Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 186
BA.
To Mrs. Martin
Florence: January 30, 1851.
Here I am at last, dearest friend. But you forget how you told me, when you wrote your ‘long letter,’ that you were going away into chaos somewhere, and that your address couldn’t be known yet. It was this which made me delay the answer to that welcome letter — and to begin to ‘put off’ is fatal, as perhaps you know. Now forgive me, and I will behave better in future, indeed....
I am quite well, and looking well, they say; but the frightful illness of the autumn left me paler and thinner long after the perfect recovery. The physician told Robert afterwards that few women would have recovered at all; and when I left Siena I was as able to walk, and as well in every respect as ever, notwithstanding everything — think, for instance, of my walking to St. Miniato, here in Florence! You remember, perhaps, what that pull is. I dare say you heard from Henrietta how we enjoyed our rustication at Siena. It is pleasant even to look back on it. We were obliged to look narrowly at the economies, more narrowly than usual; but the cheapness of the place suited the occasion, and the little villa, like a mere tent among the vines, charmed us, though the doors didn’t shut, and though (on account of the smallness) Robert and I had to whisper all our talk whenever Wiedeman was asleep. Oh, I wish you were in Italy. I wish you had come here this winter which has been so mild, and which, with ordinary prudence, would certainly have suited dear Mr. Martin.... I tried to dissuade the Peytons from making the experiment, through the fear of its not answering.... We can’t get them into society, you see, because we are out of it, having struggled to keep out of it with hands and feet, and partially having succeeded, knowing scarcely anybody except bringers of letters of introduction, and those chiefly Americans and not residents in Florence. The other day, however, Mrs. Trollope and her daughter-in-law called on us, and it is settled that we are to know them; though Robert had made a sort of vow never to sit in the same room with the author of certain books directed against liberal institutions and Victor Hugo’s poetry. I had a longer battle to fight, on the matter of this vow, than any since my marriage, and had some scruples at last of taking advantage of the pure goodness which induced him to yield to my wishes; but I did, because I hate to seem ungracious and unkind to people; and human beings, besides, are better than their books, than their principles, and even than their everyday actions, sometimes. I am always crying out: ‘Blessed be the inconsistency of men.’ Then I thought it probable that, the first shock of the cold water being over, he would like the proposed new acquaintances very much — and so it turns out. She was very agreeable, and kind, and good-natured, and talked much about you, which was a charm of itself; and we mean to be quite friends, and to lend each other books, and to forget one another’s offences, in print or otherwise. Also, she admits us on her private days; for she has public days (dreadful to relate!), and is in the full flood and flow of Florentine society. Do write to me, will you? or else I shall set you down as vexed with me. The state of politics here is dismal. Newspapers put down; Protestant places of worship shut up. It is so bad that it must soon be better. What are you both thinking of the ‘Papal aggression’? ‘Are you frightened? Are you frenzied? For my part I can’t get up much steam about it. The ‘Great Insult’ was simply a great mistake, the consequence (natural enough) of the Tractarian idiocies as enacted in Italy.
God bless both of you, dearest and always remembered friends! Robert’s best regards, he says.
Your affectionate
BA.
Tell me your thoughts about France. I am so anxious about the crisis there. We have had a very interesting visit lately from the grandson of Goethe.
To Miss Browning
Florence: April 23, 1851 [postmark].
My dearest Sarianna, — I do hope that Robert takes his share of the blame in using and abusing you as we have done. It was altogether too bad — shameful — to send that last MS. for you to copy out; and I did, indeed, make a little outcry about it, only he insisted on having it so. Was it very wrong, I wonder? Your kindness and affectionateness I never doubt of; but if you are not quite strong just now, you might be teased, in spite of your heart, by all that copying work — not pleasant at any time. Well, believe that I thank you, at least gratefully, for what you have done. So quickly too! The advertisement at the end of the week proves how you must have worked for me. Thank you, dear Sarianna.
Robert will have told you our schemes, and how we are going to work, and are to love you near for the future, I hope. You, who are wise, will approve of us, I think, for keeping on our Florentine apartment, so as to run no more risk than is necessary in making the Paris experiment. We shall let the old dear rooms, and make money by them, and keep them to fall back upon, in case we fail at Paris. ‘But we’ll not fail.’ Well, I hope not, though I am very brittle still and susceptible to climate. Dearest Sarianna, it will do you infinite good to come over to us every now and then — you want change, absolute change of scene and air and climate, I am confident; and you never will be right till you have had it. We talk, Robert and I, of carrying you back with us to Rome next year as an English trophy. Meanwhile you will see Wiedeman, you and dear Mr. Browning. Don’t expect to see a baby of Anak, that’s all. Robert is always measuring him on the door, and reporting such wonderful growth (some inch a week, I think), that if you receive his reports you will cry out on beholding the child. At least, you’ll say: ‘How little he must have been to be no larger now.’ You’ll fancy he must have begun from a mustard-seed! The fact is, he is small, only full of life and joy to the brim. I am not afraid of your not loving him, nor of his not loving you. He has a loving little heart, I assure you. If anyone pricks a finger with a needle he begins to cry — he can’t bear to see the least living thing hurt. And when he loves, it is well. Robert says I must finish, so here ends dearest Sarianna’s
Ever affectionate sister
BA.
