Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  I feel I am writing a horrible account to you. You will conclude the worst from it, and that is what I don’t want you to do. The pulse has never been high, and is now much lower, and if he can be kept from a relapse he will live. I pray God he may live. He is not altered in the face, and Dr. Trotman reiterated this morning, ‘There is no danger at present.’

  You are better. I thank God for it. Oh, yes, it is very beautiful, that cathedral. The weather here is cool and enjoyable by day even. At nights it is really cold, and I have thought of a blanket once or twice as of a thing tolerable. I will write again when there is a change. The course of the fever may extend to six days more.

  Your ever most affectionate

  Ba.

  To Mrs. Jameson

  Thursday, [end of August 1857].

  Dearest Friend, — I think it better to inclose to you this letter which has come to your address. Thank you for your kind words about Lytton, which will be very soothing to him. He continues better, and is preparing to take his first drive to-day, for half an hour, with his nurse and Robert. See how weak he must be, and the hollow cheeks and temples remain as signs of the past. Still, he is convalescent, and begins to think of poems and apple puddings in a manner other than celestial. I do thank God that our anxieties have ended so.

  Robert bathes in the river every morning, which does him great good; besides the rides at mornings and evenings on mountain ponies with Annette Bracken and a Crimean hero (as Mrs. Stisted has it), who has turned up at the hotel, with one leg and so many agreeable and amiable qualities that everybody is charmed with him.

  Robert had a letter from Chapman yesterday. Not much news. He speaks of two penny papers, sold lately, after making the fortune of their proprietors, for twenty-five and thirty-five thousand pounds. If Robert ‘could but write bad enough,’ says the learned publisher, he should recommend one of them. But even Charles Reade was found too good, and the sale fell ten thousand in a few weeks on account of a serial tale of his, so he had to make place to his worses. Chapman hears of a ‘comprehensive review’ being about to appear in the ‘Westminster’ on ‘Aurora,’ whether for or against he cannot tell. The third edition sells well.

  So happy I am to hear that Mr. Procter’s son is safe. We saw his name in the ‘Galignani,’ and were alarmed. Lytton has heard from Forster, but I had no English news from the letter. I get letters from my sisters which make me feel ‘froissée’ all over, except that they seem pretty well. My eldest brother has returned from Jamaica, and has taken a place with a Welsh name on the Welsh borders for three years — what I knew he would do. He wrote me some tender words, dear fellow....

  May God bless you!

  Yours in much love,

  Ba.

  To Miss E.F. Haworth

  La Villa, Bagni di Lucca:

  September 14, 1857 [postmark].

  My dearest Fanny, — A letter from me will have crossed yours and told you of all our misadventures. It has been a summer to me full of blots, vexations, anxieties; and if, in spite of everything, I am physically stronger for the fresh air and smell of green leaves, that’s a proof that soul and body are two.

  Our friends of the hotel went away last Saturday, and I have a letter from Isa Blagden with a good account of Lytton. He goes back to Villa Bricchieri, where they are to house together, unless Sir Edward comes down (which he may do) to catch up his son and change the plan. Isa has not quite killed herself with nursing him, a little of her being still left to express what has been.

  Now, dear Fanny, I am going to try to tell you of our plans. No, ‘plans’ is not the word; our thoughts are in the purely elemental state so far. But we think of going to Rome (or Naples) at the far end of November, and of staying here as many days deep into October meanwhile as the cold mountain air will let us. On leaving this place we go to Florence and wait. Unless, indeed (which is possible too), we go to Egypt and the Holy Land, in which case we shall not remain where we are beyond the end of September....

  I never could consent to receive my theology or any other species of guidance, in fact — from the ‘spirits,’ so called. I have no more confidence, apart from my own conscience and discretionary selection, in spirits out of the body than in those embodied. The submission of the whole mind and judgment carries you in either case to the pope — or to the devil. So I think. Don’t let them bind you hand and foot. Resist. Be yourself. Also where (as in the medium-writing) you have the human mixture to evolve the spiritual sentiment from, the insecurity becomes doubly insecure....

