the majority of a nation has the right of choice upon the question of
its own government, _even where it makes a mistake_. Therefore the
outcry of the English newspapers is most disgusting to me. For the rest,
one can hardly do strict justice, at this time of transition, to the
ultimate situation of the country; we must really wait a little, till
the wind and rain shall have ceased to dash so in one's eyes. The wits
go on talking, though, all the same; and I heard a suggestion yesterday,
that, for the effaced 'Liberté, égalité, fraternité,' should be written
up, 'Infanterie, cavallerie, artillerie.' That's the last 'mot,' I
believe. The salons are very noisy. A lady was ordered to her country
seat the other day for exclaiming, 'Et il n'y a pas de Charlotte
Corday.'
Forgive, with this dull letter, my other defects. Always I am frank to
you, saying what is in my heart; and there is always there, dearest Miss
Mitford, a fruitful and grateful affection to you from your
E.B.B.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 15, [1852].
Thank you, thank you, my beloved friend. Yes; I do understand in my
heart all your kindness. Yes, I do believe that on some points I am full
of disease; and this has exposed me several times to shocks of pain in
the ordinary intercourse of the world, which for bystanders were hard, I
dare say, to make out. Once at the Baths of Lucca I was literally nearly
struck down to the ground by a single word said in all kindness by a
friend whom I had not seen for ten years. The blue sky reeled over me,
and I caught at something, not to fall. Well, there is no use dwelling
on this subject. I understand your affectionateness and tender
consideration, I repeat, and thank you; and love you, which is better.
Now, let us talk of reasonable things.
Béranger lives close to us, and Robert has seen him in his white hat
wandering along the asphalte. I had a notion somehow that he was very
old; but he is only elderly, not much indeed above sixty (which is the
prime of life now-a-days), and he lives quietly and keeps out of scrapes
poetical and political, and if Robert and I had but a little less
modesty we are assured that we should find access to him easy. But we
can't make up our minds to go to his door and introduce ourselves as
vagrant minstrels, when he may probably not know our names. We never
_could_ follow the fashion of certain authors who send their books about
without intimations of their being likely to be acceptable or not, of
which practice poor Tennyson knows too much for his peace. If, indeed, a
letter of introduction to Béranger were vouchsafed to us from any benign
quarter, we should both be delighted, but we must wait patiently for
the influence of the stars. Meanwhile, we have at last sent our letter
(Mazzini's) to George Sand, accompanied with a little note signed by
both of us, though written by me, as seemed right, being the woman. We
half despaired in doing this, for it is most difficult, it appears, to
get at her, she having taken vows against seeing strangers in
consequence of various annoyances and persecutions in and out of print,
which it's the mere instinct of a woman to avoid. I can understand it
perfectly. Also, she is in Paris for only a few days, and under a new
name, to escape from the plague of her notoriety. People said to us:
'She will never see you; you have no chance, I am afraid.' But we
determined to try. At last I pricked Robert up to the leap, for he was
really inclined to sit in his chair and be proud a little. 'No,' said I,
'you _shan't_ be proud, and I _won't_ be proud, and we _will_ see her. I
won't die, if I can help it, without seeing George Sand.' So we gave our
letter to a friend who was to give it to a friend, who was to place it
in her hands, her abode being a mystery and the name she used unknown.
The next day came by the post this answer:
Madame,--J'aurai l'honneur de vous recevoir dimanche prochain
rue Racine 3. C'est le seul jour que je puisse passer chez
moi, et encore je n'en suis pas absolument certaine. Mais j'y
ferai tellement mon possible, que ma bonne étoile m'y aidera
peut-être un peu.
Agréez mille remercîments de coeur, ainsi que Monsieur
Browning, que j'espère voir avec vous, pour la sympathie que
vous m'accordez.
GEORGE SAND.
Paris: 12 février, 52.
This is graceful and kind, is it not? And we are going to-morrow; I,
rather at the risk of my life. But I shall roll myself up head and all
in a thick shawl, and we shall go in a close carriage, and I hope I
shall be able to tell you about the result before shutting up this
letter.
One of her objects in coming to Paris this time was to get a commutation
of the sentence upon her friend Dufraisse, who was ordered to Cayenne.
She had an interview accordingly with the President. He shook hands with
her and granted her request, and in the course of conversation pointed
to a great heap of 'Decrees' on the table, being hatched 'for the good
of France.' I have heard scarcely anything of him, except from his
professed enemies; and it is really a good deal the simple recoil from
manifest falsehoods and gross exaggerations which has thrown me on the
ground of his defenders. For the rest, it remains to be _proved_, I
think, whether he is a mere ambitious man, or better--whether his
personality or his country stands highest with him as an object. I
thought and still think that a Washington might have dissolved the
Assembly as he did, and appealed to the people. Which is not saying,
however, that he is a Washington. We must wait, I think, to judge the
man. Only it is right to bear in mind one fact, that, admitting the
lawfulness of the _coup d'état_, you must not object to the
dictatorship. And, admitting the temporary necessity of the
dictatorship, it is absolute folly to expect under it the liberty and
ease of a regular government.
