CHAPTER VI

1849-1851

There is here a pause of two months in the correspondence of Mrs.

Browning, during which the happiness of her already happy life was

crowned by the birth, on March 9, 1849, of her son, Robert Wiedeman

Barrett Browning.[187] How great a part this child henceforward played

in her life will be shown abundantly by the letters that follow. Some

passages referring to the child's growth, progress, and performances

have been omitted, partly in the necessary reduction of the bulk of

the correspondence, and partly because too much of one subject may

weary the reader. But enough has been left to show that, in the case

of Mrs. Browning (and of her husband likewise), the parent was by no

means lost in the poet. There is little in what she says which might

not equally be said, and is in substance said, by hundreds of happy

mothers in every age; but it would be a suppression of one essential

part of her nature, and an injury to the pleasant picture which the

whole life of this poet pair presents, if her enthusiasms over her

child were omitted or seriously curtailed. Biographers are fond of

elaborating the details in which the lives of poets have not conformed

to the standard of the moral virtues; let us at least recognise

that, in the case of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the moral and the

intellectual virtues flourished side by side, each contributing its

share to the completeness of the whole character.

[Footnote 187: Wiedeman was the maiden name of Mr. Browning's mother,

her father having been a German who settled in Scotland and married a

Scotch wife.]

The joy of this firstborn's birth was, however, very quickly dimmed

by the news of the death, only a few days later, of Mr. Browning's

mother, to whom he was devotedly attached. Her death was very sudden,

and the shock of the reaction completely prostrated him for a long

time. The following letters from Mrs. Browning tell how he felt this

loss.

_To Miss Browning_

April i, 1849 [postmark].

I do indeed from the bottom of my heart pity you and grieve with you,

my dearest Sarianna. I may grieve with you as well as for you; for I

too have lost. Believe that, though I never saw her face; I loved that

pure and tender spirit (tender to me even at this distance), and that

she will be dear and sacred to me to the end of my own life.

Dearest Sarianna, I thank you for your consideration and admirable

self-control in writing those letters. I do thank and bless you.

If the news had come unbroken by such precaution to my poor darling

Robert, it would have nearly killed him, I think. As it is, he has

been able to cry from the first, and I am able to tell you that though

dreadfully affected, of course, for you know his passionate love for

her, he is better and calmer now--much better. He and I dwell on

the hope that you and your dear father will come to us at once.

Come--dear, dear Sarianna--I will at least love you as you

deserve--you and him--if I can do no more. If you would comfort

Robert, come.

No day has passed since our marriage that he has not fondly talked of

her. I know how deep in his dear heart her memory lies. God comfort

you, my dearest Sarianna. The blessing of blessed duties heroically

fulfilled _must_ be With you. May the blessing of the Blessed in

heaven be added to the rest!

Robert stops me. My dear love to your father.

Your ever attached sister, BA.

_To Miss Browning_

[April 1849.]

You will have comfort in hearing, my dearest Sarianna, that Robert

is better on the whole than when I wrote last, though still very much

depressed. I wish I could get him to go somewhere or do something--at

any rate God's comforts are falling like dew on all this affliction,

and must in time make it look a green memory to you both. Continually

he thinks of you and of his father--believe how continually and

tenderly he thinks of you. Dearest Sarianna, I feel so in the quick

of my heart how you must feel, that I scarcely have courage to entreat

you to go out and take the necessary air and exercise, and yet that

is a duty, clear as other duties, and to be discharged like others

by you, as fully, and with as little shrinking of the will. If your

health should suffer, what grief upon grief to those who grieve

already! And besides, we who have to live are not to lie down under

the burden. There will be time enough for lying down presently, very

soon; and in the meanwhile there is plenty of God's work to do with

the body and with the soul, and we have to do it as cheerfully as

we can. Dearest Sarianna, you can look behind and before, on blessed

memories and holy hopes--love is as full for you as ever in the old

relation, even though her life in the world is cut off. There is no

drop of bitterness in all this flood of sorrow. In the midst of the

great anguish which God has given, you have to thank Him for some

blessing with every pang as it comes. Never was a more beautiful,

serene, assuring death than this we are all in tears for--for, believe

me, my very dear sister, I have mourned with you, knowing what we all

have lost, I who never saw her nor shall see her until a few years

shall bring us all together to the place where none mourn nor are

parted. Sarianna, will it not be possible, do you think, for you and

your father to come here, if only for a few months? Then you might

decide on the future upon more knowledge than you have now. It

would be comfort and joy to Robert and me if we could all of us live

together henceforward. Think what you would like, and how you would

best like it. Your living on _even through this summer at that house_,

I, who have well known the agony of such bindings to the rack, do

protest against. Dearest Sarianna, it is not good or right either

for you or for your dear father. For Robert to go back to that house

unless it were to do one of you some good, think how it would be with

_him_! Tell us now (for he yearns towards you--we both do), what is

the best way of bringing us all together, so as to do every one of us

some good? If Florence is too far off, is there any other place where

we could meet and arrange for the future? Could not your dear father's

leave of absence be extended this summer, out of consideration of what

has happened, and would he not be so enabled to travel with you and

meet us _somewhere_? We will do anything. For my part, I am full of

anxiety; and for Robert, you may guess what his is, you who know him.

Very bitter has it been to me to have interposed unconsciously as

I have done and deprived him of her last words and kisses--very

bitter--and nothing could be so consolatory to me as to give him back

to _you_ at least. So think for me, dearest Sarianna--think for your

father and yourself, think for Robert--and remember that Robert and

I will do anything which shall appear possible to you. May God bless

you, both of you! Give my true love to your father. Feeling for you

and with you always and most tenderly, I am your affectionate sister,

BA.

_To Miss Mitford_

Florence: April 30, 1849.

I am writing to you, _at last_, you will say, ever dearest Miss

Mitford; but, except once to Wimpole Street, this is the first packet

of letters which goes from me since my confinement. You will have

heard how our joy turned suddenly into deep sorrow by the death of my

husband's mother. An unsuspected disease (ossification of the heart)

terminated in a fatal way, and she lay in the insensibility precursive

of the grave's, when the letter, written in such gladness by my poor

husband, and announcing the birth of his child, reached her address.

'It would have made her heart bound,' said her daughter to us. Poor,

tender heart, the last throb was too near. The medical men would not

allow the news to be communicated. The next joy she felt was to be in

heaven itself. My husband has been in the deepest anguish, and indeed,

except for the courageous consideration of his sister, who wrote two

letters of preparation saying that 'she was not well,' and she 'was

very ill,' when in fact all was over, I am frightened to think what

the result would have been to him. He has loved his mother as such

passionate natures only can love, and I never saw a man so bowed down

in an extremity of sorrow--never. Even now the depression is great,

and sometimes when I leave him alone a little and return to the room,

I find him in tears. I do earnestly wish to change the scene and air;

but where to go? England looks terrible now. He says it would break

his heart to see his mother's roses over the wall, and the place

where she used to lay her scissors and gloves. Which I understand so

thoroughly that I can't say, 'Let us go to England.' We must wait and

see what his father and sister will choose to do or choose us to

do, for of course a duty plainly seen would draw us anywhere. My own

dearest sisters will be painfully disappointed by any change of plan,

only they are too good and kind not to understand the difficulty, not

to see the motive. So do _you_, I am certain. It has been very very

painful altogether, this drawing together of life and death. Robert

was too enraptured at my safety, and with his little son, and the

sudden reaction was terrible. You see how natural that was. How kind

of you to write that note to him full of affectionate expressions

towards me! Thank you, dearest friend. He had begged my sisters to let

you know of my welfare, and I hope they did; and now it is my turn

to know of _you_, and so I do entreat you not to delay, but to let me

hear exactly how you are and what your plans are for the summer. Do

you think of Paris seriously? Am I not a sceptic about your voyages

round the world? It's about the only thing that I don't thoroughly

believe you _can_ do. But (not to be impertinent) I want to hear so

much! I want first and chiefly to hear of your health; and occupations

next, and next your plans for the summer. Louis Napoleon is

astonishing the world, you see, by his firmness and courage;

and though really I don't make out the aim and end of his French

republicans in going to Rome to extinguish the republic there, I wait

before I swear at him for it till my information becomes fuller. If

they have at Rome such a republic as we have had in Florence, without

a public, imposed by a few bawlers and brawlers on many mutes and

cowards, why, the sooner it goes to pieces the better, of course.

Probably the French Government acts upon information. In any case, if

the Romans are in earnest they may resist eight thousand men.[1] We

shall see. My _faith_ in every species of Italian is, however, nearly

tired out. I don't believe they are men at all, much less heroes

and patriots. Since I wrote last to you, I think we have had two

revolutions here at Florence, Grand Duke out, Grand Duke in.[188] The

bells in the church opposite rang for both. They first planted a tree

of liberty close to our door, and, then they pulled it down. The same

tune, sung under the windows, did for 'Viva la republica!' and 'Viva

Leopoldo!' The genuine popular feeling is certainly for the Grand Duke

('O, santissima madre di Dio!' said our nurse, clasping her hands,

'how the people do love him!'); only nobody would run the risk of a

pin's prick to save the ducal throne. If the Leghornese, who put up

Guerazzi on its ruins, had not refused to pay at certain Florentine

cafés, we shouldn't have had revolution the second, and all this

shooting in the street! Dr. Harding, who was coming to see me, had

time to get behind a stable door, just before there was a fall against

it of four shot corpses; and Robert barely managed to get home

across the bridges. He had been out walking in the city, apprehending

nothing, when the storm gathered and broke. Sad and humiliating it all

has been, and the author of 'Vanity Fair' might turn it to better uses

for a chapter. By the way, we have just been reading 'Vanity Fair.'

