Such stays briefly show promise of becoming a pattern in 1819, when they summer at Worthing: but then abruptly stop. From the age of four Arabella will spend nearly three years away at Ramsgate and Worthing, returning to Hope End in 1820.

  ‘I don’t like dancing…’ in my translation, EBB to Mme Gordin c.July 1817, #47. ‘House under the sideboard…’ EBB to RB 15 January 1846, #2175.

  ‘Steady indignation…’ EBB to Mary Russell Mitford 22 July 1842, #988.

  ‘One great misfortune…’ EBB ‘Untitled Essay’, p. 361.

  Though of course we can’t rule dysphoria out, even as a phase, since there’s no definite statement to the contrary.

  p. 26

  ‘I hate needlework…’ EBB, ‘My Own Character’, p. 347. ‘Admirer at thirteen…’ EBB to Mitford 28–29 March 1842, #931. ‘An old maid…’ Mary MB to EBB c.September 1821, #135. If spinsterhood means rigidity, femininity must indeed mean, for Ba’s Mama, flexibility.

  ‘Coterie…’ Artaud to Taylor SD283.

  EBB, ‘Essay on Woman’, Ll. 33–34, Studies in Browning and His Circle vol. 12 (1984), pp. 11–12.

  ‘Your Lordship is the only instrument of the ceaseless shame which now pollutes your name.’ EBB to Lord Somers – draft c.September 1817, #51.

  p. 27

  Her first surviving poem, ‘On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man’, protests the Royal Navy’s press-ganging of sailors. In 1812 this practice is debated in Parliament and the press, and becomes a catalyst for war between Britain and the United States.

  The MS in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library (Reconstruction D666), is probably misdated as 1814. However, press coverage of the issue in 1812 accords with EBB’s own version of herself as a poet from the age of six. EBB, ‘Glimpses’, p. 349.

  ‘One little city…’ Preface, The Battle of Marathon. ‘Doubt clouds…’ Marathon Bk I, Ll. 363–68.

  p. 28

  ‘Dear Ba seemed so unhappy at our going that it inspired my idea that it would be a material improvement to her to do so, and she jumped into the carriage with us.’ Mary MB to Arabella Graham-Clarke 25 October 1815, SD236.

  ‘Thuillerie Gardens…’ EBB to Arabella Graham-Clarke 26 December 1815, #26. ‘In spite of the romantic prospects…’ EBB to E B MB c.November 1817, #53.

  p. 29

  ‘The blood of the slave…’ EBB to RB 20 December 1845, #2144.

  p. 30

  George Goodin remembers his mixed-heritage illegitimate children in his will in much the same terms that white illegitimate children are customarily remembered. He leaves them the maximum amount allowed under racist laws of the time. Elissa is not free, and meaningful consent is lacking. Moreover, as she was herself of mixed heritage – she’s described as ‘mulatto’ – something similar must have happened to her mother, or grandmother. ‘To each of his quadroon children Goodin Barrett left “two thousand pounds Current money of Jamaica”, the maximum allowed to colored offspring by law.’ Jeannette Marks, The Family of the Barrett: A Colonial Romance (New York: Macmillan, 1938: p. 223). Elissa Peters receives an annuity, a house and three enslaved women as servants.

  Cecilia A. Green, ‘Hierarchies of whiteness in the geographies of empire: Thomas Thistlewood and the Barretts of Jamaica’ in NWIG: New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids vol. 80, no. 1/2 (2006), pp. 5–43, 35.

  UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146642461 [retrieved 11 August 2018].

  p. 31

  ‘When we consider them…’ ‘An Impartial Review of New Publications’ in The London Magazine vol. 42 (September 1773), p. 456. Wheatley fell out of fashion and died in poverty, albeit a free woman, two decades before Ba’s birth. She would be republished in America in the 1830s by abolitionists. W. T. J. Gun, ed, Harrow School Register 1571–1800 (London, New York, Toronto: Longmans, 1934), p. 36.

  RB, ‘Prefatory Note’, The Collected Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1887).

  p. 32

  E B MB seems to have lied about his age, since the Alumni Cantabrigiensis has him admitted as Fellow Commoner in October 1801 aged eighteen.