CHAPTER VII. 1851-1852
Since they first settled in Florence the Brownings had made no long or distant expeditions from their new home. Their summer excursions to Vallombrosa, Lucca, or Siena had been of the nature of short holidays, and had not taken them beyond the limits of Tuscany. Now they had planned a far wider series of travels, which, beginning with Rome, Naples, Venice, and Milan, should then be extended across the Alps, and comprehend Brussels, Paris, and ultimately London. This ambitious programme had to be curtailed by the omission of the southern tour to Rome and Naples, as well as the digression to Brussels, but the rest of the scheme was carried out, and about the beginning of June they left Casa Guidi for an absence which extended over seventeen months.
The holiday had been well earned, especially by Mrs. Browning, who, since the preparation of the new edition of her poems in the previous year, had been writing the second part of ‘Casa Guidi Windows.’ It is probably to this poem that she refers in the letter to Miss Browning printed at the end of the last chapter, Miss Browning having on more than one occasion helped both her brother and her sister-in-law in the task of passing their poems through the press. The book appeared in June, just as they were starting on their travels, and probably for this reason we hear less in the letters of its reception. It was hardly to be expected that the English public would take a very keen interest in a poem dealing almost entirely with Italian politics, and half of it with the politics of three years ago. Either in 1849 or in 1859 the interest would have been livelier; but Italy was passing now through the valley of the shadow, and, save for the horrors of the Neapolitan prisons, was not much before the public for the moment. The intrigues of Louis Napoleon and the ostentatious aggression of the Pope in England were the matters of most interest in foreign politics, and both were overshadowed by the absorbing topic of the Great Exhibition.
Another reason why ‘Casa Guidi Windows’ has received less appreciation than it deserves, both at the time of its publication and since, is that it stands rather apart from all the recognised species of poetry, and is hard to cla
ssify and criticise. Its political and contemporary character cut it off from the imaginative and historical subjects which form in general the matter of poetry, while its genuinely poetic emotion and language separate it from the political pamphlet or the occasional verse. It is a poetic treatment of a political subject raised to a high level by the genuine enthusiasm and fire with which it is inspired, and these give it a value which lasts far beyond the moment of the events which gave it birth. The execution, too, shows an advance on most of Mrs. Browning’s previous work. The dangerous experiments in rhyming which characterised many of the poems in the volumes of 1844 are abandoned; the licences of language are less frequent; the verse runs smoothly and is more uniformly under command. It would appear as if the heat of inspiration which produced the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ had left a permanent and purifying effect upon her style. The poem has been neglected by those who take little interest in Italy and its history, and adversely criticised by those who do not sympathise with its political and religious opinions; but with those who look only to its poetry and to its warm-hearted championship of a great cause, it will always hold a high place of its own among Mrs. Browning’s writings.
To Miss I. Blagden
Florence: May 1, .
I am writing to you, dearest Miss Blagden, at last, you see; though you must have excommunicated me before now as the most ungrateful of correspondents and friends. Do forgive what you can — and your kindness is so great that I believe you can, and shall go on to write as if you did. We have been in the extremity of confusion and indecision. Remember how the fairy princes used to do when they arrived at the meeting of three roads, and had to consider what choice to make. How they used to shake their heads and ponder, and end sometimes by drawing lots! Much in the like perplexity have we been. Everything was ready for Rome — the day fixed, the packing begun, the vettura bargained for. Suddenly, visions of obstacles rose up. We were late in the season. We should be late for the festas. May would be hot in Rome for Wiedeman. Then two journeys, north and south, to Rome and Naples, besides Paris and England, pulled fearfully at the purse-strings. Plainly we couldn’t afford it. So everything was stopped and changed. We gave up Rome and you, and are now actually on the point of setting out for Venice; Venice is to console us for Rome. We go to-morrow, indeed. The plan is to stay a fortnight at Venice (or more or less, as the charm works), and then to strike across to Milan; across the Splügen into Switzerland, and to linger there among the hills and lakes for a part of the summer, so working out an intention of economy; then down the Rhine; then by railroad to Brussels; so to Paris, settling there; after which we pay our visit to England for a few weeks. Early next spring we mean to go to Rome and return here, either for good (which is very possible) or for the purpose of arranging our house affairs and packing up books and furniture. As it is, we have our apartment for another year, and shall let it if we can. It has been painted, cleaned, and improved in all ways, till my head and Robert’s ring again with the confusion of it all. Oh that we were gone, since we are to go! When out of sight of Florence, we shall begin to enjoy, I hope, the sight of other things, but as it is the impression is only painful and dizzying. Our friends Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvy go with us as far as Venice, and then leave us on a direct course for England, having committed their children and nurses to the care of her sister at the Baths of Lucca meantime. We take with us only Wilson.