Very clever, very effective, but cruel to human nature. A painful

book, and not the pain that purifies and exalts. Partial truths after

all, and those not wholesome. But I certainly had no idea that

Mr. Thackeray had intellectual force for such a book; the power is

considerable. For Balzac, Balzac may have gone out of the world as

far as we are concerned. Isn't it hard on us? exiles from Balzac! The

bookseller here, having despaired of the republic and the Grand Duchy

both, I suppose, and taking for granted on the whole that the world

must be coming shortly to an end, doesn't give us the sign of a new

book. We ought to, be done with such vanities. There! and almost I

have done my paper without a single word to you of the _baby_! Ah, you

won't believe that I forgot him even if I pretend, so I won't. He is

a lovely, fat, strong child, with double chins and rosy cheeks, and

a great wide chest, undeniable lungs, I can assure you. Dr. Harding

called him 'a robust child' the other day, and 'a more beautiful child

he never saw.' I never saw a child half as beautiful, for my part....

Dear Mr. Chorley has written the kindest letter to my husband. I much

regard him indeed. May God bless you. Let me ever be (with Robert's

thanks and warm remembrance),

Your most affectionate

BA.

Flush's jealousy of the baby would amuse you. For a whole fortnight

he fell into deep melancholy and was proof against all attentions

lavished on him. Now he begins to be consoled a little and even

condescends to patronise the cradle.

Footnote 1: As they did until the 8,000 had been increased to 35,000.]

[Footnote 188: A revolution, fomented chiefly by the Leghornese,

expelled the Grand Duke in March 1849; about seven weeks later a

counter-revolution, chiefly by the peasantry, recalled him.]

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence:] May 2, 1849.

Robert gives me this blank, and three minutes to write across it.

Thank you, my very dear Sarianna, for all your kindness and affection.

I understand what I have lost. I know the worth of a tenderness such

as you speak of, and I feel that for the sake of my love for Robert

she was ready out of the fullness of her heart to love _me_ also. It

has been bitter to me that I have unconsciously deprived him of the

personal face-to-face shining out of her angelic nature for more than

two years, but she has forgiven me, and we shall all meet, when it

pleases God, before His throne. In the meanwhile, my dearest Sarianna,

we are thinking much of you, and neither of us can bear the thought of

your living on where you are. If you could imagine the relief it would

be to us--to me as well as to Robert--to be told frankly what we ought

to do, where we ought to go, to please you best--you and your dearest

father--you would think the whole matter over and use plain words in

the speaking of it. Robert naturally shrinks from the idea of going to

New Cross under the circumstances of dreary change, and for his sake

England has grown suddenly to me a land of clouds. Still, to see you

and his father, and to be some little comfort to you both, would be

the best consolation to him, I am very sure; and so, dearest Sarianna,

think of us and speak to us. Could not your father get a long

vacation? Could we not meet somewhere? Think how we best may comfort

ourselves by comforting you. Never think of us, Sarianna, as apart

from you--as if our interest or our pleasure _could_ be apart from

yours. The child is so like Robert that I can believe in the other

likeness, and may the inner nature indeed, as you say, be after

that pure image! He is so fat and rosy and strong that almost I am

sceptical of his being my child. I suppose he is, after all. May God

bless you, both of you. I am ashamed to send all these letters, but

Robert makes me. He is better, but still much depressed sometimes, and

over your letters he drops heavy tears. Then he treasures them up

and reads them again and again. Better, however, on the whole, he

is certainly. Poor little babe, who was too much rejoiced over at

_first_, fell away by a most natural recoil (even _I_ felt it to be

_most natural_) from all that triumph, but Robert is still very fond

of him, and goes to see him bathed every morning, and walks up and

down on the terrace with him in his arms. If your dear father can toss

and rock babies as Robert can, he will be a nurse in great favour.

Dearest Sarianna, take care of yourself, and do walk out. No grief in

the world was ever freer from the corroding drop of bitterness--was

ever sweeter, holier, and more hopeful than this of yours must be.

Love is for you on both sides of the grave, and the blossoms of love

meet over it. May God's love, too, bless you!

Your ever affectionate sister,

BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Florence: May 14, [1849].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--At last I come to thank you for all your

kindness, all your goodness, all your sympathy for both of us. Robert

would have written to you in the first instance (for we _both_ thought

of you) if we had not agreed that you would hear as quickly from

Henrietta, we not knowing your direct address. Also your welcome

little note should have had an immediate acknowledgment from him if he

had not been so depressed at that time that I was glad to ask him to

wait till I should be ready to write myself. In fact, he has suffered

most acutely from the affliction you have since of course heard of;

and just because he was _too happy_ when the child was born, the pain

was overwhelming afterwards. That is easy to understand, I think.

While he was full of joy for the child, his mother was dying at a

distance, and the very thought of accepting that new affection for

the old became a thing to recoil from--do you not see? So far from

suffering less through the particular combination of circumstances,

as some people seemed to fancy he would, he suffered much more, I

am certain, and very naturally. Even now he is looking very

unwell--thinner and paler than usual, and his spirits, which used to

be so good, have not rallied. I long to get him away from Florence

somewhere--_where_, I can't fix my wishes; our English plans seem flat

on the ground for the present, _that_ is one sad certainty. My dearest

sisters will be very grieved if we don't go to England, and yet how

can I even try to persuade my husband back into the scene of old

associations where he would feel so much pain? Do I not know what I

myself should suffer in some places? And he loved his mother with all

his power of loving, which is deeper and more passionate than love is

with common men. She hearts of men are generally strong in proportion

to their heads. Well, I am not to send you such a dull letter though,

after waiting so long, and after receiving so much to speak thankfully

of. My child you never would believe to be _my child_, from the

evidence of his immense cheeks and chins--for pray don't suppose that

he has only one chin. People call him a lovely child, and if _I_ were

to call him the same it wouldn't be very extraordinary, only I assure

you 'a robust child' I may tell you that he is with a sufficient

modesty, and also that Wilson says he is universally admired in

various tongues when she and the nurse go out with him to the

Cascine--'What a beautiful baby!' and 'Che bel bambino!' He has had

a very stormy entrance upon life, poor little fellow; and when he was

just three days old, a grand festa round the liberty tree planted at

our door, attended with military music, civic dancing and singing, and

the firing of cannons and guns from morning to night, made him start

in his cradle, and threw my careful nurse into paroxysms of devotion

before the 'Vergine Santissima' that I mightn't have a fever in

consequence. Since then the tree of liberty has come down with a crash

and we have had another festa as noisy on that occasion. Revolution

and counter-revolution, Guerazzi[189] and Leopold, sacking of Florence

and entrance of the Austrian army--we live through everything, you

see, and baby grows fat indiscriminately. For my part, I am altogether

_blasée_ about revolutions and invasions. Don't think it want of

feeling in me, or want of sympathy with 'the people,' but really I

can't help a certain political latitudinarianism from creeping over me

in relation to this Tuscany. You ought to be here to understand what I

mean and how I think. Oh heavens! how ignoble it all has been and

is! A revolution made by boys and _vivas_, and unmade by boys and

_vivas_--no, there was blood shed in the unmaking--some horror and

terror, but not as much patriotism and truth as could lift up the

blood from the kennel. The counter-revolution was strictly _counter_,

observe. I mean, that if the Leghornese troops here bad paid their

debts at the Florentine coffee houses, the Florentines would have let

their beloved Grand Duke stay on at Gaeta to the end of the world. The

Grand Duke, too, whose part I have been taking hitherto (because he

did seem to me a good man, more sinned against than sinning)--the

Grand Duke I give up from henceforth, seeing that he has done this

base thing of taking again his Austrian titles in his proclamations

coincidently with the approach of the Austrians. Of Rome, knowing

nothing, I don't like to speak. If a republic _in earnest_ is

established there, Louis Napoleon should not try to set his foot on

it. Dearest Mrs. Martin, how you mistake me about France, and how too

lightly I must have spoken. If you knew how I admire the French as

a nation! Robert always calls them '_my beloved French_.' Their

very faults appear to me to arise from an excess of ideality land

aspiration; but I was vexed rather at their selection of Louis

Napoleon--a selection since justified by the firmness and apparent

integrity of the man. His reputation in England, you will admit, did

not promise the conclusion. Will he be emperor, do you imagine? And

shall I ever have done talking politics? I would far rather talk of

_you_, after all. Henrietta tells me of your looking well, but of your

not being strong yet. Now do, _for once_, have a fit of egotism and

tell me a little about yourself.... Surely I ought especially to thank

you, dearest kind friend, for your goodness in writing to--, of which

Henrietta very properly told me. I never shall forget this and other

proofs of your affection for me, and shall remember them with warm

gratitude always. As to--, I have held out both [my] hands, and my

husband's hands in mine, again and again to him; he cannot possibly,

in the secret place of his heart, expect more from either of us. My

husband would have written to him in the first place, but for the

obstacles raised by himself and others, and now what _could_ Robert

write and say except the bare repetition of what I have said over and

over for him and myself? It is exactly an excuse--not more and not

less. Just before I was ill I sent my last messages, because, with

certain hazards before me, my heart turned to them naturally. I might

as well have turned to a rock.--has been by far the kindest, and has

written to me two or three little notes, and one since the birth of

our child. I love them all far too well to be proud, and my husband

loves me too well not to wish to be friends with every one of them; we

have neither of us any stupid feeling about 'keeping up our dignity.'

