Dared and Done
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12 “they only disappear”: Hood, Letters of RB, Oct. 29, 1855.
“SUCH A WILD STEP”
1 might soon be taking—together: Berg, Jan. 10–11 [1855]. Quotations in this section not otherwise identified are from this letter.
2 “shape of an occupant”: Berg, May 1 [–2], 1855.
3 by Elizabeth Kinney: The quotations in this scene are taken from Mrs. Kinney’s account as quoted in Bosco’s study cited above.
4 “dear Mama”: Berg, May 15, 1855. The discussion about spiritualism below is also from this letter.
5 had horrified him: GEM-B, July 30, 1850.
6 by Yale University: Jarves’s financial problems led to an auction of his collection on loan to Yale University. Yale bought it for $22,000, and it immediately added invaluable prestige and visibility to the developing university. For information on Jarves and for the quotations used in this section, see Francis Steegmüller’s excellent study, The Two Lives of James Jackson Jarves.
7 “very, very sorry”: Berg, June 25, 1855.
8 “utmost of your hopes”: See Ronald Hudson, “EBB and Her Brother Alfred,” Browning Institute Studies 2 (1974), pp. 135–60. Letters quoted are from this account.
9 “for the inward”: GEM-B, Nov. 23, 1856.
10 “except by the act ecclesiastical”: The letters from EBB to Arabel quoted in this section are from France, Berg, June 25, June 27, June 30, July 1, July 8, and July 10, 1855.
“WHO’S THERE?” THE EALING SÉANCE
1 “altogether astonishing”: Berg, June 30 to July 1, 1855.
2 “upon the table”: EBB to Mrs. Jameson, Berg, Rue du Colysee [1856].
3 “aged twelve”: The quotations from the following description of the séance come from Robert Browning’s letter to Elizabeth Kinney reproduced in Bosco’s article and from EBB to Henrietta, Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, Aug. 17, 1855.
4 Home left immediately: D. D. Home, in his Incidents in My Life, second series, p. 107, remembered, “I held out my hand, when, with a tragic air, he [Browning] threw his hand on his left shoulder and stalked away.” After Elizabeth’s death Browning published a brilliant satire of Home, “Mr. Sludge, ‘The Medium.’ ” Though Home professed he could not see the slightest resemblance to himself in the poem, he attributed Browning’s dislike of him to the poet’s not having been crowned by the spirits as his wife had been at the Ealing séance.
5 “playing as they went”: GEM-B, Dec. 16–17, 1855.
6 Houdini himself: A tip of the hat to the fine contemporary poet David Clewell, who shared his knowledge of magic with me.
7 “or by my means”: Berg, Oct. 31, 1855. All the quotations above are from this letter.
8 “use to him”: Berg, Sept. 10, 1855.
9 “two or three minutes”: see Gardner Taplin, The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, p. 297.
10 “of the breath”: This quotation from EBB to Anna Jameson, Berg, “13 Dorset Street.”
11 “house, fled”: Berg, Oct. 2, 1855.
THE ALMOST MIRACULOUS YEAR
1 “faith for you”: EBB to RB, I, Feb. 3, 1845.
2 “were to come”: EBB to RB, I, Feb. 17, 1845.
3 “popular heart”: EBB to RB, I, Jan. 15, 1845.
4 was completed: EBB to Henrietta, Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, Oct. 3, 1855.
5 “poems thus far”: Irvine and Honan, The Book, the Ring, and the Poet, p. 335.
6 “fancies exist”: Taplin, Life of EBB, p. 300.
7 “bleak month”: The letters from RB to Chapman in the winter and spring of 1856 are published in New Letters of Robert Browning, edited by William Clyde DeVane and Kenneth Leslie Knickerbocker.
8 “out of place”: EBB to Anna Jameson, Kenyon, II, Feb. 28, 1856.
ARABEL AND THE “UNTLES”
1 “too late”: EBB to Henrietta, Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, July 1856.
2 “stay for a fortnight”: EBB to Mrs. Martin, Kenyon, II, Sept. 9, 1856.
3 “product of circumstances” and “your legs swell”: GEM-B, Sept. 11, 1856, and Oct. 4, 1856, respectively.
4 “is all wrong”: EBB to Mrs. Martin, Kenyon, II, Sept. 9, 1856.
5 “the wood-engravers”: Taplin, Life of EBB, p. 306.
6 “forgive her”: Taplin, Life of EBB, p. 306.
7 “dislike it accordingly”: EBB to Henrietta, Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, Sept. 8, 1856. Taplin, Life of EBB, lists this letter as Sept. 19, 1856; Kelley, The Brownings’ Correspondence, lists it as Sept. 18, 1856.
