p. 120
‘What claim had I…’ #829. ‘For sporting purposes…’ EBB to Mitford 28 December 1840, #783. ‘Send him by the railroad…’ EBB to Mitford mid-December 1840, #779. No station: https://www.railscot.co.uk/London_and_South_Western_Railway/ [retrieved 22 March 2019].
p. 121
‘A shawl thrown…’ EBB to Mitford 9 February 1841, #797. He is due Thursday (7 January, if letter #787 is dated correctly, but this dating is itself taken from reference to his arrival). EBB to Mitford 16 April 1841, #806; EBB to Mitford 5 August 1841, #840; EBB to Mitford late July 1841, #835; EBB to Mitford 15 July 1841, #827; #840.
p. 122
‘An occasional manner…’ EBB to Mitford 17 July 1841, #828. ‘There are fine things…’ #827.
That John Kenyon is house-hunting in Torquay she finds incomprehensible. He will eventually buy after she’s left town, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kenyon,_John_(DNB00) [retrieved 21 May 2020]. EBB to Mitford 12 November 1841, #872.
‘Delay…’ #830. ‘Patent…’ EBB to Mitford 25 August 1841, #845. ‘Loosening the chains…’ EBB to Kenyon 10 November 1841, #871.
‘The opening of the dungeon…’ EBB to Fanny Dowglass 31 March 1842, #935: ‘Ten days we spent upon the road. I suffered in the manner that was apprehended by renewed & increased spitting of blood, but not to the extent—& altho’ exhausted day after day to fainting & speechlessness I came into London perfectly alive & inclined to remain so.’
EBB also reports this spitting of blood to Miss Mitford: EBB to Mitford 13 September 1841, #851.
p. 123
‘And what was worse…’ EBB to Mitford 21 September 1841, #853. ‘He likes London…’ EBB to Mitford 23 September 1841, #854. Literary gossip: EBB to Mitford 24 September 1841, #855.
BOOK SIX
Epigraph
Spoken by the wicked Lady Waldemar in AL Bk 9, Ll. 65–66.
p. 126
Miss Mitford handles everything from domestic finance to runaway horses.
p. 127
EBB blames reading Wollstonecraft at twelve for her ‘awkwardness…’: EBB to Mitford 22 July 1842, #988. ‘Domestic love…’ EBB to RB 20 March 1845, #1870. ‘How uncivilized…’ EBB to Mitford 19 October 1841, #863.
p. 128
EBB to Boyd 12 January 1842, #898. The poems are ‘The House of Clouds’ in August and ‘Lessons from the Gorse’ in October. The essays are posthumously published together as a freestanding volume in 1863.
‘It is well…’ The Athenaeum, 4 June 1842. ‘Do not live by…’ The Athenaeum, 27 August 1842.
p. 129
‘The long life’s work…’ The Athenaeum, 27 August 1842. ‘No—…’ EBB to Mitford 30 December 1842, #1105.
p. 130
The right places: The Athenaeum, Blackwood’s, Schloss’s Bijou Almanac. Kenyon ‘was a good deal surprised, he said, that Moxon shd have answered so decidedly.’ EBB to Mitford 2 January 1843, #1110.
Wordsworth composed his poetic tribute to Haydon while climbing Helvellyn at seventy, a decade after promising to write something for the 1829 piece portraying Napoleon Bonaparte to which his portrait is a companion. ‘If I can command my thoughts I will write something about your Picture, in prose for the Muse has forsaken me.’ William Wordsworth to Haydon 23 April 1831: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitExtended/mw04614/Napolon-Bonaparte? https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw06661
‘You have brought me…’ EBB to B. R. Haydon 17 October 1842, #1026. ‘Invisible Friend…’ Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB 9 January 1843, #1121. The American reprints of EBB’s Haydon sonnet appear on 26 November and 3 December 1842.
p. 131
EBB commends and quotes from Mathews’s Poems on Man in the epigraph to ‘A Rhapsody of Life’s Progress’ in Poems (1850). EBB to James Russell Lowell, 4 January 1843, #1112. Mathews publishes, and would like to be published by, Edward Moxon: ‘I mentioned, I think, in a former hasty note that […] you might, perhaps, be waited on with regard to a little volume of Poems (“Poems on Man”) with some proposition as to its re-production in London. […] I beg also to offer a copy for the acceptance of Mr. Browning, in token of the pleasure I have derived from his writings which you were good enough to send me.’ Cornelius Mathews to Edward Moxon 27 February 1844, SD1201.1.