Yes, I had a letter from--some time ago, in which something was said

of Robert's being careless of reconciliation. I answered it most

explicitly and affectionately, with every possible assurance from

Robert, and offering them from himself the affection of a brother. Not

a word in answer! To my poor dearest papa I have written very lately,

and as my letter has not, after a week, been sent back, I catch at

the hope of his being moved a little. If he neither sends it back nor

replies severely, I shall take courage to write to him again after a

while. It will be an immense gain to get him only to read my letters.

My father and my brothers hold quite different positions, of

course, and though he has acted sternly towards me, I, knowing his

peculiarities, do not feel embittered and astonished and disappointed

as in the other cases. Absolutely happy my marriage has been--never

could there be a happier marriage (as there are no marriages in

heaven); but dear Henrietta is quite wrong in fancying, or seeming to

fancy, that this quarrel with my family has given or gives me slight

pain. Old affections are not so easily trodden out of me, indeed, and

while I live unreconciled to them, there must be a void and drawback.

Do write to me and tell me of both of you, my very dear friends. Don't

fancy that we are not anxious for brave Venice and Sicily, and that we

don't hate this Austrian invasion. But Tuscany has acted a vile part

altogether--_so_ vile, that I am sceptical about the Romans. We expect

daily the Austrians in Florence, and have made up our minds to be

very kind. May God bless you! Do write, and mention your health

particularly, as I am anxious about it. I am quite well myself, and,

as ever,

Your affectionate

BA.

Don't you both like Macaulay's History? We are delighted just now with

it.

[Footnote 189: Chief administrator of the Republic of Tuscany during

the short absence of the Grand Duke Leopold.]

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence: about June 1849.]

I must say to my dearest Sarianna how delighted we are at the thought

of seeing her in Florence. I wish it had been before the autumn, but

since autumn is decided for we must be content to reap our golden

harvest at the time for such things. Certainly the summer heat of

Florence is terrible enough--only we should have carried you with us

into the shade somewhere to the sea or to the mountains--and Robert

has, of course, told you of our Spezzia plan. The 'fatling of the

flock' has been sheared closely of his long petticoats. Did he tell

you that? And you can't think how funny the little creature looks

without his train, his wise baby face appearing to approve of the

whole arrangement. He talks to himself now and smiles at everybody,

and admired my roses so much the other day that he wanted to eat

them; having a sublime transcendental notion about the mouth being

the receptacle of all beauty and glory in this world. Tell your dear

father that certainly he _is_ a 'sweet baby,' there's no denying it.

We lay him down on the floor to let him kick at ease, and he makes

violent efforts to get up by himself, and Wilson declares that the

least encouragement would set him walking. Robert's nursing does

not mend his spirits much. I shall be very glad to get him away from

Florence; he has suffered too much here to rally as I long to see him

do, because, dearest Sarianna, we have to live after all; and to live

rightly we must turn our faces forward and press forward and not look

backward morbidly for the footsteps in the dust of those beloved ones

who travelled with us but yesterday. They themselves are not

behind but before, and we carry with us our tenderness living and

undiminished towards them, to be completed when the round of this life

is complete for us also. Dearest Sarianna, why do I say such things,

but because I have known what grief is? Oh, and how I could have

compounded with you, grief for grief, mine for yours, for _I_ had no

last words nor gestures, Sarianna. God keep you from such a helpless

bitter agony as mine then was. Dear Sarianna, you will think of us

and of Florence, my dear sister, and remember how you have made us

a promise and have to keep it. May God bless you and comfort you.

We think of you and love you continually, and I am always your most

affectionate

BA.

In July the move from Florence, of which Mrs. Browning speaks in the

above letter, was effected, the place ultimately chosen for escape

from the summer heat in the valley of the Arno being the Bagni

di Lucca. Here three months were spent, as the following letters

describe. By this time the struggle for Italian liberty had ended in

failure everywhere. The battle of Novara, on March 23, had prostrated

Piedmont, and caused the abdication of its king, Charles Albert. The

Tuscan Republic had come and gone, and the Grand Duke had re-entered

his capital under the protection of Austrian bayonets. Sicily had been

reduced to subjection to the Bourbons of Naples. On July 2 the French

entered Rome, bringing back the Pope cured of his leanings to reform

and constitutional government; on the 24th, Venice, after an heroic

resistance, capitulated to the Austrians. The struggle was over for

the time; the longing for liberty becomes, of necessity, silent; and

we hear little, for a space, of Italian politics. For the moment it

might seem justifiable to despair of the republic.

_To Miss Mitford_

Bagni di Lucca, Toscana: [about July 1849].

At last, you will say, dearest friend. The truth is, I have not been

forgetting you (how far from that!) but wandering in search of cool

air and a cool bough among all the olive trees to build our summer

nest on. My husband has been suffering beyond what one could shut

one's eyes to in consequence of the great mental shock of last

March--loss of appetite, loss of sleep, looks quite worn and altered.

His spirits never rallied except with an effort, and every letter from

New Cross threw him back into deep depressions. I was very anxious,

and feared much that the end of it all (the intense heat of Florence

assisting) would be a nervous fever or something similar. And I had

the greatest difficulty in persuading him to leave Florence for a

month or two--he who generally delights so in travelling, had no

mind for change or movement. I had to say and swear that baby and I

couldn't bear the heat, and that we must and would go away. _Ce

que femme veut_, if the latter is at all reasonable, or the former

persevering. At last I gained the victory. It was agreed that we two

should go on an exploring journey to find out where we could have

most shadow at least expense; and we left our child with his nurse and

Wilson while we were absent. We went along the coast to Spezzia, saw

Carrara with the white marble mountains, passed through the olive

forests and the vineyards, avenues of acacia trees, chestnut woods,

glorious surprises of most exquisite scenery. I say olive forests

advisedly; the olive grows like a forest tree in those regions,

shading the ground with tents of silvery network. The olive near

Florence is but a shrub in comparison, and I have learnt to despise

a little, too, the Florentine vine, which does not swing such

portcullises of massive dewy green from one tree to another as along

the whole road where we travelled. Beautiful, indeed, it was. Spezzia

wheels the blue sea into the arms of the wooded mountains, and we had

a glance at Shelley's house at Lerici. It was melancholy to me, of

course. I was not sorry that the lodgings we inquired about were

far above our means. We returned on our steps (after two days in the

dirtiest of possible inns), saw Seravezza, a village in the mountains,

where rock, river, and wood enticed us to stay, and the inhabitants

drove us off by their unreasonable prices. It is curious, but just in

proportion to the want of civilisation the prices rise in Italy. If

you haven't cups and saucers you are made to pay for plate. Well, so

finding no rest for the sole of our feet, I persuaded Robert to go to

the Baths of Lucca, only to see them. We were to proceed afterwards

to San Marcello or some safer wilderness. We had both of us, but he

chiefly, the strongest prejudice against these Baths of Lucca, taking

them for a sort of wasp's nest of scandal and gaming, and expecting to

find everything trodden flat by the Continental English; yet I wanted

to see the place, because it is a place to see after all. So we came,

and were so charmed by the exquisite beauty of the scenery, by the

coolness of the climate and the absence of our countrymen, political

troubles serving admirably our private requirements, that we made an

offer for rooms on the spot, and returned to Florence for baby and the

rest of our establishment without further delay. Here we are, then; we

have been here more than a fortnight. We have taken an apartment for

the season--four months--paying twelve pounds for the whole term,

and hoping to be able to stay till the end of October. The living is

cheaper than even at Florence, so that there has been no extravagance

in coming here. In fact, Florence is scarcely tenable during the

summer from the excessive heat by day and night, even if there were no

particular motive for leaving it. We have taken a sort of eagle's nest

in this place, the highest house of the highest of the three villages

which are called the Bagni di Lucca, and which lie at the heart of a

hundred mountains sung to continually by a rushing mountain stream.

The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear.