8 “How I love you all!”: Berg, Sunday [Sept. 7, 1856].
9 “death on occasion”: Kenyon, II, Sept. 9, 1856.
SURPRISE ENDINGS
1 “book of his own”: Kenyon, II, Sept. 13, 1856.
2 “will grow older”: Berg, Jan. 25, 1857.
3 of Robert Browning: GEM-B, Dec. 10, 1856.
4 “any but yourself”: GEM-B, Dec. 10, 1856.
5 “sufficient & kind”: Berg, Jan. 25, 1857.
6 “liable to all his life”: Berg, Sunday [Sept. 7, 1856].
7 “rest in it”: GEM-B, Sept. 11 and Sept. 21, 1856.
8 “done by you”: Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, Mar. 4, 1857.
9 “a great help”: Berg, Jan. 25, 1857.
10 “undoubted claim”: Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, Jan. 10, 1857.
11 among his friends: GEM-B, Dec. 10, 1856.
12 “dear spirit would care”: Berg, Mar. 20–21, 1857.
13 “red shoes”: Berg, Apr. 3, 1857.
14 “is happy”: GEM-B, Dec. 10, 1856.
15 “with her there”: Kenyon, II, May 3, 1857.
16 “one turn into stone” and “prevents swallowing”: GEM-B, Apr. 1857, and GEM-B, Dec. 20, 1860.
17 “as another sees”: Huxley, EBB: Letters to Her Sisters, June 2, 1857.
18 “I cannot advise”: Berg, June 26, 1858.
19 “except my own”: Berg, Apr. 12, 1858.
20 “Henrietta’s wishes”: Berg, Nov. 22, 1857.
ADMITTING IMPEDIMENTS
1 introspective travelogues: The Oldest of the Old World (London, 1860) was dedicated to her mother, who was a traveler to Egypt and the Holy Land herself and who became Edward Tuckerman’s second wife. This book is the journal of Sophie Eckley’s trip to Egypt and the Holy Land from October 25, 1857, to May 6, 1858, at the beginning of her friendship with Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Barrett Browning advised her against publishing it, was skeptical of the theological passages, and wished Eckley had given more domestic detail. A copy of it exists in the Boston Public Library. It seems to this reader that time has lent the account a pleasant patina. Eckley’s prose style seemed more concrete and focused than her style of poetry.
2 “I am not ill”: Berg, Sept. 28, 1857.
3 “body and spirit”: EBB to Sophia Eckley, Berg, Feb. 9, 1858. All of the 121 letters from EBB to Sophia Eckley are in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library and are quoted with its kind permission. They are referred to as EBB to SE. Some letters are clearly dated; when they are not, they are referred to by the sequential number assigned in the Berg Collection.
4 “(because it is his)”: EBB to SE, Berg, June 1858, letter number 12.
5 “looking well”: Berg, July 30, 1858.
6 “are not vexed”: EBB to SE, Berg, July 23, 1858.
7 “very greatly care”: All of Robert Browning’s letters to Isa Blagden quoted can be found in Dearest Isa: Robert Browning’s Letters to Isabella Blagden, edited by Edward C. McAleer. This is an excellent edition with an informative introduction and exquisitely helpful notes that have been of use to this reader both generally and specifically in terms of Isa Blagden’s work and David and Sophia Eckley’s background and life. This reference is to the letter of Sept. 4, 1858.
8 “let it be so”: RB to SE, Berg, Aug. 19, 1858.
9 “gave it up at once”: GEM-B.
10 “harmonious spirit”: EBB to SE, Berg, June 1858.
11 “it
has begun to rain”: Berg, Nov. 13, 1858 (?).
12 “in Robert’s arms”: EBB to Arabel, from 43 Bocca di Leone, Rome, Nov. 26, 1858.
13 “rubbing up against one another”: Dec. 24 and 25, 1858.
14 “on its lips”: Dec. 24 and 25, 1858.
15 “own marble throat”: EBB to SE, Berg, letter number 39, written around Christmas, 1858, and labeled [Spring 1859].
16 “for love’s sake”: EBB to SE, Berg, letter number 71.
17 “despised her sister”: McAleer, Dearest Isa, Jan. 7, 1859. For this dispute with Julia Ward Howe and the poems involved, see McAleer, Dearest Isa, p. 30, n. 36.
18 “help of my morphine”: EBB to SE, Berg, letter number 43.
19 “to learn & admire”: Hudson, American Friends, Mar. 27, 1863.
