Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Whether you will like Robert’s new book I don’t know, but I am sure you will admit the originality and power in it. I wish we had the option of giving it to you, but Chapman & Hall never seem to think of our giving copies away, nor leave them at our disposal. There is nothing Italian in the book; poets are apt to be most present with the distant. A remark of Wilson’s used to strike me as eminently true — that the perfectest descriptive poem (descriptive of rural scenery) would be naturally produced in a London cellar. I have read ‘Shirley’ lately; it is not equal to ‘Jane Eyre’ in spontaneousness and earnestness. I found it heavy, I confess, though in the mechanical part of the writing — the compositional savoir faire — there is an advance. Robert has exhumed some French books, just now, from a little circulating library which he had not tried, and we have been making ourselves uncomfortable over Balzac’s ‘Cousin Pons.’ But what a wonderful writer he is! Who else could have taken such a subject, out of the lowest mud of humanity, and glorified and consecrated it? He is wonderful — there is not another word for him — profound, as Nature is. S I complain of Florence for the want of books. We have to dig and dig before we can get anything new, and I can read the newspapers only through Robert’s eyes, who only can read them at Vieusseux’s in a room sacred from the foot of woman. And this isn’t always satisfactory to me, as whenever he falls into a state of disgust with any political régime, he throws the whole subject over and won’t read a word more about it. Every now and then, for instance, he ignores France altogether, and I, who am more tolerant and more curious, find myself suspended over an hiatus (valde deflendus), and what’s to be said and done? M. Thiers’ speech— ‘Thiers is a rascal; I make a point of not reading one word said by M. Thiers.’ M. Prudhon— ‘Prudhon is a madman; who cares for Prudhon?’ The President— ‘The President’s an ass; he is not worth thinking of.’ And so we treat of politics.

  I wish you would write to us a little oftener (or rather, a good deal) and tell us much of yourself. It made me very sorry that you should be suffering in the grief of your sister — you whose sympathies are so tender and quick! May it be better with you now! Mention Lady Byron. I shall be glad to hear that she is stronger notwithstanding this cruel winter. We have lovely weather here now, and I am quite well and able to walk out, and little Wiedeman rolls with Flush on the grass of the Cascine. Dear kind Wilson is doatingly fond of the child, and sometimes gives it as her serious opinion that ‘there never was such a child before.’ Of course I don’t argue the point much. Now, will you write to us? Speak of your plans particularly when you do. We have taken this apartment on for another year from May. May God bless you! Robert unites in affectionate thanks and thoughts of all kinds, with your

  E.B.B. — rather, BA.

  This letter has waited some days to be sent away, as you will see by the date.

  At the end of March 1850, the long-deferred marriage of Mrs. Browning’s sister, Henrietta, to Captain Surtees Cook took place. It is of interest here mainly as illustrating Mr. Barrett’s behaviour to his daughters. An application for his consent only elicited the pronouncement, ‘If Henrietta marries you, she turns her back on this house for ever,’ and a letter to Henrietta herself reproaching her with the ‘insult’ she had offered him in asking his consent when she had evidently made up her mind to the conclusion, and declaring that, if she married, her name should never again be mentioned in his presence. The marriage having thereupon taken place, his decision was forthwith put into practice, and a second child was thenceforward an exile from her father’s house.

  To Miss Mitford

  Florence: [end of] April 1850.

  You will have seen in the papers, dearest friend, the marriage of my sister Henrietta, and will have understood why I was longer silent than usual. Indeed, the event has much moved me, and so much of the emotion was painful — painfulness being inseparable from events of the sort in our family — that I had to make an effort to realise to myself the reasonable degree of gladness and satisfaction in her release from a long, anxious, transitional state, and her prospect of happiness with a man who has loved her constantly and who is of an upright, honest, reliable, and religious mind. Our father’s objections were to his Tractarian opinions and insufficient income. I have no sympathy myself with Tractarian opinions, but I cannot under the circumstances think an objection of the kind tenable by a third person, and in truth we all know that if it had not been this objection, it would have been another — there was no escape any way. An engagement of five years and an attachment still longer were to have some results; and I can’t regret, or indeed do otherwise than approve from my heart, what she has done from hers. Most of her friends and relatives have considered that there was no choice, and that her step is abundantly justified. At the same time, I thank God that a letter sent to me to ask my advice never reached me (the second letter of my sisters’ lost, since I left them), because no advice ought to be given on any subject of the kind, and because I, especially, should have shrunk from accepting such a responsibility. So I only heard of the marriage three days before it took place — no, four days before — and was upset, as you may suppose, by the sudden news. Captain Surtees Cook’s sister was one of the bridesmaids, and his brother performed the ceremony. The means are very small of course — he has not much, and my sister has nothing — still it seems to me that they will have enough to live prudently on, and he looks out for a further appointment. Papa ‘will never again let her name be mentioned in his hearing,’ he says, but we must hope. The dreadful business passed off better on the whole than poor Arabel expected, and things are going on as quietly as usual in Wimpole Street now. I feel deeply for her, who in her pure disinterestedness just pays the price and suffers the loss. She represents herself, however, to be relieved at the crisis being passed. I earnestly hope for her sake that we may be able to get to England this year — a sight of us will be some comfort. Henrietta is to live at Taunton for the present, as he has a military situation there, and they are preparing for a round of visits among their many friends who are anxious to have them previous to their settling. All this, you see, will throw me back with papa, even if I can be supposed to have gained half a step, and I doubt it. Oh yes, dearest Miss Mitford. I have indeed again and again thought of your ‘Emily,’ stripping the situation of ‘the favour and prettiness’ associated with that heroine. Wiedeman might compete, though, in darlingness with the child, as the poem shows him. Still, I can accept no omen. My heart sinks when I dwell upon peculiarities difficult to analyse. I love him very deeply. When I write to him, I lay myself at his feet. Even if I had gained half a step (and I doubt it, as I said), see how I must be thrown back by the indisposition to receive others. But I cannot write of this subject. Let us change it....