‘Dark…’ EBB to Mitford 16 January 1844, #1505. ‘Bitter anguish…’ EBB to Mitford 9 November 1841, #870.
p. 132
Harriet Martineau, Life in the Sickroom: Essays by an Invalid (London: Edward Moxon, 1844).
‘How entirely…’ Martineau to EBB 6 March 1844, #1564. ‘I dare…’ EBB to Mitford 8 November 1841, #869. ‘Fairy visions…’ #1564.
p. 133
‘Torquay dancing…’ EBB to Mitford 12 November 1841, #872. ‘Mr Haydon’s mystical…’ #869. ‘I have recognized…’ EBB to Mitford 25 November 1841, #874. ‘Did you hear of…’ EBB to Mitford 18 November 1841, #873.
p. 134
Contemporaries found that the lack of moral template, and use of archaisms, made Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ a difficult read. The Barretts are typical in being excited by the 1837 accession of eighteen-year-old Victoria and subsequent palace affairs, from the Lady Flora Hastings scandal to the Queen’s marriage to Prince Albert and the births of her nine children.
p. 135
‘I want to write…’ EBB to Mitford 30 December 1844, #1797.
Education: Anglican National Schools have appeared since 1811, their Nonconformist equivalents in the Lancasterian System since 1808. By 1831, 1.25 million children attend Sunday school. In 1833 the government voted annual sums for state education; in 1840 the Grammar Schools Act expanded the state secondary curriculum to include literature and science. Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working Class Life (London, Chatto & Windus: 1957). ‘On April 11th, in 1844, Mr Locke, a wollen-draper; Mr. Moulton, a dealer in second-hand tools; Mr. Morrison, a City Missionary, and Mr Starey formed the beginnings of the Ragged Schools Union.’ https://www.raggeduniversity.co.uk/2012/08/08/history-ragged-schools-2/ [retrieved 15 March 2020].
Like EBB, Dickens is developing a reputation in North America, where he has already been given his first lecture tour. In 1844 he lives in Europe, working on the great novels of his middle period, but is about to take on the editorship of the London Daily News.
p. 136
‘The Lay of the Brown Rosary’ Pt Three, Ll. 181–85.
p. 137
William Bishop in The Brownings’ Correspondence, note 2 of #1380. EBB to Mitford 16 September 1843, #1380; EBB to Mitford 15 September 1843, #1379. ‘Five pounds down…’ EBB to Mitford 20 September 1843, #1383.
p. 138
‘My dear Papa was delighted to come home & find Flush, & has not put me on an inquest for the means’: #1380. The second time, Flush is stolen from the doorstep as Arabella returns from walking him, and is recovered by Alfred. ‘Quite above…’ EBB to Mitford 29 March 1844, #1585.
p. 139
‘Shedding abundant tears when the time came for leaving me. She said, it was as great a deprivation to her as it cd be to me,—[…]. I earnestly hope she may be happy, poor thing,—and, so far, the business seems flourishing, & he is very attentive & apparently fond of her. She goes to her mother’s to be confined,—& then, will come the full loss to me!’ EBB to Mitford 7 May 1844, #1607. This has been unfairly scrutinised for selfishness. EBB is being both honest and emotionally intelligent. Crow’s life as a baker’s wife will be less comfortable and secure than service in Wimpole Street; and dependent on her husband’s personality. If he’s violent or drinks, for example, she’ll have no escape. And once her baby is born, she will indeed have to surrender care for Elizabeth. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean that Elizabeth is putting herself ahead of the coming baby, or suggesting it should be otherwise. And, ‘She was with me when I was very ill & weak—& something of the gentle authority of
nurse to patient, remained in her manner & ways.’ #1607. However, ‘Of the want of chastity…’ EBB to Mitford 3 February 1844, #1517. Contested will: EBB to Mitford 1 February 1844, #1516. ‘Gentle-voiced…’ #1585.
p. 140
‘Very willing…’ #1607.
EBB’s hairdo can be seen in the May 1843 sketch and 27 September 1843 watercolour portraits by her brother Alfred.
Substantial coverage: The Globe and Traveller, The Athenaeum, The Spectator, John Bull, Ainsworth’s Magazine, The Metropolitan Magazine, The Monthly Review, The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, The New Quarterly Review, The Examiner, Blackwood’s, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, The Critic, The Sun, The Westminster Review and The League.
‘We do not believe…’ Evening Mirror (New York) 7 December 1844, p. 2.
p. 141
‘There will doubtless…’ Evening Mirror (New York) 8 October 1844, p. 1.
The Spectator 24 August 1844, pp. 809–10.
The Atlas 31 August 1844, pp. 593–94.
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine November 1844, pp. 621–39.
p. 142
‘I love…’ RB to EBB 10 January 1845, #1811.