  When Robert Moulton surrendered his claim on the estates to Philip Scarlett on 20 February 1806 he was forced to give Ba’s Uncle Sam more than £500; but Papa had to find £6,533/17/7½ to pay him off. R. A. Barrett, The Barretts of Jamaica, pp. 52–53.

  The Epsom house had belonged to Charles Moulton’s father-in-law’s sister. Land Tax returns list him as occupant for this year only.

  Vere Langford Oliver, ed, Caribbeana: being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910). He is named as owner 1812–26 in Epsom and Ewell Explorer, http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/TheCedars.html [retrieved 30 July 2018]. According to R. A. Barrett, in The Barretts of Jamaica, Moulton bought the house from the family, and resold it back to them.

  The History of Parliament http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/moulton-barrett-samuel-1787-1837 [retrieved 3 July 2018].

  The London Chronicle for 1761 records the Truelove, belonging to ‘Moulton’, sailing from Madeira for Barbados on 4 April. A. Arnaiz-Villena, R. Reguera, A. Ferri, L. Barbolla, S. Abd-El-Fatah-Khalil, N. Bakhtiyarova, P. Millan, J. Moscoso, A. Mafalda, J. I. Serrano-Vela, ‘The peopling of Madeira archipelago (Portugal) according to HLA genes’ in International Journal of Immunogenetics vol. 36, no. 1 (1 Feb 2009), p. 9.

  From 1768 the import of foreign-born slaves to Madeira was banned; but full emancipation was not achieved until 1858. Alberto Vieira, ‘Slavery in Madeira in the XV and XVII Centuries: the Balance’, in Centro de Estudos de História do Atlantico, 1996. http://www.madeira-edu.pt/Portals/31/CEHA/bdigital/hm-esc-2en.pdf [retrieved 22 August 2018].

  ‘I fell into the habit…’ EBB to RB 20 December 1845, #2144.

  p. 33

  For subsequent children there’s a full year between a delivery and the next conception.

  Marriage recorded in ‘Provincial Occurrences’ in Monthly Magazine and Register (1 June 1805).

  Double christenings become the family pattern.

  James Ramsay MacDonald, ‘Rham, Willam Lewis’ in Dicti
onary of National Biography 1885–1900, vol. 48, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rham,_William_Lewis_(DNB00) [retrieved 2 July 2018].

  Edward has enjoyed easy, informal access to the Graham-Clarke household.

  p. 34

  Orientalism becomes especially fashionable once India comes under crown control in 1858. The Royal Pavilion at Brighton doesn’t acquire its famous, fantastical exoskeleton of cast-iron domes by John Nash till 1815–21, though the interior decor of Henry Holland’s 1786 design, by John Crase and Sons, is in Chinese style.

  C. A. Hewitt bought Hope End in 1867 from Thomas Heywood, chairman of the Worcester and Hereford Railway, an antiquary who, like Edward Barrett, became High Sheriff of Herefordshire.

  OPENING FRAME

  p. 35

  Italo Calvino, quoted in Esther Calvino’s ‘Note’ to Italo Calvino, Under the Jaguar Sun (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2002), pp. 84–85.

  BOOK TWO

  Epigraph

  AL Bk 7, Ll. 1306–308, 1311.

  p. 38

  EBB to Henrietta MB c.July 1821, #134.

  Gloucester spa grew up round springs discovered in Ridley Stile in 1814. The following year, Sir James Jelf built a pump room, laid out gardens, and was bankrupted; under shareholder ownership it remained open. The Spa Hotel was completed in 1818. Gloucester Journal (5 & 12 September & 21 November 1814, 24 April & 8 May 1815). ‘Bath and Cheltenham occupy the toy and dissipation trade; indeed the latter is a very shouldering, unpleasant neighbour.’ Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke, An original history of the city of Gloucester, almost wholly compiled from new materials; supplying the numerous deficiencies, and correcting the errors, of preceding accounts; including also the original papers of the late Ralph Bigland, esq. (London: John Nichols and Son, 1819), p. 31. http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/weather.html https://www.booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/histclimat.htm [retrieved 9 October 2019].

  p. 39

  Engraving c.1820 by W. Holl after Henry Room, http://www.artfinder.com/work/john-baron-engraved-by-w-holl-from-the-national-portrait-gallery/ [retrieved 30 August 2018].