20 “Is it so?”: EBB to SE, Berg, letter number 120.
21 “as this subject”: EBB to SE, Berg, letter number 121.
22 “his own thoughts”: Berg, June 27, 1859.
23 “is getting better”: McAleer, Dearest Isa, Jan. 7, 1859.
24 “and truest marriage”: quoted in McAleer, Dearest Isa, p. xxii.
25 “arrange for another”: Berg, Tuesday, Feb. [25, 1858].
26 “came near enough”: EBB to Isa, McAleer, Dearest Isa, Feb. 15 [1859].
27 “other people’s malice”: EBB to SE, Berg [Summer 1859], letter number 45.
28 on the Cascine meadows: The day before, on May 29, 1859, in Siena, the Brownings presented the Eckleys with a note that EBB had jotted to record their trip to Tivoli together in April. “After a very happy journey,” EBB added to it. In this handwriting “RB says the same very truly.” Sophia Eckley put this in her album. Berg, Misc. Ms. and Drawings.
29 “Vive l’Italie”: Berg, June 3, 1859.
30 “kissed Peni”: This description from EBB to SE, Berg, letter number 66.
31 “will rise again”: Berg, Mar. 29, 1859.
32 “must end well”: This and the following quotations, Berg, June 3, 1859.
33 “rising into triumph”: Kenyon, II, EBB to Sarianna, Florence [about June 1859].
34 “attempting to see him”: EBB to SE, Berg, Sunday [Summer 1859], letter number 47.
35 “Your loving Ba”: EBB to SE, Berg [Summer 1859], letter number 49.
36 “yet I have hope”: Kenyon, II, Villa Alberti, Siena: Wednesday [July–August 1859].
37 “since the spring”: RB to SE, DeVane and Knickerbocker, New Letters, Aug. 2, 1859.
38 “Lucca and Siena”: DeVane and Knickerbocker, New Letters, Aug. 7, 1859. Both EBB’s letter of Aug. 2 and this one are in the Berg Collection, NYPL.
39 “incalculable to me”: This letter of EBB to Hiram Powers, listed in Kelley’s checklist as 56:12, 3 Jan [1856] from Hamilton’s Cat., 29 Jan. 1976, is actually about D. D. Home and is now at the Pierpont Morgan Library. Whatever doubts EBB had about Home’s character, she maintained in other letters that the human character faults of a medium in no way discredited the fact that the spiritual world existed and that spirits could communicate with this world. Sophie Eckley’s claim to mediumship, however, had been bogus—“trickery”—from the beginning.
40 gave Robert to read: This letter of EBB to SE, Villa Alberti, Siena, Tuesday [Summer 1859], is number 52 at the Berg and is quoted at length.
41 “separation from people”: RB to Isa, McAleer, Dearest Isa [Mar. 19, 1868?].
42 “the result”: EBB to SE, Berg [Winter 1859], letter number 55.
43 “my own Arabel”: GEM-B, Mar. 15, 1861.
44 “in the matter”: RB to Isa, McAleer, Dearest Isa, [Mar. 19, 1868?]. This is the letter quoted below, written almost seven years after EBB’s death.
45 “Day of judgment”: Berg, Sunday, Oct. 1858?
46 “she determinedly did”: RB to Isa, McAleer, Dearest Isa, Apr. 19, 1869.
47 “hurting me, alas”: Hudson, American Friends, May 2, 1863.
48 “or sell anything”: RB to Isa, McAleer, Dearest Isa, Apr. 19, 1869.
WE POETS OF THE PEOPLE
1 “ ‘only for Italy’ ”: Kenyon, II, Dec. 29 [1859].
2 “in at the time”: EBB to Miss E. F. Haworth, Kenyon, II, Aug. 25 [1860].
3 “like Florence Nightingale”: Taplin, Life of EBB, p. 376. Also see his discussion of the critical reputation of the poem, to which I am indebted.
4 “of her ‘forbears’ ”: In “Mrs. Ogilvy’s Recollections” in Heydon and Kelley, EBB’s Letters to Mrs. Ogilvy, p. xxxiv. The expanded section reads: “Her cousins, the Peytons, abounded in family traditions, but one might know Mrs. Browning for years, and never hear of one of her ‘forbears.’ I attributed this greatly to old Mr. Barrett’s sturdy Nonconformity; but I have since met well-born Dissenters with plenty of family legend.”
5 “vituperation, and lies—”: RB to John Forster, DeVane and Knickerbocker, New Letters [July 1861].
6 “You understand nothing”: EBB to George [Apr. 18, 1860].