Austrian drums and carriage wheels cannot vex us; God be thanked for

it; the silence is full of joy and consolation. I think my husband's

spirits are better already and his appetite improved. Certainly little

babe's great cheeks are growing rosier and rosier. He is out all day

when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it that he is

prettier than the whole population of babies here. He fixes his

blue eyes on everybody and smiles universal benevolence, rather too

indiscriminately it might be if it were not for Flush. But certainly,

on the whole he prefers Flush. He pulls his ears and rides on him, and

Flush, though his dignity does not approve of being used as a pony,

only protests by turning his head round to kiss the little bare

dimpled feet. A merrier, sweeter-tempered child there can't be than

our baby, and people wonder at his being so forward at four months

old and think there must be a mistake in his age. He is so strong that

when I put out two fingers and he has seized them in his fists he can

draw himself up on his feet, but we discourage this forwardness, which

is not desirable, say the learned. Children of friends of mine at ten

months and a year can't do so much. Is it not curious that _my_ child

should be remarkable for strength and fatness? He has a beaming,

thinking little face, too; oh, I wish you could see it. Then my

own strength has wonderfully improved, just as my medical friends

prophesied; and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb

the hills with Robert and help him to lose himself in the forests.

I have been growing stronger and stronger, and where it is to stop I

can't tell, really; I can do as much, or more, now than at any point

of my life since I arrived at woman's estate. The air of this place

seems to penetrate the heart and not the lungs only; it draws you,

raises you, excites you. Mountain air without its keenness, sheathed

in Italian sunshine, think what _that_ must be! And the beauty and

the solitude--for with a few paces we get free of the habitations

of men--all is delightful to me. What is peculiarly beautiful and

wonderful is the variety of the shapes of the mountains. They are a

multitude, and yet there is no likeness. None, except where the golden

mist comes and transfigures them into one glory. For the rest, the

mountain there wrapt in the chestnut forest is not like that bare peak

which tilts against the sky, nor like that serpent twine of another

which seems to move and coil in the moving coiling shadow. Oh, I wish

you were here. You would enjoy the shade of the chestnut trees, and

the sound of the waterfalls, and at nights seem to be living among the

stars; the fireflies are so thick, you would like that too. We have

subscribed to a French library where there are scarcely any new books.

I have read Bernard's 'Gentilhomme Campagnard' (see how _arriérés_ we

are in French literature!), and thought it the dullest and worst of

his books. I wish I could see the 'Memoirs of Louis Napoleon,' but

there is no chance of such good fortune. All this egotism has been

written with a heart full of thoughts of you and anxieties for you.

Do write to me directly and say first how your precious health is, and

then that you have ceased to suffer pain for your friends.... But your

dear self chiefly--how are you, my dearest Miss Mitford? I do long so

for good news of you. On our arrival here Mr. Lever called on us. A

most cordial vivacious manner, a glowing countenance, with the animal

spirits somewhat predominant over the intellect, yet the intellect by

no means in default; you can't help being surprised into being pleased

with him, whatever your previous inclination may be. Natural too, and

a _gentleman_ past mistake. His eldest daughter is nearly grown up,

and his youngest six months old. He has children of every sort of

intermediate age almost, but he himself is young enough still. Not the

slightest Irish accent. He seems to have spent nearly his whole life

on the Continent and by no means to be tired of it. Ah, dearest Miss

Mitford, hearts feel differently, adjust themselves differently before

the prick of sorrow, and I confess I agree with Robert. There are

places stained with the blood of my heart for ever, and where I could

not bear to stand again. If duty called him to New Cross it would be

otherwise, but his sister is rather inclined to come to us, I think,

for a few weeks in the autumn perhaps. Only these are scarcely times

for plans concerning foreign travel. It is something to talk of. It

has been a great disappointment to me the not going to England this

year, but I could not run the risk of the bitter pain to him. May God

bless you from all pain! Love me and write to me, who am ever and ever

your affectionate E.B.B.

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Bagni di Lucca: August 11, 1849.

I thank you, dearest friend, for your most affectionate and welcome

letter would seem to come by instinct, and we have thanked you in our

thoughts long before this moment, when I begin at last to write some

of them. Do believe that to value your affection and to love you back

again are parts of our life, and that it must be always delightful to

us to read in your handwriting or to hear in your voice that we are

not exiled from your life. Give us such an assurance whenever you can.

Shall we not have it face to face at Florence, when the booksellers

let you go? And meantime there is the post; do write to us.... Did

you ever see this place, I wonder? The coolness, the charm of the

mountains, whose very heart you seem to hear beating in the rush of

the little river, the green silence of the chestnut forests, and the

seclusion which anyone may make for himself by keeping clear of

the valley-villages; all these things drew us. We took a delightful

apartment over the heads of the whole world in the highest house

of the Bagni Caldi, where only the donkeys and the _portantini_ can

penetrate, and where we sit at the open windows and hear nothing but

the cicale. Not a mosquito! think of that! The thermometer ranges

from sixty-eight to seventy-four, but the seventy-four has been a

rare excess: the nights, mornings, and evenings are exquisitely cool.

Robert and I go out and lose ourselves in the woods and mountains, and

sit by the waterfalls on the starry and moonlit nights, and neither

by night nor day have the fear of picnics before our eyes. We were

observing the other day that we never met anybody except a monk girt

with a rope, now and then, or a barefooted peasant. The sight of a

pink parasol never startles us into unpleasant theories of comparative

anatomy. One cause, perhaps, may be that on account of political

matters it is a delightfully 'bad season,' but, also, we are too

high for the ordinary walkers, who keep to the valley and the flatter

roads. Robert is better, looking better, and in more healthy spirits;

and we are both enjoying this great sea of mountains and our way of

life here altogether. Of course, we remembered to go back to Florence

for baby and the rest of our little establishment, and we mean to

stay as long as we can, perhaps to the end of October. Baby is in

the triumph of health and full-blown roses, and as he does not hide

himself in the woods like his ancestors, but smiles at everybody, he

is the most popular of possible babies.... We had him baptised

before we left Florence, without godfathers and godmothers, in the

simplicities of the French Lutheran Church. I gave him your kiss as a

precious promise that you would love him one day like a true dear

Aunt Nina; and I promise you on my part that he shall be taught

to understand both the happiness and the honour of it. Robert is

expecting a visit from his sister in the course of this autumn. She

has suffered much, and the change will be good for her, even if, as

she says, she can stay with us only a few weeks. With her we shall

have your book, to be disinherited of which so long has been hard on

us. Robert's own we have not seen yet. It must be satisfactory to you

to have had such a clear triumph after all the dust and toil of the

way. And now tell me, won't it be _necessary_ for you to come again to

Italy for what remains to be done? Poor Florence is quiet enough under

the heel of Austria, and Leopold 'l'intrepido,' as he was happily

called by a poet of Viareggio in a welcoming burst of inspiration,

sits undisturbed at the Pitti. I despair of the republic in Italy, or

rather of Italy altogether. The instructed are not patriotic, and the

patriots are not instructed. We want not only a _man_, but men, and we

must throw, I fear, the bones of their race behind us before the true

deliverers can spring up. Still, it is not all over; there will be

deliverance presently, but it will not be now. We are full of painful

sympathy for poor Venice. There! why write more about politics? It

makes us sick enough to think of Austrians in our Florence without

writing the thought out into greater expansion. Only don't let the

'Times' newspaper persuade you that there is no stepping with impunity

out of England. ... We have 'lectures on Shakespeare' just now by a

Mr. Stuart, who is enlightening the English barbarians at the

lower village, and quoting Mrs. Jameson to make his discourse more

brilliant. We like to hear 'Mrs. Jameson observes.' Give our love to

dear Gerardine. I am anxious for her happiness and yours involved in

it. Love and remember us, dearest friend.

Your E.B.B., or rather, BA.

The following note is added in Mr. Browning's handwriting:

Dear Aunt Nina,--Will there be three years before I see you again? And

Geddie; does she not come to Italy? When we passed through Pisa the

other day, we went to your old inn in love of you, and got your very

room to dine in (the landlord is dead and gone, as is Peveruda--of the

other house, you remember). There were the old vile prints, the old

look-out into the garden, with its orange trees and painted sentinel

watching them. Ba must have told you about our babe, and the little

else there is to tell--that is, for _her_ to tell, for she is not

likely to encroach upon _my_ story which I _could_ tell of her

entirely angel nature, as divine a heart as God ever made; I know more

of her every day; I, who thought I knew something of her five years

ago! I think I know you, too, so I love you and am

Ever yours and dear Geddie's

R.B.

_To Miss Mitford_

Bagni di Lucca: August 31, 1849.

I told Mr. Lever what you thought of him, dearest friend, and then

he said, all in a glow and animation, that you were not only his

own delight but the delight of his children, which is affection by

refraction, isn't it? Quite gratified he seemed by the hold of your

good opinion. Not only is he the notability _par excellence_ of these

Baths of Lucca, where he has lived a whole year, during the snows upon

the mountains, but he presides over the weekly balls at the casino

where the English 'do congregate' (all except Robert and me), and is

said to be the light of the flambeaux and the spring of the dancers.

There is a general desolation when he _will_ retire to play whist.