  ‘Penchant for the pillow…’ #134. ‘Out in my chair…’ EBB to Mary MB c.June 1821, #131.

  Born in Jamaica at nearly the same time as Ba’s father, Nuttall is close in age to Uncle Sam. There is no record of the Nuttalls as plantocracy, but one Thomas Nuttall was Master of the last Liverpool slaving ship, the Kitty’s Amelia. https://www.hslc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/140-5-Behrendt.pdf [retrieved 4 September 2018], Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, vol. 101 (January–June 1831) (London: Nichols and Son, 1831), p. 186. George Ricketts Nuttall is listed as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in The Royal Kalendar: and Court and City Register for England, Scotland, Ireland and the Colonies, for the year 1822 (London: Hansard, 1822), p. 282.

  Diagnostic letter: William Cother to Edward B MB, 24 June 1821, SD389. ‘You have a description of it from her own eloquent pen’, Cother reminds Nuttall, who has not actually examined EBB but commends her for ‘deliver[ing] so clear a description of the symptoms which necessarily obtruded themselves on your own observation’. William Cother to George Ricketts Nuttall 24 June 1821, SD389.1 Nuttall to EBB 31 May 1821, #130.

  p. 40

  ‘The right side…’ SD389.1. Nuttall hasn’t prescribed opium; simply a purgative (jalap root, extract of aloes, submuriate of mercury). ‘Motions… Your active turn of mind…’ #130. ‘Derangement… I do not wish…’ #131.

  p. 41

  ‘A young lady on her back…’ EBB to Henrietta MB c.November 1821, #138. ‘Often entertained…’ EBB to Arabella Graham-Clarke early 1822, #146.

  p. 42

  ‘Long weary sickness…’ EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks c.13 March 1838, #619. Bro’s been with Ba in Gloucester since at least 7 August: EBB to Henrietta MB 5 October 1821, #137 and Edward MB to Henrietta MB 9 August 1821, SD396. He’s still there in September: EBB to Henrietta MB 12 September 1821, #136. Papa visits Ba: Edward MB to EBB 31 December 1821, #145; EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks, March 1838, #619. No later letters by Bro from Gloucester survive and by 23 December he’s writing from home: Edward MB to EBB 23 December 1821, #142; Mary MB to Henrietta MB October 1821, SD410.

  ‘Little Tommy Cooke…’ #137. Cooke will later encounter the Barrett boys socially. R. Dingwall, An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing (London: Routledge, 1988), p. 17. Cf. literary London’s snobbery about ‘Cockney rhymester’ John Keats.

  ‘Medical skill’ makes Cooke Dr Baron’s ‘illustrious coadjutor’. #138.

  Florence Nightingale to Sir Thomas Watson, Bart, London 19 January 1867, quoted in Robert Gaffney, ‘Women as Doctors and Nurses’ in Olive Checkland, Margaret Lamb, eds, Health Care as Social History: The Glasgow Case (Aberdeen: Elsevier Science, 1982), pp. 134–48, 139.

  p. 43

  Dr John Carden to Edward BMB 8 May 1821, SD379. Valerian is especially prescribed today for insomnia, anxiety and depression, period pain and other cramps and tremors, chronic fatigue syndrome and fits. An elm bark decoction is prescribed for scurvy in Hugh Smythson, The Compleat Family Physician or Universal Medical Repository (London: Harrison and Co., 1785), p. 321. An astringent bark draught for bloody urine in smallpox is prescribed in G. G. and J. Robinson, R. Baldwin, J. Walker and T. N. London, London Practice of Physic: The Sixth Edition (London: Longman, 1797), pp. 93–94. https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/#npc [retrieved 4 September 2018].

  ‘Opium… The mind… Only a relish…’ SD389.1. ‘Daily dispatches…’ #130.

  p. 44

  https://www.nature.com/articles/sc200919 [retrieved 18 January 2019].