What has saved him with me from the beginning was his appeal to the
people, and what makes his government respectable in my eyes is the
answer of the people to that appeal. Being a democrat, I dare to be so
_consequently_. There never was a more legitimate chief of a State than
Louis Napoleon is now--elected by seven millions and a half; and I do
maintain that, ape or demi-god, to insult him where he is, is to insult
the people who placed him there. As to the stupid outcry in England
about forced votes, voters pricked forward by bayonets--why, nothing can
be more stupid. Nobody not blinded by passion could maintain such a
thing for a moment. No Frenchman, however blinded by passion, has
maintained it in my presence.
A very philosophically minded man (French) was talking of these things
the other day--one of the most thoughtful, liberal men I ever knew of
any country, and high and pure in his moral views--also (let me add)
more _anglomane_ in general than I am. He was talking of the English
press. He said he 'did it justice for good and noble intentions' (more
than I do!), 'but marvelled at its extraordinary ignorance. Those
writers did not know the A B C of France. Then, as to Louis Napoleon,
whether he was right or wrong, they erred in supposing him not to be in
earnest with his constitution and other remedies for France. The fact
was, he not only was in earnest--he was even _fanatical_.'
There is, of course, much to deplore in the present state of
affairs--much that is very melancholy. The constitution is not a model
one, and no prospect of even comparative liberty of the Press has been
offered. At the same time, I hope still. As tranquillity is established,
there will be certain modifications; this, indeed, has been intimated,
and I think the Press will by degrees attain to its emancipation.
Meanwhile, the 'Athenæum' and other English papers say wrongly that
there is a censure established on books. There is a censure on pamphlets
and newspapers--on _books_, no. Cormenin is said to have been the
adviser of the Orleans confiscation....
* * * * *
_To John Kenyon_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 15, 1852.
My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--Robert sends you his Shelley,[12] having a very
few copies allowed to him to dispose of. I think you have Shelley's
other letters, of which this volume is the supplement, and you will not
be sorry to have Robert's preface thrown in, though he makes very light
of it himself.
You never write a word to us, and so I don't mean to send you a letter
to-day--only as few lines as I can drop in a sulky fit, repenting as I
go on. As to politics, you know you have all put me in the corner
because I stand up for universal suffrage, and am weak enough to fancy
that seven millions and a half of Frenchmen have some right to an
opinion on their own affairs. It's really fatal in this world to be
consequent--it leads one into damnable errors. So I shall not say much
more at present. You must bear with me--dear Miss Bayley and all of
you--and believe of me, if I am ever so wrong, that I do at least pray
from my soul, 'May the right prevail!'--loving right, truth, justice,
and the people through whatever mistakes. As it was in the beginning,
from 'Casa Guidi Windows,' so it is now from the Avenue des
Champs-Elysées. I am most humanly liable, of course, to make mistakes,
and am by temperament perhaps over hopeful and sanguine. But I do see
with my own eyes and feel with my own spirit, and not with other
people's eyes and spirits, though they should happen to be the
dearest--and that's the very best of me, be certain, so don't quarrel
with it too much.
As to the worst of the President, let him have vulture's beak, hyena's
teeth, and the rattle of the great serpent, it's nothing to the
question. Let him be Caligula's horse raised to the consulship--what
then? I am not a Buonapartist; I am simply a 'democrat,' as you say. I
simply hold to the fact that, such as he is, the people chose him, and
to the opinion that they have a right to choose whom they please. When
your English Press denies the _fact of the choice_ (a fact which the
most passionate of party-men does not think of denying here), _I_ seem
to have a right to another opinion which might strike you as unpatriotic
if I uttered it in this place. _Hic tacet_, then, rather _jacet_.
For the rest, for heaven's sake and the truth's, do let us try to take
breath a little and be patient. Let us wait till the dust of the
struggle clears away before we take measures of the circus. We can't
have the liberty of a regular government under a dictatorship. And if
the 'constitution' which is coming is not model, it may wear itself into
shape by being worked calmly. These new boots will be easier to the feet
after half an hour's walking. Not that I like the pinching meanwhile.