‘Preface’ in The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett (London: John Murray), 1914, p. xiv.
p. 143
‘A disguised angel…’ EBB to RB 16 June 1846, #2421. ‘I love love…’ EBB to Mitford 8 November 1841, #869. ‘I thank you… Is it indeed…’ EBB to RB 11 January 1845, #1812. ‘You make me…Your poetry must be…’ RB to EBB 13 January 1845, #1814.
p. 144
‘The fault..’ EBB to RB 15 January 1845, #1816. ‘Your books…’ RB to EBB 27 January 1845, #1825.
p. 145
‘As for me… Only don’t let us…’ EBB to RB 3 February 1845, #1829.
‘For reasons I know…’ RB to EBB 11 February 1845, #1837. He goes on: ‘Your talking of “tiring me,” “being too curious,” &c. &c […] I should never have heard of had the plain truth looked out of my letter with its unmistakeable eyes.’
‘Genius..’ EBB to Mitford 19 October 1842 #1028. She goes on: ‘There is a unity & nobleness of conception in “Pippa passes” […] Pippa, dark as she is, is worth all those rhymes you speak of—in my eyes.’
p. 146
‘I am essentially better… EBB to RB 5 March 1845, #1857. ‘Bitter mental discipline… Blind poet… I have lived only inwardly…’ EBB to RB 20 March 1845, #1870. Robert hints in RB to EBB 15 April 1845, #1888. ‘For some experience…’ #1870. On Kenyon on RB: EBB to Mitford 19 October 1842 #1028.
p. 147
‘He resembled a girl…’ Mitford to Charles Boner, 22 February 1847, SD1310. RB travelled at twenty-one, as Private Secretary to a Russian consul general, Chevalier George de Benkhausen. ‘And there was everything right…’ EBB to RB 21 May 1845, #1922.
p. 148
‘My mental position…’ #1922. ‘I would not listen…’ EBB to Mitford 18 September 1846, #2617. ‘Like a misprint…’ EBB to RB 23 May 1845, #1925.
SIXTH FRAME
p. 149
Bridget Riley interview with Paul Moorhouse, ‘In the Studio’, in The Eye’s Mind: Bridget Riley Collected Writings 1965–2019 (London: The Bridget Riley Art Foundation and Thames & Hudson, 2019), p. 247.
BOOK SEVEN
Epigraph
AL Bk 9, Ll. 820–22.
p. 151
‘Little city…’ EBB to Arabella MB, 16–19 October 1846, #2624.
p. 152
Orientalist poems like ‘The Giaour: A Turkish Tale’ also resulted from Byron’s travels.
Elizabeth’s brothers travelled in 1844.
EBB is fretting because of a casual remark by Richard Hengist Horne: ‘ “Your envelope reminds me of”—you, he said […] he cant have heard of your having been here, & it must have been a chance-remark—altogether!—taking an imaginary emphasis from my evil conscience perhaps.’ EBB to RB 7 July 1845, #1968.
‘I was examined…’ EBB to Mitford 13 September 1845, #2028.
p. 153
‘I was treated… From steam-packet reasons…’ EBB to RB 24 September 1845, #2042.
p. 154
‘Very much…’ EBB to Mitford c.20 September 1845, #2039. ‘What you cannot see…’ EBB to RB c.20 August 1845, #2007. ‘I know as certainly…’ RB to EBB 12 June 1846, #2411. ‘Think for me…’ #2042.
p. 155
‘He would not even…’ #2042. ‘The singular reason…’ EBB to RB 16 September 1845, #2030.
p. 156
‘The first subject…’ RB to EBB 30 August 1845, #2014. ‘I would marry you…’ RB to EBB 25 September 1845, #2043. ‘And if I…’ #2030. ‘When you told me…’ #2043.
p. 157
‘An exchange…’ EBB to RB 17 September 1845, #2034. ‘You must leave me…’ #2030. ‘Suffering from…’ EBB to George Goodin MB 17–18 September 1846, #2616. ‘And once he…’ #2007. ‘Lightning…’ EBB to RB 11 July 1845, #1971.
p. 158
‘I never had…’ #2007.
p. 159
‘Natural inferiority…’ EBB to RB 2–3 July 1845 #1965. Her letters at this time ask repeatedly after Robert’s health.
He knows he’s the junior partner: RB to EBB 3 March 1846, #2238.
Germaine Greer, Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet (London and New York: Viking Penguin, 1995); Susan Kavaler-Adler, The Compulsion to Create: A Psychoanalytic Study of Women Artists (London: Routledge, 1993).
p. 160
‘Saved a living man…’ EBB to RB 23 June 1846, #2433. ‘Constrained bodily…’ #2007. ‘I am…’ EBB to RB 11 October 1845, #2062.