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  The end of the time at the Bagni di Lucca was clouded by another anxiety, caused by the illness of Penini. It was not, however, a long one, and early in October the whole party was able to return to Florence, where they remained throughout the winter and the following spring. Letters of this period are, however, scarce, and there is nothing particular to record concerning it. Since the publication of ‘Aurora Leigh,’ Mrs. Browning had been taking a holiday from poetical composition; indeed she never resumed it on a large scale, and published no other volume save the ‘Poems before Congress,’ which were the fruit of a later period of special excitement. She had put her whole self into ‘Aurora Leigh,’ and seemed to have no further message to give to mankind. It is evident, too, that her strength was already beginning to decline and the various family and public anxieties which followed 1856 made demands on what remained of it too great to allow of much application to poetry.

  To Miss E.F. Haworth

  [Bagni di Lucca:] Monday, September 28, .

  You will understand too well why I have waited some days before answering your letter, dearest Fanny, though you bade me write at once, when I tell you that my own precious Penini has been ill with gastric fever and is even now confined to his bed. Eleven days ago, when he was looking like a live rose and in an exaggeration of spirits, he proposed to go with me, to run by my portantina in which I went to pay a visit some mile and a half away. The portantini men walked too fast for him, and he was tired and heated. Then, while I paid my visit, he played by the river with a child of the house, and returned with me in the dusk. He complained of being tired during the return, and I took him up into my portantina for ten minutes. He was over-tired, however, over-heated, over-chilled, and the next day had fever and complained of his head. We did not think much of it; and the morning after he seemed so recovered that we took him with us to dine in the mountains with some American friends (the Eckleys — did you hear of them in Rome?) — twenty miles in the carriage, and ten miles on donkey-back. He was in high spirits, and came home at night singing at the top of his voice — probably to keep off the creeping sense of illness, for he has confessed since that he felt unwell even then. The next day the fever set in. The medical man doubted whether it was measles, scarlatina, or what; but soon the symptoms took the decisive aspect. He has been in bed, strictly confined to bed, since last Sunday-week night — strictly confined, except for one four hours, after which exertion he had a relapse. It is the same fever as Mr. Lytton’s, only not as severe, I thank God; the attacks coming on at nights chiefly, and terrifying us, as you may suppose. The child’s sweetness and goodness, too, his patience and gentleness, have been very trying. He said to me, ‘You pet! don’t be unhappy for me. Think it’s a poor little boy in the street, and be just only a little sorry, and not unhappy at all.’ Well, we may thank God that the bad time seems passed. He is still in bed, but it is a matter of precaution chiefly. The fever is quite in abeyance — has been for two days, and we have all to be grateful for two most tranquil nights. He amuses himself in putting maps together, and cutting out paper, and packing up his desk to go to Florence, which is the idée fixe just now. In fact when he can be moved we shall not wait here a day, for the rains have set in, and the dry elastic air of Florence will be excellent for him. The medical man (an Italian) promises us almost that we may be able to go in a week from this time; but we won’t hurry, we will run no risks. For some day
s he has been allowed no other sort of nourishment but ten dessert-spoonfuls of thin broth twice a day — literally nothing; not a morsel of bread, not a drop of tea, nothing. Even now the only change is, a few more spoonfuls of the same broth. It is hard, for his appetite cries out aloud; and he has agonising visions of beefsteak pies and buttered toast seen in mirage. Still his spirits don’t fail on the whole and now that the fever is all but gone, they rise, till we have to beg him to be quiet and not to talk so much. He had the flower-girl in by his bedside yesterday, and it was quite impossible to help laughing, so many Florentine airs did he show off. ‘Per Bacco, ho una fame terribile, e non voglio aver più pazienza con questo Dottore.’ The doctor, however, seems skilful....