Not that stringencies upon the Press please _me_--no, nor arrests and
imprisonments. I like these things, God knows, as little as the loudest
curser of you all, but I don't think it necessary and lawful to
exaggerate and over-colour, nor to paint the cheeks of sorrows into
horrors, nor to talk, like the 'Quarterly Review' (betwixt excuses for
the King of Naples), of two thousand four hundred persons being cut to
mincemeat in the streets of Paris, nor to call boldness hypocrisy
(because hypocrisy is the worse word), and the appeal to the sovereignty
of the people usurpation, and universal suffrage the pricking of
bayonets. Above all, I would avoid insulting the whole French nation,
who have judged their own position and acted accordingly. If Louis
Napoleon disappoints their expectation, he won't sit long where he is.
Of that I feel satisfactory assurance; and, considering the national
habits of insurrection, I really think that others may.
Meanwhile it is just to tell you that the two deepest-minded persons
whom we have known in Paris--one an ultra-Republican of European
reputation (I don't like mentioning names), and the other a
Constitutionalist of the purest and noblest moral nature--are both
inclined to take favorable views of the President's personal character
and intentions. For my part, I don't pretend to an opinion. He may be,
as they say, '_bon enfant_,' '_homme de conscience_,' and 'so much in
earnest as to be fanatical,' or he may be a wretch and a reptile, as you
say in England. That's nothing to the question as I see it. I don't take
it up by that handle at all. Caligula's horse or the people's
'Messiah,' as I heard him called the other day--what then? You are
wonderfully intolerant, you in England, of equine consulships, you who
bear with quite sufficient equanimity a great rampancy of beasts all
over the world--Mr. Forster not blowing the trumpet of war, and Mrs.
Alfred Tennyson not loading the rifles.
There now--I've done with politics to-day. Only just let me tell you
that Cormenin is said to be the adviser in the matter of the Orleans
decrees. So much the worse for him.
Whom do you think I saw yesterday? George Sand. Oh, I have been in such
fear about it! It's the most difficult thing to get access to her, and,
notwithstanding our letter from Mazzini, we were assured on all sides
that she would not see us. She has been persecuted by bookmakers--run to
ground by the race, and, after having quite lost her on her former visit
to Paris, it was in half despair that we seized on an opportunity of
committing our letter of introduction to a friend of a friend of hers,
who promised to put it into her own hands. With the letter I wrote a
little note--I writing, as I was the woman, and both of us signing it.
To my delight, we had an answer by the next day's post, gracious and
graceful, desiring us to call on her last Sunday.
So we went. Robert let me at last, though I had a struggle for even
that, the air being rather over-sharp for me. But I represented to him
that one might as well lose one's life as one's peace of mind for ever,
and if I lost seeing her I should with difficulty get over it. So I put
on my respirator, smothered myself with furs, and, in a close carriage,
did not run much risk after all.
She received us very kindly, with hand stretched out, which I, with a
natural emotion (I assure you my heart beat), stooped and kissed, when
she said quickly, 'Mais non, je ne veux pas,' and kissed my lips. She is
somewhat large for her height--not tall--and was dressed with great
nicety in a sort of grey serge gown and jacket, made after the ruling
fashion just now, and fastened up to the throat, plain linen collarette
and sleeves. Her hair was uncovered, divided on the forehead in black,
glossy bandeaux, and twisted up behind. The eyes and brow are noble, and
the nose is of a somewhat Jewish character; the chin a little recedes,
and the mouth is not good, though mobile, flashing out a sudden smile
with its white projecting teeth. There is no sweetness in the face, but
great moral as well as intellectual capacities--only it never _could_
have been a beautiful face, which a good deal surprised me. The chief
difference in it since it was younger is probably that the cheeks are
considerably fuller than they used to be, but this of course does not
alter the type. Her complexion is of a deep olive. I observed that her
hands were small and well-shaped. We sate with her perhaps
three-quarters of an hour or more--in which time she gave advice and
various directions to two or three young men who were there, showing her
confidence in us by the freest use of names and allusion to facts. She
seemed to be, in fact, _the man_ in that company, and the profound
respect with which she was listened to a good deal impressed me. You are
aware from the newspapers that she came to Paris for the purpose of
seeing the President in behalf of certain of her friends, and that it
was a successful mediation. What is peculiar in her manners and
conversation is the absolute simplicity of both. Her voice is low and
rapid, without emphasis or variety of modulation. Except one brilliant
smile, she was grave--indeed, she was speaking of grave matters, and
many of her friends are in adversity. But you could not help seeing
(both Robert and I saw it) that in all she said, even in her kindness
and pity, there was an under-current of scorn. A scorn of pleasing she
evidently had; there never could have been a colour of coquetry in that
woman. Her very freedom from affectation and consciousness had a touch
of disdain. But I liked her. I did not love her, but I felt the burning
soul through all that quietness, and was not disappointed in George
Sand. When we rose to go I could not help saying, 'C'est pour la
dernière fois,' and then she asked us to repeat our visit next Sunday,
and excused herself from coming to see us on the ground of a great press
of engagements. She kissed me again when we went away, and Robert kissed
her hand.
