Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Certainly you are disinterested about America, and, of course, all of us who have hearts and heads must feel the sympathy of a greater nation to be more precious than a thick purse. Still, it is not just and dignified, this vantage ground of American pirates. Liking the ends and motives, one disapproves the means. Yes, even you do; and if I were an American I should dissent with still more emphasis. It should be made a point of honour with the nation, if there is no point of law against the re publishers. For my own part, I have every possible reason to thank and love America; she has been very kind to me, and the visits we receive here from delightful and cordial persons of that country have been most gratifying to us. The American minister at the court of Vienna, with his family, did not pass through Florence the other day without coming to see us — General Watson Webbe-with an air of moral as well as military command in his brow and eyes. He looked, and talked too, like one of oar dignities of the Old World. The go-ahead principle didn’t seem the least over-strong in him, nor likely to disturb his official balance. What is to happen next in France? Do you trust still your President? He is in a hard position, and, if he leaves the Pope where he is, in a dishonored one. As for the change in the electoral law and the increase of income, I see nothing in either to make an outcry against. There is great injustice everywhere and a rankling party-spirit, and to speak the truth and act it appears still more difficult than usual. I was sorry, do you know, to hear of dear Mr. Horne’s attempt at Shylock; he is fit for higher things. Did I tell you how we received and admired his Judas Iscariot? Yes, surely I did. He says that Louis Blanc is a friend of his and much with him, speaking with enthusiasm. I should be more sorry at his being involved with the Socialists than with Shylock — still more sorry; for I love liberty so intensely that I hate Socialism. I hold it to be the most desecrating and dishonouring to humanity of all creeds. I would rather (for me) live under the absolutism of Nicholas of Russia than in a Fourier machine, with my individuality sucked out of me by a social air-pump. Oh, if you happen to write again to Mrs. Deane, thank her much for her kind anxiety; but, indeed, if I had lost my darling I should not write verses about it. As for the Laureateship, it won’t be given to me, be sure, though the suggestion has gone the round of the English newspapers— ‘Galignani’ and all — and notwithstanding that most kind and flattering recommendation of the ‘Athenaeum,’ for which I am sure we should be grateful to Mr. Chorley. I think Leigh Hunt should have the Laureateship. He has condescended to wish for it, and has ‘worn his singing clothes’ longer than most of his contemporaries, deserving the price of long as well as noble service. Whoever has it will be, of course, exempted from Court lays; and the distinction of the title and pension should remain for Spenser’s sake, if not for Wordsworth’s. We are very anxious to know about Tennyson’s new work, ‘In Memoriam.’ Do tell us about it. You are aware that it was written years ago, and relates to a son of Mr. Hallam, who was Tennyson’s intimate friend and the betrothed of his sister. I have heard, through someone who had seen the MS., that it is full of beauty and pathos.... Dearest, ever dear Miss Mitford, speak particularly of your health. May God bless you, prays

  Your ever affectionate

  E.B.B.

  Robert’s kindest regards.

  To Miss Mitford

  Florence: July 8, 1850.

  My dearest Miss Mitford, — I this moment have your note; and as a packet of ours is going to England, I snatch up a pen to do what I can with it in the brief moments between this and post time. I don’t wait till it shall be possible to write at length, because I have something immediate to say to you. Your letter is delightful, yet it is not for that that I rush so upon answering it. Nor even is it for the excellent news of your consenting, for dear Mr. Chorley’s sake, to give us some more of your ‘papers,’ though ‘blessed be the hour, and month, and year’ when he set about editing the ‘Ladies’ Companion’ and persuading you to do such a thing. No, what I want to say is strictly personal to me. You are the kindest, warmest-hearted, most affectionate of critics, and precisely as such it is that you have thrown me into a paroxysm of terror. My dearest friend, for the love of me — I don’t argue the point with you — but I beseech you humbly, — kissing the hem of your garment, and by all sacred and tender recollections of sympathy between you and me, don’t breathe a word about any juvenile performance of mine — don’t, if you have any love left for me. Dear friend, ‘disinter’ anybody or anything you please, but don’t disinter me, unless you mean the ghost of my vexation to vex you ever after. ‘Blessed be she who spares these stones.’ All the saints know that I have enough to answer for since I came to my mature mind, and that I had difficulty enough in making most of the ‘Seraphim’ volume presentable a little in my new edition, because it was too ostensible before the public to be caught back; but if the sins of my rawest juvenility are to be thrust upon me — and sins are extant of even twelve or thirteen, or earlier, and I was in print once when I was ten, I think — what is to become of me? I shall groan as loud as Christian did. Dearest Miss Mitford, now forgive this ingratitude which is gratitude all the time. I love you and thank you; but, right or wrong, mind what I say, and let me love and thank you still more. When you see my new edition you will see that everything worth a straw I ever wrote is there, and if there were strength in conjuration I would conjure you to pass an act of oblivion on the stubble that remains — if anything does remain, indeed. Now, more than enough of this. For the rest, I am delighted. I am even so generous as not to be jealous of Mr. Chorley for prevailing with you when nobody else could. I had given it up long ago; I never thought you would stir a pen again. By what charm did he prevail? Your series of papers will be delightful, I do not doubt; though I never could see anything in some of your heroes, American or Irish. Longfellow is a poet; I don’t refer to him. Still, whatever you say will be worth hearing, and the guide through ‘Pompeii’ will be better than many of the ruins. ‘The Pleader’s Guide’ I never heard of before. Praed has written some sweet and tender things. Then I shall like to hear you on Beaumont and Fletcher, and Andrew Marvell.