In addition to which he really seems to be loving and loveable in his

family. You always see him with his children and his wife; he drives

her and her baby up and down along the only carriageable road of

Lucca: so set down that piece of domestic life on the bright side in

the broad charge against married authors; now do. I believe he is to

return to Florence this winter with his family, having had enough of

the mountains. Have you read 'Roland Cashel,' isn't _that_ the name of

his last novel? The 'Athenaeum' said of it that it was '_new ground_,'

and praised it. I hear that he gets a hundred pounds for each monthly

number. Oh, how glad I was to have your letter, written in such pain,

read in such pleasure! It was only fair to tell me in the last lines

that the face-ache was better, to keep off a fit of remorse. I do

hope that Mr. May is not right about neuralgia, because that is more

difficult to cure than pain which arises from the teeth. Tell me how

you are in all ways. I look into your letters eagerly for news of your

health, then of your spirits, which are a part of health. The cholera

makes me very frightened for my dearest people in London, and silence,

the last longer than usual, ploughs up my days and nights into long

furrows. The disease rages in the neighbourhood of my husband's

family, and though Wimpole Street has been hitherto clear, who can

calculate on what may be? My head goes round to think of it. And papa,

who _will_ keep going into that horrible city! Even if my sisters and

brothers should go into the country as every year, he will be left, he

is no more movable than St. Paul's. My sister-in-law will probably not

come to us as soon as she intended, through a consideration for her

father, who ought not, Robert thinks, to stay alone in the midst of

such contingencies, so perhaps we may go to seek her ourselves in the

spring, if she does not seek us out before in Italy. God keep us all,

and near to one another. Love runs dreadful risks in the world. Yet

Love is, how much the best thing in the world? We have had a great

event in our house. Baby has cut a tooth.... His little happy laugh is

always ringing through the rooms. He is afraid of nobody or nothing

in the world, and was in fits of ecstasy at the tossing of the horse's

head, when he rode on Wilson's knee five or six miles the other day to

a village in the mountains--screaming for joy, she said. He is not six

months yet by a fortnight! His father loves him; passionately, and the

sentiment is reciprocated, I assure you. We have had the coolest

of Italian summers at these Baths of Lucca, the thermometer at the

hottest hour of the hottest day only at seventy-six, and generally at

sixty-eight or seventy. The nights invariably cool. Now the freshness

of the air is growing almost too fresh. I only hope we shall be able

(for the cold) to keep our intention of staying here till the end of

October, I have enjoyed it so entirely, and shall be so sorry to break

off this happy silence into the Austrian drums at poor Florence. And

then we want to see the vintage. Some grapes are ripe already, but

it is not vintage time. We have every kind of good fruit, great

water-melons, which with both arms I can scarcely carry, at twopence

halfpenny each, and figs and peaches cheap in proportion. And the

place agrees with Baby, and has done good to my husband's spirits,

though the only 'amusement' or distraction he has is looking at the

mountains and climbing among the woods with me. Yes, we have been

reading some French romances, 'Monte Cristo,' for instance, I for

the second time--but I have liked it, to read it with him. That Dumas

certainly has power; and to think of the scramble there was for his

brains a year or two ago in Paris! For a man to write so much and

so well together is a miracle. Do you mean that they have left off

writing--those French writers--or that they have tired you out with

writing that looks faint beside the rush of facts, as the range of

French politics show those? Has not Eugène Sue been illustrating

the passions? Somebody told me so. Do _you_ tell me how you like

the French President, and whether he will ever, in your mind, sit on

Napoleon's throne. It seems to me that he has given proof, as far

as the evidence goes, of prudence, integrity, and conscientious

patriotism; the situation is difficult, and he fills it honorably. The

Rome business has been miserably managed; this is the great blot on

the character of his government. But I, for my own part (my husband is

not so minded), do consider that the French motive has been good, the

intention pure, the occupation of Rome by the Austrians being imminent

and the French intervention the only means (with the exception of a

European war) of saving Rome from the hoof of the Absolutists. At the

same time if Pius IX. is the obstinate idiot he seems to be, good and

tenderhearted man as he surely is, and if the old abuses are to be

restored, why Austria might as well have done her own dirty work

and saved French hands from the disgrace of it. It makes us two very

angry. Robert especially is furious. We are not within reach of the

book you speak of, 'Portraits des Orateurs Français' oh, we might

nearly as well live on a desert island as far as modern books go. And

here, at Lucca, even Robert can't catch sight of even the 'Athenaeum.'

We have a two-day old 'Galignani,' and think ourselves royally off;

and then this little shop with French books in it, just a few, and the

'Gentilhomme Campagnard' the latest published. Yes, but somebody lent

us the first volume of 'Chateaubriand's Mémoires.' Have you seen it?

Curiously uninteresting, considering 'the man and the hour.' He writes

of his youth with a grey goose quill; the paper is all wrinkled.

And then he is not frank; he must have more to tell than he tells. I

looked for a more intense and sincere book _outre tombe_ certainly. I

am busy about my new edition, that is all at present, but some things

are written. Good of Mr. Chorley (he is _good_) to place you face

to face with Robert's books, and I am glad you like 'Colombe' and

'Luria.' Dear Mr. Kenyon's poems we have just received and are about

to read, and I am delighted at a glance to see that he has inserted

the 'Gipsy Carol,' which in MS. was such a favorite of mine. Really,

is he so rich? I am glad of it, if he is. Money could not be in more

generous and intelligent hands. Dearest Miss Mitford, you are only

just in being trustful of my affection for you. Never do I forget nor

cease to love you. Write and tell me of your dear self; how you are

_exactly_, and whether you have been at Three Mile Cross all the

summer. May God bless you. Robert's regards. Can you read? Love a

little your

Ever affectionate

E.B.B.

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Bagni di Lucca: October 1, [1849].

There seems to be a fatality about our letters, dearest friend, only

the worst fate comes to me! I lose, and you are _near_ losing! And I

should not have liked you to lose any least proof of my thinking of

you, lest a worst loss should happen to me as a consequence, even

worse than the loss of your letters; for then, perhaps, and by

degrees, you might leave off thinking of Robert and me, which, rich

as we are in this mortal world, I do assure you we could neither of

us afford.... We have had much quiet enjoyment here in spite of

everything, read some amusing books (Dumas and Sue--shake your head!),

and seen our child grow fuller of roses and understanding day by day.

Before he was six months old he would stretch out his hands and his

feet too, when bidden to do so, and his little mouth to kiss you. This

is said to be a miracle of forwardness among the learned. He knows

Robert and me quite well as 'Papa' and 'Mama,' and laughs for joy when

he meets us out of doors. Robert is very fond of him, and threw

me into a fit of hilarity the other day by springing away from his

newspaper in an indignation against me because he hit his head against

the floor rolling over and over. 'Oh, Ba, I really can't trust you!'

Down Robert was on the carpet in a moment, to protect the precious

head. He takes it to be made of Venetian glass, I am certain. We may

leave this place much sooner than the end of October, as everything

depends upon the coming in of the cold. It will be the end of October,

won't it, before Gerardine can reach Florence? I wish I knew. We have

made an excursion into the mountains, five miles deep, with all our

household, baby and all, on horseback and donkeyback, and people open

their eyes at our having performed such an exploit--I and the child.

Because it is five miles straight up the Duomo; you wonder how any

horse could keep its footing, the way is so precipitous, up the

exhausted torrent courses, and with a palm's breadth between you and

the headlong ravines. Such scenery. Such a congregation of mountains:

looking alive in the stormy light we saw them by. We dined with the

goats, and baby lay on my shawl rolling and laughing. He wasn't in the

least tired, not he! I won't say so much for myself. The Mr. Stuart

who lectured here on Shakespeare (I think I told you that) couldn't

get through a lecture without quoting you, and wound up by a

declaration that no English critic had done so much for the divine

poet as a woman--Mrs. Jameson. He appears to be a cultivated and

refined person, and especially versed in German criticism, and we mean

to _use_ his society a little when we return to Florence, where he

resides.... What am I to say about Robert's idleness and mine? I

scold him about it in a most anti-conjugal manner, but, you know, his

spirits and nerves have been shaken of late; we must have patience.

As for me, I am much better, and do something, really, now and then.

Wait, and you shall have us both on you; too soon, perhaps. May God

bless you. How are your friends? Lady Byron, Madame de Goethe. The

dreadful cholera has made us anxious about England.

Your ever affectionate

BA.

Mr. Browning adds the following note:

Dear Aunt Nina,--Ba will have told you everything, and how we wish

you and Geddie all manner of happiness. I hope we shall be in Florence

when she passes through it. The place is otherwise distasteful to me,

with the creeping curs and the floggers of the same. But the weather

is breaking up here, and I suppose we ought to go back soon. Shall

you indeed come to Italy next year? That will indeed be pleasant

to expect. We hope to go to England in the spring. What comes of

'hoping,' however, we [know] by this time.

Ever yours affectionately,

R.B.

_To Miss Mitford_

Bagni di Lucca: October 2, 1849.