  Madame Ossoli sails for America in a few days, with the hope of returning to Italy, and indeed I cannot believe that her Roman husband will be easily naturalised among the Yankees. A very interesting person she is, far better than her writings — thoughtful, spiritual in her habitual mode of mind; not only exalted, but exaltée in her opinions, and yet calm in manner. We shall be sorry to lose her. We have lost, besides, our friends Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvy, cultivated and refined people: they occupied the floor above us the last winter, and at the Baths of Lucca and Florence we have seen much of them for a year past. She published some time since a volume of ‘Scottish Minstrelsy,’ graceful and flowing, and aspires strenuously towards poetry; a pretty woman with three pretty children, of quick perceptions and active intelligence and sensibility. They are upright, excellent people in various ways, and it is a loss to us that they should have gone to Naples now. Dearest friend, how your letter delighted me with its happy account of your improved strength. Take care of yourself, do, to lose no ground. The power of walking must refresh your spirits as well as widen your daily pleasures. I am so glad. Thank God. We have heard from Mr. Chorley, who seems to have received very partial gratification in respect to his play and yet prepares for more plays, more wrestlings in
the same dust. Well, I can’t make it out. A man of his sensitiveness to choose to appeal to the coarsest side of the public — which, whatever you dramatists may say, you all certainly do — is incomprehensible to me. Then I cannot help thinking that he might achieve other sorts of successes more easily and surely. Your criticism is very just. But I like his ‘Music and Manners in Germany’ better than anything he has done. I believe I always did like it best, and since coming to Florence I have heard cultivated Americans speak of it with enthusiasm, yes, with enthusiasm. ‘Pomfret’ they would scarcely believe to be by the same author. I agree with you, but it is a pity indeed for him to tie himself to the wheels of the ‘Athenaeum,’ to approfondir the ruts; what other end? And, by the way, the ‘Athenaeum,’ since Mr. Dilke left it, has grown duller and duller, colder and colder, flatter and flatter. Mr. Dilke was not brilliant, but he was a Brutus in criticism; and though it was his speciality to condemn his most particular friends to the hangman, the survivors thought there was something grand about it on the whole, and nobody could hold him in contempt. Now it is all different. We have not even ‘public virtue’ to fasten our admiration to. You will be sure to think I am vexed at the article on my husband’s new poem. Why, certainly I am vexed! Who would not be vexed with such misunderstanding and mistaking. Dear Mr. Chorley writes a letter to appreciate most generously: so you see how little power he has in the paper to insert an opinion, or stop an injustice. On the same day came out a burning panegyric of six columns in the ‘Examiner,’ a curious cross-fire. If you read the little book (I wish I could send you a copy, but Chapman & Hall have not offered us copies, and you will catch sight of it somewhere), I hope you will like things in it at least. It seems to me full of power. Two hundred copies went off in the first fortnight, which is a good beginning in these days. So I am to confess to a satisfaction in the American piracies. Well, I confess, then. Only it is rather a complex smile with which one hears: ‘Sir or Madam, we are selling your book at half price, as well printed as in England.’ ‘Those apples we stole from your garden, we sell at a halfpenny, instead of a penny as you do; they are much appreciated.’ Very gratifying indeed. It’s worth while to rob us, that’s plain, and there’s something magnificent in supplying a distant market with apples out of one’s garden. Still the smile is complex in its character, and the morality — simple, that’s all I meant to say. A letter from Henrietta and her husband, glowing with happiness; it makes me happy. She says, ‘I wonder if I shall be as happy as you, Ba.’ God grant it. It was signified to her that she should at once give up her engagement of five years, or leave the house. She married directly. I do not understand how it could be otherwise, indeed. My brothers have been kind and affectionate, I am glad to say; in her case, poor dearest papa does injustice chiefly to his own nature, by these severities, hard as they seem. Write soon and talk of yourself to

  Ever affectionate

  BA.

  I am rejoicing in the People’s Edition of your work. ‘Viva!’ (Robert’s best regards.)

  To Mrs. Jameson

  Florence: May 4, ,

  Dearest Friend, — This little note will be given to you by the Mr. Stuart of whom I once told you that he was holding you up to the admiration of all Florence and the Baths of Lucca as the best English critic of Shakespeare, in his lectures on the great poet....