  In letters to the BMJ editor, J. N. Milnes and J. G. Weir weigh in to Young’s debate on the side of encephalomyelitis because of some of EBB’s secondary symptoms, including sensory abnormalities and paroxysms. But both admit that this doesn’t explain her illness before the measles: Weir, J. G., ‘The illnesses of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’, in British Medical Journal vol. 298 (18 March 1989); J. N. Milnes, ‘The illnesses of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’ in British Medical Journal vol. 298 (22 April 1989); D. A. B. Young, ‘The illnesses of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’ in British Medical Journal vol. 298 (18 February 1989) pp. 439–43, p. 441. Young discusses how the adult Ba’s clothes and even hairstyle may disguise crooked shoulders or a humped back. But no contemporary mention of any such deformity survives. Anne Buchanan, Ellen Buchanan Weiss, ‘Of Sad and Wished-For Years: Ba Barrett Browning’s lifelong illness’ in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine vol. 54, no. 4 (Autumn 2011), pp. 479–503. ‘Honokiol and magnolol have been identified as modulators of the GABA(A) receptors in vitro (Squires et al. 1999, Ai et al., 2001)’: Jiri Patocka, Jiri Jakl, and Anna Strunecka, ‘Expectations of biologically active compounds of the genus Magnolia in biomedicine’ in Journal of Applied Biomedicine vol. 4 (2006), pp. 171–78, p. 174. J. K. Crellin, Jane Philpott, A. L. Tommie Bass, Herbal Medicine Past and Present: A Reference Guide to Medicinal Plants (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1990), pp. 75, 182, 352–53. EBB’s triggers also match those for ME, rheumatoid arthritis and opportunistic infections.

  p. 45

  Today, clinicians sometimes diagnose remotely or collaboratively or by remote video examination.

  ‘The suffering is agony…’ SD389.1.

  SECOND FRAME

  Emmanuel Levinas, trans. Alphonso Lingis, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p. 297.

  BOOK THREE

  Epigraph

  AL Bk 8, Ll. 830–32.

  p. 48

  Since 1576 sexual activity with ‘any woman child under the age of ten years’ has been viewed legally as more heinous. Stephen Robertson, ‘Age of Consent Laws’ in Children and Youth in History no. 230, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/items/show/230 [retrieved 9 September 2018].

  Septimus is born 11 February 1822. Birthday poems arrive from Mamma, Henrietta and Arabella. Henriet
ta MB to EBB 6 March 1822, #154.

  p. 49

  EBB, Diary 1831–32; 6 July 1831.

  AL Bk 1, Ll. 578, 581–88, 594–95, 600.

  p. 50

  ‘Conversed, read, studied…’ EBB, ‘My Character and Bro’s Compared’. ‘George & Stormy…’ Mary MB to EBB 5 July 1824, #195.

  p. 51

  Henrietta MB to Mary MB 1 May 1822, SD430.

  ‘My dear Miss Bazy…’ Edward MB to EBB 2 November 1822, #169. ‘M is also cut off…’ Edward MB to EBB 22 June 1823, #186. Emotional support: Edward MB to EBB 17 June 1822, #158. EMB to EBB 18 June 1822, #159.

  Treppy’s postscript says Bro is ‘melancholy’, suffering from ‘the disease of Silence’ and missing EBB. Charterhouse is still near Smithfield Market, London. ‘For the third time I have come home by myself without poor Sam, he stopped on account of having been reported irregular.’ Edward MB to EBB 22 February 1823, #174. ‘Those hundred lines…’ Edward MB to EBB 10 November 1824, #204.

  p. 52

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais, st. VIII, Ll. 1–3.

  p. 53

  ‘Very much in love…’ EBB, ‘Untitled Essay’. ‘Silver remember…’ Edward MB to EBB 26 March 1825, #217.

  ‘Who should walk in but little Tommy Cooky, he had a dish of tea with us and said the reason he had come to town was that during his illness a gentleman had given him a carriage & he had come to see about it.’ Edward MB to EBB 20 June 1822, #160.

  ‘Stanzas on the Death of Lord Byron’ in The Globe and Traveller no. 6733 (30 June 1824). The form requires unusually sustained work with rhyme: ABABBCBCC makes it hard to find rhymes and keep word choice lively. It also requires the ninth line of each stanza to break out of pentameter and make an alexandrine – that is, to have an extra metrical foot.