Thank you, my dearest Miss Mitford: It is great comfort to know

that you are better, and that the cholera does not approach your

neighbourhood. My brothers and sisters have gone to Worthing for a

few weeks; and though my father (dearest Papa!) is not persuadeable, I

fear, into joining them, yet it is something to know that the horrible

pestilence is abating in London. Oh, it has made me so anxious: I

have caught with such a frightened haste at the newspaper to read

the 'returns,' leaving even such subjects as Rome and the President's

letter to quite the last, as if they were indifferent, or, at most,

bits of Mrs. Manning's murder. By the way and talking of murder, how

do you account for the crown of wickedness which England bears just

now over the heads of the nations, in murders of all kinds, by poison,

by pistol, by knife? In this poor Tuscany, which has not brains enough

to govern itself, as you observe, and as really I can't deny, there

have been two murders (properly so called) since we came, just three

years ago, one from jealousy and one from revenge (respectable motives

compared to the advantages of the burying societies!), and the horror

on all sides was great, as if the crime were some rare prodigy, which,

indeed, it is in this country. We have _no punishment of death_ here,

observe! The people are gentle, courteous, refined, and tenderhearted.

What Balzac would call 'femmelette.' All Tuscany is 'Lucien' himself.

The leaning to the artistic nature without the strength of genius

implies demoralisation in most cases, and it is this which makes

your 'good for nothing poets and poetesses,' about which I love so to

battle with you. Genius, I maintain always, you know, is a purifying

power and goes with high moral capacities. Well, and so you invite us

home to civilisation and 'the "Times" newspaper.' We _mean_ to go next

spring, and shall certainly do so unless something happen to catch us

and keep us in a net. But always something does happen: and I have so

often built upon seeing England, and been precipitated from the fourth

storey, that I have learnt to think warily now. I hunger and thirst

for the sight of some faces; must I not long, do you think, to see

your face? And then, I shall be properly proud to show my child

to those who loved me before him. He is beginning to understand

everything--chiefly in Italian, of course, as his nurse talks in her

sleep, I fancy, and can't be silent a second in the day--and when told

to 'dare un bacio a questo povero Flush,' he mixes his little face

with Flush's ears in a moment.... You would wonder to see Flush just

now. He suffered this summer from the climate somewhat as usual,

though not nearly as much as usual; and having been insulted oftener

than once by a supposition of 'mange,' Robert wouldn't bear it

any longer (he is as fond of Flush as I am), and, taking a pair of

scissors, clipped him all over into the likeness of a lion, much

to his advantage in both health and appearance. In the winter he is

always quite well; but the heat and the fleas together are too much

in the summer. The affection between baby and him is not equal, baby's

love being far the stronger. He, on the other hand, looks down upon

baby. What bad news you tell me of our French writers! What! Is it

possible that Dumas even is struck dumb by the revolution? His first

works are so incomparably the worst that I can't admit your theory of

the 'first runnings.' So of Balzac. So of Sue! George Sand is probably

writing 'banners' for the 'Reds,' which, considering the state of

parties in France, does not really give me a higher opinion of

her intelligence or virtue. Ledru Rollin's[190] _confidante_ and

councillor can't occupy an honorable position, and I am sorry, for

her sake and ours. When we go to Florence we must try to get the

'Portraits' and Lamartine's autobiography, which I still more long to

see. So, two women were in love with him, were they? That must be a

comfort to look back upon, now, when nobody will have him. I see by

extracts from his newspaper in Galignani that he can't be accused of

temporising with the Socialists any longer, whatever other charge may

be brought against him: and if, as he says, it was he who made the

French republic, he is by no means irreproachable, having made a bad

and false thing. The President's letter about Rome[191] has delighted

us. A letter worth writing and reading! We read it first in the

Italian papers (long before it was printed in Paris), and the amusing

thing was that where he speaks of the 'hostile influences' (of the

cardinals) they had misprinted it '_orribili_ influenze,' which must

have turned still colder the blood in the veins of Absolutist readers.

The misprint was not corrected until long after--more than a week, I

think. The Pope is just a pope; and, since you give George Sand

credit for having known it, I am the more vexed that Blackwood (under

'orribili influenze') did not publish the poem I wrote two years

ago,[192] in the full glare and burning of the Pope-enthusiasm, which

Robert and I never caught for a moment. Then, _I_ might have passed

a little for a prophetess as well as George Sand! Only, to confess a

truth, the same poem would have proved how fairly I was taken in by

our Tuscan Grand Duke. Oh, the traitor!

I saw the 'Ambarvalia'[193] reviewed somewhere--I fancy in the

'Spectator '--and was not much struck by the extracts. They may,

however, have been selected without much discrimination, and probably

were. I am very glad that you like the gipsy carol in dear Mr.

Kenyon's volume, because it is, and was in MS., a great favorite of

mine. There are excellent things otherwise, as must be when he says

them: one of the most radiant of benevolences with one of the most

refined of intellects! How the paper seems to dwindle as I would fain

talk on more. I have performed a great exploit, ridden on a donkey

five miles deep into the mountains to an almost inaccessible volcanic

ground not far from the stars. Robert on horseback, and Wilson and the

nurse (with baby) on other donkeys; guides, of course. We set off at

eight in the morning and returned at six P.M., after dining on the

mountain pinnacle, I dreadfully tired, but the child laughing as

usual, and burnt Brick-colour for all bad effect. No horse or ass,

untrained to the mountains, could have kept foot a moment where we

penetrated, and even as it was one could not help the natural thrill.

No road except the bed of exhausted torrents above and through the

chestnut forests, and precipitous beyond what you would think possible

for ascent or descent. Ravines tearing the ground to pieces under

your feet. The scenery, sublime and wonderful, satisfied us wholly,

however, as we looked round on the world of innumerable mountains

bound faintly with the grey sea, and not a human habitation. I hope

you will go to London this winter; it will be good for you, it seems

to me. Take care of yourself, my much and ever loved friend! I love

you and think of you indeed. Write of your health, remembering this,

And your affectionate,

E.B.B.

My husband's regards always. You had better, I think, direct to

_Florence_, as we shall be there in the course of October.

[Footnote 190: Minister of the Interior in the Republic of 1848, and

one of the most prominent f the advanced Republican leaders.]

[Footnote 191: A letter, addressed to a private friend but intended

to be made public, denouncing the reactionary and oppressive

administration of the restored Pope.]

[Footnote 192: Probably the first part of _Casa Guidi Windows_.]

[Footnote 193: By A.H. Clough and T. Burbidge.]

To Florence, accordingly, they returned in October, and settled down

once more in Casa Guidi for the winter. Mrs. Browning's principal

literary occupation at this time was the preparation of a new edition

of her poems, including nearly all the contents of the 'Seraphim'

volume of 1838, more or less revised, as well as the 'Poems' of

1844. This edition, published in 1850, has formed the basis of all

subsequent editions of her poems. Meanwhile her husband was engaged

in the preparation of 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' which was also

published in the course of 1850.

_To Miss Mitford_

Florence: December I, 1849.

My ever loved friend, you will have wondered at this unusual silence;

and so will my sisters to whom I wrote just now, after a pause as

little in my custom. It was not the fault of my head and heart, but of

this unruly body, which has been laid up again in the way of all flesh

of mine....

I am well again now, only obliged to keep quiet and give up my grand

walking excursions, which poor Robert used to be so boastful of. If he

is vain about anything in the world, it is about my improved health,

and I used to say to him, 'But you needn't talk so much to people of

how your wife walked here with you and there with you, as if a wife

with a pair of feet was a miracle of nature.' Now the poor feet have

fallen into their old ways again. Ah, but if God pleases it won't be

for long....

The American authoress, Miss Fuller, with whom we had had some slight

intercourse by letter, and who has been at Rome during the siege, as

a devoted friend of the republicans and a meritorious attendant on

the hospitals, has taken us by surprise at Florence, retiring from the

Roman field with a husband and child above a year old. Nobody had even

suspected a word of this underplot, and her American friends stood in

mute astonishment before this apparition of them here. The husband is

a Roman marquis, appearing amiable and gentlemanly, and having fought

well, they say, at the siege, but with no pretension to cope with his

wife on any ground appertaining to the intellect. She talks, and he

listens. I always wonder at that species of marriage; but people are

so different in their matrimonial ideals that it may answer sometimes.

This Mdme. Ossoli saw George Sand in Paris--was at one of her

soirées--and called her 'a magnificent creature.' The soirée was 'full

of rubbish' in the way of its social composition, which George Sand

likes, _nota bene_. If Mdme. Ossoli called it '_rubbish_' it must have

been really rubbish--not expressing anything conventionally so--she

being one of the out and out _Reds_ and scorners of grades of society.

She said that she did not see Balzac. Balzac went into the world

scarcely at all, frequenting the lowest cafés, so that it was

difficult to track him out. Which information I receive doubtingly.

The rumours about Balzac with certain parties in Paris are not likely

to be too favorable nor at all reliable, I should fancy; besides,

I never entertain disparaging thoughts of my demi-gods unless they

should be forced upon me by evidence you must know. I have not made

a demi-god of Louis Napoleon, by the way--no, and I don't mean it. I

expect some better final result than he has just proved himself to be

of the French Revolution, with all its bitter and cruel consequences

hitherto, so I can't quite agree with you. Only so far, that he

has shown himself up to this point to be an upright man with noble

impulses, and that I give him much of my sympathy and respect in the

difficult position held by him. A man of genius he does not seem to

be--and what, after all, will he manage to do at Rome? I don't take

up the frantic Republican cry in Italy. I know too well the want of

knowledge and the consequent want of i effective faith and energy

among the Italians; but there is a stain upon France in the present

state of the Roman affair, and I don't shut my eyes to that either. To

cast Rome helpless and bound into the hands of the priests is dishonor

to the actors, however we consider the act; and for the sake of

France, even more than for the sake of Italy, I yearn to see the act

cancelled. Oh, we have had the sight of Clough and Burbidge, at last.