  Robert bids me say that he wrote you a constrained half-dozen lines by Mr. Henry Greenough, who asked for a letter of introduction to you, while the asker was sitting in the room, and the form of ‘dear Mrs. Jameson’ couldn’t well be escaped from. He loves you as well as ever, you are to understand, through every complication of forms, and you are to love him, and me, for I come in as a part of him, if you please. Did you get my thanks for the dear Petrarch pen (so steeped in double-distilled memories that it seems scarcely fit to be steeped in ink), and our appreciation as well as gratitude for the books — which, indeed, charm us more and more? Robert has been picking up pictures at a few pauls each, ‘hole and corner’ pictures which the ‘dealers’ had not found out; and the other day he covered himself with glory by discovering and seizing on (in a corn shop a mile from Florence) five pictures among heaps of trash; and one of the best judges in Florence (Mr. Kirkup) throws out such names for them as Cimabue, Ghirlandaio, Giottino, a crucifixion painted on a banner, Giottesque, if not Giotto, but unique, or nearly so, on account of the linen material, and a little Virgin by a Byzantine master. The curious thing is that two angel pictures, for which he had given a scudo last year, prove to have been each sawn off the sides of the Ghirlandaio, so called, representing the ‘Eterno Padre’ clothed in a mystical garment and encircled by a rainbow, the various tints of which, together with the scarlet tips of the flying seraphs’ wings, are darted down into the smaller pictures and complete the evidence, line for line. It has been a grand altar-piece, cut to bits. Now come and see for yourself. We can’t say decidedly yet whether it will be possible or impossible for us to go to England this year, but in any case you must come to see Gerardine and Italy, and we shall manage to catch you by the skirts then — so do come. Never mind the rumbling of political thunders, because, even if a storm breaks, you will slip under cover in these days easily, whether in France or Italy. I can’t make out, for my part, how anybody can be afraid of such things.

  Will you be among the likers or dislikers, I wonder sometimes, of Robert’s new book? The faculty, you will recognise, in all cases; he can do anything he chooses. I have complained of the asceticism in the second part, but he said it was ‘one side of the question.’ Don’t think that he has taken to the cilix — indeed he has not — but it is his way to see things as passionately as other people feel them....

  Chapman & Hall offer us no copies, or you should have had one, of course. So Wordsworth is gone — a great light out of heaven.

  May God bless you, my dear friend!

  Love your affectionate and grateful, for so many

  reasons,

  BA.

  The death of Wordsworth on April 23 left the Laureateship vacant, and though there was probably never any likelihood of Mrs. Browning’s being invited to succeed him, it is worth noticing that her claims were advocated by so prominent a paper as the ‘Athenaeum,’ which not only urged that the appointment would be eminently suitable under a female sovereign, but even expressed its opinion that ‘there is no living poet of either sex who can prefer a higher claim than Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.’ No doubt there would have been a certain appropriateness in the post of Laureate to a Queen being held by a poetess, but the claims of Tennyson to the primacy of English poetry were rightly regarded as paramount. The fact that in Robert Browning there was a poet of equal calibre with Tennyson, though of so different a type, seems to have occurred to no one.

  To Miss Mitford

  Florence: June 15, 1850.

  My ever dear Friend, — How it grieves me that you should have been so unwell again! From what you say about the state of the house, I conclude that your health suffers from that cause precisely; and that when you are warmly and dryly walled in, you will be less liable to these attacks, grievous to your friends as to you. Oh, I don’t praise anybody, I assure you, for wishing to entice you to live near them. We come over the Alps for a sunny climate; what should we not do for a moral atmosphere like yours? I dare say you have chosen excellently your new residence, and I hope you will get over the fuss of it with great courage, remembering the advantages which it is likely to secure to you. Tell me as much as you can about it all, that I may shift the scene in the right grooves, and be able to imagine you to myself out of Three Mile Cross. You have the local feeling so eminently that I have long been resolved on never asking you to migrate. Doves won’t travel with swallows; who should persuade them? This is no migration — only a shifting from one branch to another. With Reading on one side of you still, you will lose nothing, neither sight nor friend. Oh, do write to me as soon as you can, and say that the deepening summer has done you good and given you stren
gth; say it, if possible. I shall be very anxious for the next letter.... My only objection to Florence is the distance from London, and the expense of the journey. One’s heart is pulled at through different English ties and can’t get the right rest, and I think we shall move northwards — try France a little, after a time. The present year has been full of petty vexation to us about the difficulty of going to England, and it becomes more and more doubtful whether we can attain to the means of doing it. There are four of us and the child, you see, and precisely this year we are restricted in means, as far as our present knowledge goes; but I can’t say yet, only I do very much fear. Nobody will believe our promises, I think, any more, and my poor Arabel will be in despair, and I shall lose the opportunity of authenticating Wiedeman; for, as Robert says, all our fine stories about him will go for nothing, and he will be set down as a sham child. If not sham, how could human vanity resist the showing him off bodily? That sounds reasonable....