1845 is in the top five warm summers since records began: http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/geography/weather.html [retrieved 30 April 2019].
EBB’s first carriage rides: EBB to RB 7 July 1845, #1968. Her first stroll: EBB to RB 11 May 1846, #2355.
p. 161
‘That Dreamland…’ EBB to RB 27 June 1846, #2441. EBB goes visiting: EBB to RB 30 June 1846, #2446. To the GWR: EBB to RB 13 June 1846, #2414. To look at art: EBB to RB 22 June 1846, #2430. On taking laudanum: EBB to Julia Martin c.7 October 1845, #2057. On cutting down: EBB to RB 4 Feb 1846, #2197. ‘I shall refuse steadily…’ EBB to RB 12 June 1846, #2412.
p. 162
‘Nearly two hundred…’ #2414. ‘Courage…’ EBB to Fanny Dowglass c.23 July 1846, #2500. For Cava de’ Tirreni, EBB’s guide uses the Neopolitan name, ‘La Cava’: EBB to RB 30 June 1846, #2444.
‘I have not been in the habit of saying “Robert”, speaking of you. You have only been The One. No word ever stood for you—’ EBB to RB 2 July 1846, #2455.
‘If we are poor…’ RB to EBB 26 August 1846, #2561. W. Craig Turner, ed, The Poet Robert Browning and his Kinsfolk by his Cousin Cyrus Mason (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 1983), p. 63.
p. 163
‘Tender-hearted… Shuts his eyes…’ RB to EBB 27 August 1846, #2564.
Grandfather ‘Rob’ Browning’s will is cited in UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146646289 [retrieved 26 April 2019].
Even if there were a bequest from Tittle, Robert senior may well have refused it.
Paying back: The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 3, p 308. Banking is also practised by Robert senior’s father and two younger half-brothers.
Robert senior’s art collection: Richard S. Kennedy, The Dramatic Imagination of Robert Browning: A Literary Life (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2007), p. 9.
p. 164
His half-brother Reuben says his library ‘comprised […] the critical points of ancient and modern history, the lore of the Middle Ages, all political combinations of parties, their description and consequences; and especially the lives of the poets and painters.’ Kelley et al., Biographical note citing G & M, p. 8, and Reconstruction, J42. (The feast of Charles the Martyr is to remain in the Anglican calendar till 1859.)
‘Dear Mr Kenyon…’ EBB to RB 31 Janu
ary 1846, #2195. Migraines: RB to EBB 12 May 1845, #1912; RB to EBB 13 May 1845, #1914.
p. 165
No ‘femmelette…’: ‘He has too much genius for it. Men of high imagination never subject themselves to the conventions of society […] He lives in the world, but loathes it.’ EBB to Mitford 14 April 1845, #1885.
‘Indian Empire…’ EBB to George Goodin MB 1 April 1846, #2285.
‘Imperialist’ is first used in the early years of the nineteenth century of Napoleon I’s expansionism. D. A. Lake: ‘Imperialism: political aspects’ in Elsevier, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences 2001, pp. 7232–4.
The Condition and Treatment of Children employed in the Mines and Collieries of the United Kingdom Carefully compiled from the appendix to the first report of the Commissioners With copious extracts from the evidence, and illustrative engravings (London: William Strange, 1842). Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine vol. LIV, no. CCCXXXIV (August 1843), pp. 260–62.
p. 166
‘As a woman… Lift my voice…’ EBB to Clementia Taylor 2 April 1845, #1878.
p. 167
‘Blood of a slave…’ EBB to RB 20 December 1845, #2144.
p. 168
The Revd John Tittle arrived on St Kitts in 1730, ‘Appointed by the SPG […] as attorney for Ponds and Lucas Estate […] Privateers kept seizing his ships, which were then diverted to New York, where his brother lived! The SPG eventually dismissed him […] However, sustained by local support, and secure in his two cures of St. Peter’s and St. George’s, he refused to accept dismissal. He married between 1731 and 1733 Margaret Strachan, daughter of the surgeon Dr. George Strachan of St. Kitts. Their daughter, Margaret Tittle, married in 1778 the first Robert Browning; and their son Robert, born in 1781, was sent to St. Kitts to work on his mother’s plantation [the] prosperous Anderson Estate, which the Revd Tittle had managed for William Coleman, the London merchant, and himself.’ Kathleen D. Manchester, Historic Heritage of St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla (Trinidad: the Author, 1971) pp. 16–17.
Two-Way Mirror Page 35