Clough has more thought, Burbidge more music; but I am disappointed

in the book on the whole. What I like infinitely better is Clough's

'Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich,' a 'long vacation pastoral,' written in

loose and more-than-need-be unmusical hexameters, but full of vigour

and freshness, and with passages and indeed whole scenes of great

beauty and eloquence. It seems to have been written before the other

poems. Try to get it, if you have not read it already. I feel certain

you will like it and think all the higher of the poet. Oh, it strikes

both Robert and me as being worth twenty of the other little book,

with its fragmentary, dislocated, unartistic character. Arnold's

volume has two good poems in it: 'The Sick King of Bokhara' and 'The

Deserted Merman.' I like them both. But none of these writers

are _artists_, whatever they may be in future days. Have you read

'Shirley,' and is it as good as 'Jane Eyre'? We heard not long since

that Mr. Chorley had discovered the author, _the_ 'Currer Bell.' A

woman, most certainly. We hear, too, that three large editions of the

'Princess' are sold. So much the happier for England and poetry.

Dearest dear Miss Mitford, mind you write to me, and don't pay me out

in my own silence! _You_ have not been ill, I hope and trust. Write

and tell me every little thing of yourself--how you are, and whether

there is still danger of your being uprooted from Three Mile Cross. I

love and think of you always. Fancy Flush being taken in the light

of a rival by baby! Oh, baby was quite jealous the other day, and

strugggled and kicked to get to me because he saw Flush leaning his

pretty head on my lap. There's a great strife for privileges between

those two. May God bless you! My husband's kind regards always, while

I am your most

Affectionate

E.B.B.

_To Miss Mitford_

Florence: January 9, 1850.

Thank you, ever dearest Miss Mitford, for this welcome letter written

on your birthday! May the fear of small-pox have passed away long

before now, and every hope and satisfaction have strengthened and

remained!...

May God bless you and give you many happy years, you who can do so

much towards the happiness of others. May I not answer for my own?...

Little Wiedeman began to crawl on Christmas Day. Before, he used to

roll. We throw things across the floor and he crawls for them like a

little dog, on all fours....

He has just caught a cold, which I make more fuss about than I ought,

say the wise; but I can't get resigned to the association of any sort

of suffering with his laughing dimpled little body--it is the blowing

about in the wind of such a heap of roses. So you prefer 'Shirley' to

'Jane Eyre'! Yet I hear from nobody such an opinion; yet you are very

probably right, for 'Shirley' may suffer from the natural reaction

of the public mind. What you tell me of Tennyson interests me

as everything about him must. I like to think of him digging

gardens--room for cabbage and all. At the same time, what he says

about the public '_hating_ poetry' is certainly not a word for

Tennyson. Perhaps no true poet, having claims upon attention _solely_

through his poetry, has attained so certain a success with such short

delay. Instead of being pelted (as nearly every true poet has been),

he stands already on a pedestal, and is recognised as a master spirit

not by a coterie but by the great public. Three large editions of the

'Princess' have already been sold. If he isn't satisfied after all, I

think he is wrong. Divine poet as he is, and no laurel being too leafy

for him, yet he must be an unreasonable man, and not understanding

of the growth of the laurel trees and the nature of a reading public.

With regard to the other garden-digger, dear Mr. Home, I wish as you

do that I could hear something satisfactory of him. I wrote from Lucca

in the summer, and have no answer. The latest word concerning him is

the announcement in the 'Athenaeum' of a third edition of his 'Gregory

the Seventh,' which we were glad to see, but very, very glad we should

be to have news of his prosperity in the flesh as well as in the

_litterae scriptae_....

I have not been out of doors these two months, but people call me

'looking well,' and a newly married niece of Miss Bayley's, the

accomplished Miss Thomson, who has become the wife of Dr. Emil Braun

(the learned German secretary of the Archaeological Society), and just

passed through Florence on her way to Rome, where they are to reside,

declared that the change she saw in me was miraculous--'wonderful

indeed.' I took her to look at Wiedeman in his cradle, fast asleep,

and she won my heart (over again, for always she was a favorite of

mine) by exclaiming at his prettiness. Charmed, too, we both were

with Dr. Braun--I mean Robert and I were charmed. He has a mixture of

fervour and simplicity which is still more delightfully picturesque

in his foreign English. Oh, he speaks English perfectly, only with an

obvious accent enough. I am sure we should be cordial friends, if the

lines had fallen to us in the same pleasant places; but he is fixed

at Rome, and we are half afraid of the enervating effects of the Roman

climate on the constitutions of children. Tell me, do you hear often

from Mr. Chorley? It quite pains us to observe from his manner of

writing the great depression of his spirits. His mother was ill in

the summer, but plainly the sadness does not arise entirely or chiefly

from this cause. He seems to me over-worked, taxed in the spirit. I

advise nobody to give up work; but that 'Athenaeum' labour is a sort

of treadmill discipline in which there is no progress, nor triumph,

and I do wish he would give that up and come out to us with a new set

of anvils and hammers. Only, of course, he couldn't do it, even if he

would, while there is illness in his family. May there be a whole sun

of success shining on the new play! Robert is engaged on a poem,[194]

and I am busy with my edition. So much to correct, I find, and many

poems to add. Plainly 'Jane Eyre' was by a woman. It used to astound

me when sensible people said otherwise. Write to me, will you? I long

to hear again. Tell me everything of yourself; accept my husband's

true regards, and think of me as your

Ever affectionate

E.B.B.

[Footnote 194: _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_.]

_To Miss Browning_

Florence: January 29, 1850.

My dearest Sarianna,--I have waited to thank you for your great and

ready kindness about the new edition, until now when it is fairly on

its way to England. Thank you, thank you! I am only afraid, not that

you will find anything too 'learned,' as you suggest, but a good many

things too careless, I was going to say, only Robert, with various

deep sighs for 'his poor Sarianna,' devoted himself during several

days to rearranging my arrangements, and simplifying my complications.

It was the old story of Order and Disorder over again. He pulled out

the knotted silks with an indefatigable patience, so that really

you will owe to _him_ every moment of ease and facility which may be

enjoyable in the course of the work. I am afraid that at the easiest

you will find it a vexatious business, but I throw everything on

your kindness, and am not distrustful on such a point of weights and

measures.

Your letter was full of sad news. Robert was deeply affected at the

account of the illness of his cousin--was in tears before he could end

the letter. I do hope that in a day or two we may hear from you that

the happy change was confirmed as time passed on. I do hope so; it

will be joy, not merely to Robert, but to me, for indeed I never

forget the office which his kindness performed for both of us at a

crisis ripe with all the happiness of my life.

Then it was sad to hear of your dear father suffering from lumbago.

May the last of it have passed away long before you get what I am

writing! Tell him with my love that Wiedeman shall hear some day (if

we all live) the verses he wrote to him; and I have it in my head that

little Wiedeman will be very sensitive to verses and kindness too--he

likes to hear anything rhythmical and musical, and he likes to

be petted and kissed--the most affectionate little creature he

is--sitting on my knee, while I give him books to turn the leaves

over (a favorite amusement), every two minutes he puts up his little

rosebud of a mouth to have a kiss. His cold is quite gone, and he has

taken advantage of the opportunity to grow still fatter; as to his

activities, there's no end to them. His nurse and I agree that he

doesn't remain quiet a moment in the day....[195]

Now the love of nephews can't bear any more, Sarianna, can it? Only

your father will take my part and say that it isn't tedious--beyond

pardoning.

May God bless both of you, and enable you to send a brighter letter

next time. Robert will be very anxious.

Your ever affectionate sister

BA.

Mention yourself, _do_.

[Footnote 195: A long description of the baby's meals and daily

programme follows, the substance of which can probably be imagined by

connoisseurs in the subject.]

_To Miss Mitford_

Florence: February 18, 1850.

Ever dearest Miss Mitford, you _always_ give me pleasure, so for

love's sake don't say that you 'seldom give it,' and such a magical

act as conjuring up for me the sight of a new poem by Alfred

Tennyson[196] is unnecessary to prove you a right beneficent

enchantress. Thank you, thank you. We are not so unworthy of your

redundant kindness as to abuse it by a word spoken or sign signified.

You may trust us indeed. But now you know how free and sincere I

am always! Now tell me. Apart from the fact of this lyric's being a

fragment of fringe from the great poet's 'singing clothes' (as Leigh

Hunt says somewhere), and apart from a certain sweetness and rise and

fall in the rhythm, do you really see much for admiration in the poem?