  But you may think how worn out I have been in body and soul, and how under these circumstances we think little of Jerusalem or of any other place but our home at Florence. Still, we shall probably pass the winter either at Rome or Naples, but I know no more than a swaddled baby which. Also we shan’t know, probably, till the end of November, when we take out our passports. Doubt is our element....

  I must go to my Peni. I am almost happy about him now. And yet — oh, his lovely rosy cheeks, his round fat little shoulders, his strength and spring of a month ago! — at the best, we must lose our joy and pride in these for a time. May God bless you! I know you will feel for me, and that makes me so egotistical.

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  To Miss Browning

  [Florence: February 1858.]

  My dearest Sarianna, — Robert is going to write to dear M. Milsand, whose goodness is ‘passing that of men,’ of all common friends certainly. Robert’s thanks are worth more than mine, and so I shall leave it to Robert to thank him.

  The ‘grippe’ has gripped us here most universally, and no wonder, considering our most exceptional weather; and better the grippe than the fever which preceded it. Such cold has not been known here for years, and it has extended throughout the south, it seems, to Rome and Naples, where people are snowed and frozen up. So strange. The Arno, for the first time since ‘47, has had a slice or two of ice on it. Robert has suffered from the prevailing malady, which did not however, through the precautions we took, touch his throat or chest, amounting only to a bad cold in the head. Peni was afflicted in the same way but in a much slighter degree, and both are now quite well. As for me I have caught no cold — only losing my breath and my soul in the usual way, the cough not being much. So that we have no claim, any of us, on your compassion, you see....

  I think, I think Miss Blackwell has succeeded in frightening you a little. In the case of chaos, she will fly to England, I suppose; and even there she may fall on a refugee plot; for I have seen a letter of Mazzini’s in which it was written that people stood on ruins in England, and that at any moment there might be a crash! Certainly, confusion in Paris would be followed by confusion in Italy and everywhere on the Continent at least, so I should never think of running away, let what might happen. In ‘52 and ‘53, when we were in Paris, there was more danger than could arise now, under a successful plot even; for, even if the Emperor fell, the people and the army seem prepared to stand by the dynasty. Also, public order has attained to some of the force of an habitual thing.

  As to the crime, it has no more sympathy here than in France — be sure of that. That unscrupulous bad party is repudiated by this majority — by this people as a mass. I hear nothing but lamentations that Italians should be dishonored so by their own hands. Father Prout says that the Emperor’s speech is ‘the most heroic document of this century,’ and in my mind the praise is merited. So indignant I feel with Mazzini and all who name his name and walk in his steps, that I couldn’t find it in my heart to write (as I was going to do) to that poor bewitched Jessie on her marriage. Really, when I looked at the pen, I couldn’t move it....

  Best love from

  Ba.

  To Mrs. Martin

  Florence: March 27

  This moment I take up my pen to write to you, my dearest Mrs. Martin. Did you not receive a long letter I wrote to you in Paris? No? Answer me categorically....

  And you are not very strong, even now? That grieves me. But here is the sun to make us all strong. For my part, my chest has not been particularly wrong this winter, nor my cough too troublesome. But the weight of the whole year heavy with various kinds of trouble, added to a trying winter, seems to have stamped out of me the vital fluid, and I am physically low, to a degree which makes me glad of renewed opportunities of getting the air; and I mean to do little but drive out for some time. It does not answer to be mastered so. For months I have done nothing but dream and read French and German romances; and the result (of learning a good deal of German) isn’t the most useful thing in the world one can attain to. Then, of course, I teach Peni for an hour or so. He reads German, French, and, of course, Italian, and plays on the piano remarkably well, for which Robert deserves the chief credit. A very gentle, sweet child he is; sweet to look at and listen to; affectionate and good to live with, a real ‘treasure’ so far. His passion is music; and as we are afraid of wearing his brain, we let him give most of his study-time to the piano.