  I have seen nothing of Tennyson’s new poem. Do you know if the echo-song is the most popular of his verses? It is only another proof to my mind of the no-worth of popularity. That song would be eminently sweet for a common writer, but Tennyson has done better, surely; his eminences are to be seen above. As for the laurel, in a sense he is worthier of it than Leigh Hunt; only Tennyson can wait, that is the single difference.

  So anxious I am about your house. Your health seems to me mainly to depend on your moving, and I do urge your moving; if not there, elsewhere. May God bless you, ever dear friend!

  I dare say you will think I have given too much importance to the rococo verses you had the goodness to speak of; but I have a horror of being disinterred, there’s the truth! Leave the violets to grow over me. Because that wretched school-exercise of a version of the ‘Prometheus’ had been named by two or three people, wasn’t I at the pains of making a new translation before I left England, so to erase a sort of half-visible and half invisible ‘Blot on the Scutcheon’? After such an expenditure of lemon-juice, you will not wonder that I should trouble you with all this talk about nothing....

  I am so delighted that you are to lift up your voice again, and so grateful to Mr. Chorley.

  Ah yes, if we go to Paris we shall draw you. Mr. Chorley shan’t have all the triumphs to himself.

  Not a word more, says Robert, or the post will be missed. God bless you! Do take care of yourself, and don’t stay in that damp house. And do make allowances for love.

  Your ever affectionate

  BA.

  How glad I shall be if it is true that Tennyson is married! I believe in the happiness of marriage, for men especially.

  Through the greater part of the summer of 1850 the Brownings held fast in Florence, and it was not until September, when Mrs. Browning was recovering from a rather sharp attack of illness, that they took a short holiday, going for a few we
eks to Siena, a place which they were again to visit some years later, during the last two summers of Mrs. Browning’s life. The letter announcing their arrival is the first in the present collection addressed to Miss Isa Blagden. Miss Blagden was a resident in Florence for many years, and was a prominent member of English society there. Her friendship, not only with Mrs. Browning, but with her husband, was of a very intimate character, and was continued after Mrs. Browning’s death until the end of her own life in 1872.

  To Miss I. Blagden

  Siena: September .

  Here I am keeping my promise, my dear Miss Blagden. We arrived quite safely, and I was not too tired to sleep at night, though tired of course, and the baby was a miracle of goodness all the way, only inclining once to a rabbia through not being able to get at the electric telegraph, but in ecstasies otherwise at everything new. We had to stay at the inn all night. We heard of a multitude of villas, none of which could be caught in time for the daylight. On Sunday, however, just as we were beginning to give it up, in Robert came with good news, and we were settled in half an hour afterwards here, a small house of some seven rooms, two miles from Siena, and situated delightfully in its own grounds of vineyard and olive ground, not to boast too much of a pretty little square flower-garden. The grapes hang in garlands (too tantalising to Wiedeman) about the walls and before them, and, through and over, we have magnificent views of a noble sweep of country, undulating hills and various verdure, and, on one side, the great Maremma extending to the foot of the Roman mountains. Our villa is on a hill called ‘poggio dei venti,’ and the winds give us a turn accordingly at every window. It is delightfully cool, and I have not been able to bear my window open at night since our arrival; also we get good milk and bread and eggs and wine, and are not much at a loss for anything. Think of my forgetting to tell you (Robert would not forgive me for that) how we have a specola or sort of belvedere at the top of the house, which he delights in, and which I shall enjoy presently, when I have recovered my taste for climbing staircases. He carried me up once, but the being carried down was so much like being carried down the flue of a chimney, that I waive the whole privilege for the future. What is better, to my mind, is the expected fact of being able to get books at Siena — nearly as well as at Brecker’s, really; though Dumas fils seems to fill up many of the interstices where you think you have found something. Three pauls a month, the subscription is; and for seven, we get a ‘Galignani,’ or are promised to get it. We pay for our villa ten scudi the month, so that altogether it is not ruinous. The air is as fresh as English air, without English dampness and transition; yes, and we have English lanes with bowery tops of trees, and brambles and blackberries, and not a wall anywhere, except the walls of our villa.

  For my part, I am recovering strength, I hope and believe. Certainly I can move about from one room to another, without reeling much: but I still look so ghastly, as to ‘back recoil,’ perfectly knowing ‘Why,’ from everything in the shape of a looking glass. Robert has found an armchair for me at Siena. To say the truth, my time for enjoying this country life, except the enchanting silence and the look from the window, has not come yet: I must wait for a little more strength. Wiedeman’s cheeks are beginning to redden already, and he delights in the pigeons and the pig and the donkey and a great yellow dog and everything else now; only he would change all your trees (except the apple trees), he says, for the Austrian band at any moment. He is rather a town baby....