7 “ ‘abused in England’ ”: quoted in Marks, Family of the Barretts, p. 629. Marks notes it is the only surviving letter between EBB and Stormie, and it was passed to her from his daughter Arabel Moulton-Barrett.
8 “of good class”: Marks, Family of the Barretts, p. 613.
9 “R.I.P.”: Marks, Family of the Barretts, p. 612.
10 “illness last summer”: EBB to Miss E. F. Haworth, Kenyon, II, June 16, 1860.
11 “as I am”: In an earlier letter to Arabel on March 24, 1858, she had written that she and Robert had become homeopathists, and Robert was so much better in health and spirits “that the temptation to me is great, to make a trial of turning over my morphine—only I do feel shy of some illness, some sudden breaking down if I do it; the medium having come such a second nature with me after all these years.”
12 “it always seems to me”: Berg, written in June or July 1860, not June? 1859? as labeled.
13 “won’t talk of it any more”: EBB to Miss E. F. Haworth, Kenyon, II, Aug. 25 [1860].
14 “loving & suffering”: EBB to George, Sept. [6, 1860].
15 “tried morphine”: GEM-B, Aug. 25, 1860.
16 “their way in the wood”: Berg, Friday, Casa Guidi [Summer 1859]. Sophie Eckley’s half sister, Hannah Parkman Tuckerman, died on June 7, 1859.
17 the private story: At the Berg there are five letters and one fragment of a letter written after Henrietta’s death: [Dec. 8?, 1860?], Jan. 8?, 1861, Tuesday 1861 (which I think was written around Jan. 15), May? 1861, May? II, 1861?, and one sheet Rome?, May? 1861? They are all from Rome and are numbered 108 to 113 and will not generally be cited separately. Ten letters written to Arabel after the death of Henrietta are in family hands. The handwriting in GEM-B, Dec.?, 1860, and Dec. 20, 1860, is very bad. These two letters and another very important one, Feb.? 1861, which contain information about the Mary/Emma situation, will not be cited separately in this section.
18 “tear at a touch”: Berg, May? II, 1861?
WE KNOW EACH OTHER
1 “life and joy to him”: Kenyon, II.
2 “we know each other, I say”: RB to George, Apr. 2, 1861.
3 “important element too”: GEM-B, Dec. 12–15, 1851.
4 “I prevent her”: RB to George, Apr. 2, 1861.
5 “years at Troy”: p. 217.
LA VITA NUOVA
1 “truly benefit it”: William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Times of Cavour, vol. I, p. 17.
2 “May God save Italy”: Kenyon, II, June 7, 1861.
3 “even without Cavour”: Thayer, Cavour, vol. II, p. 493.
4 “ ‘quiet summer and then’ ”: RB to Sarianna, Hood, Letters of RB, June 30, 1861. This letter to his sister, including an intimate description of his wife’s last days and her death, is quoted throughout. It is the most thorough and moving of the many accounts of EBB’s death, all of which substantiate what RB wrote in his first grief.
5 “Melancholy as Amazed”: John Ruskin to EBB, Berg.
6 “a stronger cheerfulness”: Berg, EBB
notes to answer John Ruskin’s letter. She did not live to finish it or send it.
A WORD MORE
7 attractive to her: Three letters from Christina Rossetti to John H. Ingram on this subject are at Wellesley.
8 “in my life”: RB to Mrs. Charles Skirrow, DeVane and Knickerbocker, New Letters, Sept. 15, 1877
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
UNPUBLISHED SOURCES
I have made very extensive use of manuscript material, especially unpublished letters, in this book; they are listed in the Notes and in the Acknowledgments.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Letters of Both Brownings
The Brownings’ Correspondence, ed. Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson, 2 vols. Winfield, Kansas: Wedgestone Press, 1984–(in progress).
The Letters of the Brownings to George Barrett, ed. Paul Landis. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1958.
The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1845–1846, ed. Elvan Kintner, 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969.
Twenty-Two Unpublished Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning Addressed to Henrietta and Arabel Moulton-Barrett. New York: United Feature Syndicate, 1935.
Letters and Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Diary by E.B.B.: The Unpublished Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, 1831–1832, ed. Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1969.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Letters to Her Sisters, 1846–1859, ed. Leonard Huxley. London: John Murray, 1929.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Letters to Mrs. David Ogilvy, 1849–1861, ed. Peter N. Heydon and Philip Kelley. New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., and the Browning Institute, 1973.
Invisible Friends: The Correspondence of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett and Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1842–1845, ed. Willard Bissell Pope. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.