  So you want me, you expect me, I suppose, to approve of the miserable, undignified, unconscientious doings in England on the conspiracy question? No, indeed. I would rather we had lost ten battles than stultified ourselves in the House of Commons with Brummagem brag and Derby intrigues before the eyes of Europe and America. It seems to me utterly pitiful. I hold that the most susceptible of nations should not reasonably have been irritated by the Walewski despatch, which was absolutely true in its statement of facts. Ah, dearest friend, how true I know better than you do; for I know of knowledge how this doctrine of assassination is held by chief refugees and communicated to their disciples in England — yes, to noble hearts, and to English hands still innocent — my very soul has bled over these things. With my own ears I have heard them justified. For nights I have been disturbed in my sleep with the thoughts of them. In the name of liberty, which I love, and of the Democracy, which I honour, I protest against them. And if such things can be put down, I hold they should be put down; and that the Conspiracy Bill is the smallest and lightest step that can be taken towards the putting down. For the rest, the great Derby intrigue, as shown in its acts, and as resulting in its State papers, nothing in history, it seems to me, was ever so small and mean.

  What I think of him? Why, I think he is the only great man of his age, speaking of public men. I think ‘Napoleon III devant le peuple anglais’ a magnificent State paper. I confess to you it drew the tears to my eyes as I read it. So grand, so calm, so simply true!

  And now with regard to Switzerland. You must remember that there is such a thing as an international law, and that only last year the Swiss appealed in virtue of it to France about the Neufchâtel refugees, and that France received and acted on that appeal. The very translation of the French despatch adds to the injustice done to it in England; because ‘insister’ does not mean to ‘insist upon a thing being done,’ but to ‘urge it upon one’s attention.’

  ‘The Times,’ ‘The Times.’ Why, ‘The Times’ has intellect, but no conscience. ‘The Times’ is the most immoral of journals, as well as the most able. ‘The Times,’ on this very question of the Conspiracy Bill, has swerved, and veered, and dodged, till its readers may well be dizzy if they read every paragraph every day.

  See how I fall into a fury. ‘Oh, Liberty! I would cry, like the woman who did not love liberty more than I do— ‘Oh, Liberty, what deeds are done in thy name!’ and (looking round Italy) what sorrows are suffered!

  For I do fear that Mazzini is at the root of the evil; that man of unscrupulous theory!

  Now you will be enough disgusted with me. Tell me that you and dear Mr. Martin forgive me. I never saw Orsini, but have heard and known much of him. Unfortunate man. He died better than he lived — it is all one can say. Surely you admit that the permission to read that letter on the t
rial was large-hearted. And it has vexed Austria to the last degree, I am happy to say. It was not allowed to be read here, by the Italian public, I mean.

  Our plans are perfectly undefined, but we do hope to escape England.... Robert talks of Egypt for the winter. I don’t know what may happen; and in the meantime would rather not be pulled and pulled by kind people in England, who want me or fancy they do. You know everybody is as free as I am now, and freer; and if they do want me, and it isn’t fancy — never mind! We may see you perhaps, in Paris, after all, this summer....

  Now let me tell you. Hume, my protégé prophet, is in Italy. Think of that. He was in Pisa and in Florence for a day, saw friends of his and acquaintances of ours with whom he stayed four months on the last occasion, and who implicitly believe in him. An Englishwoman, who from infidel opinions was converted by his instrumentality to a belief in the life after death, has died in Paris, and left him an annuity of £240, English. On coming here, he paid all his wandering debts, I am glad to hear, and is even said to have returned certain gifts which had been rendered unacceptable to him from the bad opinion of the givers. I hear, too, that his manners, as well as morals, are wonderfully improved. He is gone to Rome, and will return here to pay a visit to his friends in Florence after a time. The object of his coming was health. While he passed through Tuscany, the power seemed to be leaving him, but he has recovered it tenfold, says my informant, so I hope we shall hear of more wonders. Did you read the article in the ‘Westminster’? The subject se prête au ridicule, but ridicule is not disproof. The Empress Eugénie protects his little sister, and has her educated in Paris.