  Our drawback is, dear Miss Blagden, that we have not room to take you in. So sorry we both are indeed. Write and tell me whether you have decided about Vallombrosa. I hope we shall see much of you still at Florence, if not here. We could give you everything here except a bed.

  Robert’s kindest regards with those of

  Your ever affectionate

  ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

  My love to Miss Agassiz, whenever you see her.

  To Miss Mitford

  Siena: September 24, 1850.

  To think that it is more than two months since I wrote last to you, my beloved friend, makes the said two months seem even longer to me than otherwise they would necessarily be — a slow, heavy two months in every case, ‘with all the weights of care and death hung at them.’ Your letter reached me when I was confined to my bed, and could scarcely read it, for all the strength at my heart.... As soon as I could be moved, and before I could walk from one room to another, Dr. Harding insisted on the necessity of change of air (for my part, I seemed to myself more fit to change the world than the air), and Robert carried me into the railroad like a baby, and off we came here to Siena. We took a villa a mile and a half from the town, a villa situated on a windy hill (called ‘poggio al vento’), with magnificent views from all the windows, and set in the midst of its own vineyard and olive ground, apple trees and peach trees, not to speak of a little square flower-garden, for which we pay eleven shillings one penny farthing the week; and at the end of these three weeks, our medical comforter’s prophecy, to which I listened so incredulously, is fulfilled, and I am able to walk a mile, and am really as well as ever in all essential respects.... Our poor little darling, too (see what disasters!), was ill four-and-twenty hours from a species of sunstroke, and frightened us with a heavy hot head and glassy staring eyes, lying in a half-stupor. Terrible, the silence that fell suddenly upon the house, without the small pattering feet and the singing voice. But God spared us; he grew quite well directly and sang louder than ever. Since we came here his cheeks have turned into roses....

  What still further depressed me during our latter days at Florence was the dreadful event in America — the loss of our poor friend Madame Ossoli, affecting in itself, and also through association with that past, when the arrowhead of anguish was broken too deeply into my life ever to be quite drawn out. Robert wanted to keep the news from me till I was stronger, but we live too close for him to keep anything from me, and then I should have known it from the first letter or visitor, so there was no use trying. The poor Ossolis spent part of their last evening in Italy with us, he and she and their child, and we had a note from her off Gibraltar, speaking of the captain’s death from smallpox. Afterwards it appears that her child caught the disease and lay for days between life and death; recovered, and then came the final agony. ‘Deep called unto deep,’ indeed. Now she is where there is no more grief and ‘no more sea;’ and none of the restless in this world, none of the ship-wrecked in heart ever seemed to me to want peace more than she did. We saw much of her last winter; and over a great gulf of differing opinion we both felt drawn strongly to her. High and pure aspiration she had — yes, and a tender woman’s heart — and we honoured the truth and courage in her, rare in woman or man. The work she was preparing upon Italy would probably have been more equal to her faculty than anything previously produced by her pen (her other writings being curiously inferior to the impressions her conversation gave you); indeed, she told me it was the only production to which she had given time and labour. But, if rescued, the manuscript would be nothing but the raw material. I believe nothing was finished; nor, if finished, could the work have been otherwise than deeply coloured by those blood colours of Socialistic views, which would have drawn the wolves on her, with a still more howling enmity, both in England and America. Therefore it was better for her to go. Only God and a few friends can be expected to distinguish between the pure personality of a woman and her professed opinions. She was chiefly known in America, I believe, by oral lectures and a connection with the newspaper press, neither of them happy means of publicity. Was she happy in anything, I wonder? She told me that she never was. May God have made her happy in her death!

  Such gloom she had in leaving Italy! So full she was of sad presentiment! Do you know she gave a Bible as a parting gift from her child to ours, writing in it ‘In memory of Angelo Eugene Ossoli’ — a strange, prophetical expression? That last evening a prophecy was talked of jestingly — an old prophecy made to poor Marquis Ossoli, ‘that he should shun the sea, for that it
would be fatal to him.’ I remember how she turned to me smiling and said, ‘Our ship is called the “Elizabeth,” and I accept the omen.’

  Now I am making you almost dull perhaps, and myself certainly duller. Rather let me tell you, dearest Miss Mitford, how delightedly I look forward to reading whatever you have written or shall write. You write ‘as well as twenty years ago’! Why, I should think so, indeed. Don’t I know what your letters are? Haven’t I had faith in you always? Haven’t I, in fact, teased you half to death in proof of it? I, who was a sort of Brutus, and oughtn’t to have done it, you hinted. Moreover, Robert is a great admirer of yours, as I must have told you before, and has the pretension (unjustly though, as I tell him) to place you still higher among writers than I do, so that we are two in expectancy here. May Mr. Chorley’s periodical live a thousand years!