Is it _new_ in, any way? I admire Tennyson with the most worshipping

part of the multitude, as you are aware, but I do _not_ perceive much

in this lyric, which strikes me, and Robert also (who goes with me

throughout), as quite inferior to the other lyrical snatches in the

'Princess.' By the way, if he introduces it in the 'Princess,' it

will be the only _rhymed_ verse in the work. Robert thinks that he was

thinking of the Rhine echoes in writing it, and not of any heard in

his Irish travels. I hear that Tennyson has taken rooms above Mr.

Forster's in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and is going to try a London life.

So says Mr. Kenyon.... I am writing with an easier mind than when

I wrote last, for I was for a little time rendered very unhappy (so

unhappy that I couldn't touch on the subject, which is always the way

with me when pain passes a certain point), by hearing accidentally

that papa was unwell and looking altered. My sister persisted in

replying to my anxieties that they were unfounded, that I was quite

absurd, indeed, in being anxious at all; only people are not generally

reformed from their absurdities through being scolded for them. Now,

however, it really appears that the evil has passed. He left his

doctor who had given him lowering medicines, and, coincidently with

the leaving, he has recovered looks and health altogether. Arabel says

that I should think he was looking as well as ever, if I saw him, and

that appetite and spirits are even redundant. Thank God.... To

have this good news has made me very happy, and I overflow to you

accordingly. Oh, there is pain enough from that quarter, without

hearing of his being out of health. I write to him continually and

he does not now return my letters, which is a melancholy something

gained. Now enough of such a subject.

I certainly don't think that the qualities, half savage and half

freethinking, expressed in 'Jane Eyre' are likely to suit a model

governess or schoolmistress; and it amuses me to consider them in

that particular relation. Your account falls like dew upon the parched

curiosity of some of our friends here, to whom (as mere gossip, which

did not leave you responsible) I couldn't resist the temptation

of communicating it. People _are_ so curious--even here among the

Raffaels--about this particular authorship, yet nobody seems to have

read 'Shirley'; we are too slow in getting new books. First Galignani

has to pirate them himself, and then to hand us over the spoils.

By the way, there's to be an international copyright, isn't there?

Something is talked of it in the 'Athenaeum.' Meanwhile the Americans

have already reprinted my husband's new edition. 'Landthieves, I mean

pirates.' I used to take that for a slip of the pen in Shakespeare;

but it was a slip of the pen into prophecy. Sorry I am at Mrs. ----

falling short of your warm-hearted ideas about her! Can you understand

a woman's hating a girl because it is not a boy--her first child too?

I understand it so little that scarcely I can believe it. Some women

_have_, however, undeniably an indifference to children, just as many

men have, though it must be unnatural and morbid in both sexes.

Men often affect it--very foolishly, if they count upon the scenic

effects; affectation never succeeds well, and this sort of affectation

is peculiarly unbecoming, except in old bachelors, for there is a

pathetic side to the question so viewed. For my part and my husband's,

we may be frank and say that we have caught up our parental pleasures

with a sort of passion. But then, Wiedeman is such a darling little

creature; who _could_ help loving the child?... Little darling! So

much mischief was not often put before into so small a body. Fancy

the child's upsetting the water jugs till he is drenched (which charms

him), pulling the brooms to pieces, and having serious designs upon

cutting up his frocks with a pair of scissors. He laughs like an imp

when he can succeed in doing anything wrong. Now, see what you get, in

return for your kindness of 'liking to hear about' him! Almost I have

the grace to be ashamed a little. Just before I had your letter we

sent my new edition to England. I gave much time to the revision, and

did not omit reforming some of the rhymes, although you must consider

that the irregularity of these in a certain degree rather falls in

with my system than falls out through my carelessness. So much the

worse, you will say, when a person is _systematically_ bad. The work

will include the best poems of the 'Seraphim' volume, strengthened and

improved as far as the circumstances admitted of. I had not the heart

to leave out the wretched sonnet to yourself, for your dear sake; but

I rewrote the latter half of it (for really it wasn't a sonnet at all,

and 'Una and her lion' are rococo), and so placed it with my other

poems of the same class. There are some new, verses also.[197] The

Miss Hardings I have seen, and talked with them of _you_, a sure way

of finding them delightful. But, my dearest friend, I shall not see

any of the Trollope party--it is not likely. You can scarcely image to

yourself the retired life we live, or how we have retreated from

the kind advances of the English society here. Now people seem to

understand that we are to be left alone; that nothing is to be made of

us. The fact is, we are not like our child, who kisses everybody who

smiles at him! Neither my health nor our pecuniary circumstances, nor

our inclinations perhaps, would admit of our entering into English

society here, which is kept up much after the old English models, with

a proper disdain for Continental simplicities of expense. We have just

heard from Father Prout, who often, he says, sees Mr. Horne, 'who is

as dreamy as ever.' So glad I am, for I was beginning to be uneasy

about him. He has not answered my letter from Lucca. The verses in the

'Athenaeum'[198] are on Sophia Cottrell's child.

May God bless you, dearest friend. Speak of _yourself_ more

particularly to your ever affectionate

E.B.B.

Robert's kindest regards. Tell us of Mr. Chorley's play, do.

[Footnote 196: Apparently the _Echo-song_ which now precedes canto

iv. of the _Princess_, though one is surprised at the opinion here

expressed of it. It will be remembered that this and the other lyrical

interludes did not appear in the original edition of the _Princess_.]

[Footnote 197: Notably the _Sonnets from the Portuguese_.]

[Footnote 198: 'A Child's Death at Florence,' which appeared in the

_Athenaeum_ of December 22, 1849.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Florence: February 22, 1850.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Have you wondered that I did not write

before? It was not that I did not thank you in my heart for your kind,

considerate letter, but I was unconquerably uncomfortable about papa;

and, what with the weather, which always has me in its power somehow,

and other things, I fell into a dislike of writing, which I hope you

didn't mistake for ingratitude, because it was not in the least like

the same fault. Now the severe weather (such weather for Italy!) has

broken up, and I am relieved in all ways, having received the most

happy satisfactory news from Wimpole Street, and the assurance from my

sisters that if I were to see papa I should think him looking as well

as ever. He grew impatient with Dr. Elliotson's medicines which, it

appears, were of a very lowering character--suddenly gave them up,

and as suddenly recovered his looks and all the rest, and everybody

at home considers him to be _quite well_. It has relieved me of a

mountain's weight, and I thank God with great joy. Oh, you must have

understood how natural it was for me to be unhappy under the other

circumstances. But if you thought, dearest friend, that _they_

were necessary to induce me to write to him the humblest and most

beseeching of letters, you do not know how I feel his alienation or my

own love for him. I With regard to my brothers, it is quite different,

though even towards _them_ I may faithfully say that my affection

has borne itself higher than my pride. But as to papa, I have never

contended about the right or the wrong, I have never irritated him by

seeming to suppose that his severity to me has been more than justice.

I have confined myself simply to a supplication for--his forgiveness

of what he called, in his own words, the only fault of my life towards

him, and an expression of the love which even I must feel I for him,

whether he forgives me or not. This has been done in letter after

letter, and they are not sent back--it is all. In my last letter, I

ventured to ask him to let it be an understood thing that he should

before the world, and to every practical purpose, act out his idea of

justice by excluding me formally, me and mine, from every advantage

he intended his other children--that, having so been just, he might

afford to be merciful by giving me his forgiveness and affection--all

I asked and desired. My husband and I had talked this over again and

again; only it was a difficult thing to say, you see. At last I took

courage and said it, because, doing it, papa might seem to himself to

reconcile his notion of strict justice, and whatever remains of pity

and tenderness might still be in his heart towards me, if there are

any such. I _know_ he has strong feelings at bottom--otherwise, should

I love him so?--but he has adopted a bad system, and he (as well as I)

is crushed by it.... If I were to write to you the political rumours

we hear every day, you would scarcely think our situation improved in

safety by the horrible Austrian army. Florence bristles with cannon on

all sides, and at the first movement we are promised to be bombarded.

On the other hand, if the red republicans get uppermost there will be

a universal massacre; not a priest, according to their own profession,

will be left alive in Italy. The constitutional party hope they are

gaining strength, but the progress which depends on intellectual

growth must necessarily be slow. That the Papacy has for ever lost its

prestige and power over souls is the only evident truth; bright and

strong enough to cling to. I hear even devout women say: 'This cursed

Pope! it's all his fault.' Protestant places of worship are thronged

with Italian faces, and the minister of the Scotch church at Leghorn

has been threatened with exclusion from the country if he admits

Tuscans to the church communion. Politically speaking, much will

depend upon France, and I have strong hope for France, though it is

so strictly the fashion to despair of her. Tell me dear Mr. Martin's

impression and your own--everything is good that comes from you. But

most _particularly_, tell me how you both are--tell me whether you are

strong again, dearest Mrs. Martin, for indeed I do not like to hear of

your being in the least like an invalid. Do speak of yourself a little

more. Do you know, you are very unsatisfactory as a letter-writer when

you write about yourself--the reason being that you never do write

about yourself except by the suddenest snatches, when you can't

possibly help the reference....

Robert sends his true regards with those of your

Gratefully affectionate

BA.

_To Mrs. Jameson_

April 2, [1850].