Lady Elgin has offered to take him one day this week to visit Lamartine
(who, we hear, will be glad to see us, having a cordial feeling towards
England and English poets), but I shall wait for some very warm day for
that visit, not meaning to run mortal risks, except for George Sand.
_Nota bene._ We didn't see her smoke.
Robert has ventured to send to your house, my dearest friend, two copies
of 'Shelley' besides yours--one for Mr. Procter, and one for Mrs.
Jameson, with kindest love, both. There is no hurry about either, you
know. We wanted another for dear Miss Bayley, but we have only six
copies, and don't keep one for ourselves, and she won't care, I dare
say.
Your ever most affectionate and grateful
BA.
Will you let your servant put this letter into the post for Miss
Mitford? She upset me by her book, but had the most affectionate
intentions, and I am obliged to her for what she meant. Then I am
morbid, I know.
Tell dearest Miss Bayley, with my love, I shall write to her soon.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
February 26, [1852].
Never believe of me so bad a thing as that I could have received from
you, my ever dear and very dear friend, such a letter as you describe,
and rung hollow in return. I did not get your letter, so how could I
send an answer? Your letter's lost, like some other happy things. But I
thank you for it fervently, guessing from what you say the sympathy and
affection of it. I thank you for it most gratefully.
As for poor dear Miss Mitford's book, I was entirely upset by the
biography she thought it necessary or expedient to give of me. Oh, if
our friends would but put off anatomising one till after one was safely
dead, and call to mind that, previously, we have nerves to be agonised
and morbid brains to be driven mad! I am morbid, I know. I can't bear
some words even from Robert. Like the lady who lay in the grave, and was
ever after of the colour of a shroud, so I am white-souled, the past has
left its mark with me for ever. And now (this is the worst) every
newspaper critic who talks of my poems may refer to other things. I
shall not feel myself safe a moment from references which stab like a
knife.
But poor dear Miss Mitford, if we don't forgive what's meant as
kindness, how are we to forgive what's meant as injury? In my first
agitation I felt it as a real vexation that I couldn't be angry with
her. How could I, poor thing? She has always loved me, and been so
anxious to please me, and this time she seriously thought that Robert
and I would be delighted. Extraordinary defect of comprehension!
Still, I did not, I could not, conceal from her that she had given me
great pain, and she replied in a tone which really made me almost feel
ungrateful for being pained, she said 'rather that her whole book had
perished than have given me a moment's pain.' How are you to feel after
_that_?
For the rest, it appears that she had merely come forward to the rescue
of my reputation, no more than so. Sundry romantic tales had been in
circulation about me. I was 'in widow's weeds' in my habitual
costume--and, in fact, before I was married I had grievously scandalised
the English public (the imaginative part of the public), and it was
expedient to 'tirer de l'autre coté.'
Well, I might have laughed at _that_--but I didn't. I wrote a very
affectionate letter, for I really love Miss Mitford, though she
understands me no more under certain respects than you in England
understand Louis Napoleon and the French nation. Love's love. She meant
the best to me--and so, do you, who have a much more penetrating sense
of delicacy, forgive her for my sake, dear friend....
Of the memoirs of Madame Ossoli, I know only the extracts in the
'Athenæum.' She was a most interesting woman to me, though I did not
sympathise with a large portion of her opinions. Her written works are
just _naught_. She said herself they were sketches, thrown out in haste
and for the means of subsistence, and that the sole production of hers
which was likely to represent her at all would be the history of the
Italian Revolution. In fact, her reputation, such as it was in America,
seemed to stand mainly on her conversation and oral lectures. If I
wished anyone to do her justice, I should say, as I have indeed said,
'Never read what she has written.' The letters, however, are individual,
and full, I should fancy, of that magnetic personal influence which was
so strong in her. I felt drawn in towards her, during our short
intercourse; I loved her, and the circumstances of her death shook me to
the very roots of my heart. The comfort is, that she lost little in this
world--the change could not be loss to her. She had suffered, and was
likely to suffer still more.
And now, am I to tell you that I have seen George Sand twice, and am to
see her again? Ah, there is no time to tell you, for I must shut up this
letter. She sate, like a priestess, the other morning in a circle of
eight or nine men, giving no oracles, except with her splendid eyes,
sitting at the corner of the fire, and warming her feet quietly, in a
general silence of the most profound deference. There was something in
the calm disdain of it which pleased me, and struck me as
characteristic. She was George Sand, that was enough: you wanted no
proof of it. Robert observed that 'if any other mistress of a house had
behaved so, he would have walked out of the room'--but, as it was, no
sort of incivility was meant. In fact, we hear that she 'likes us very
much,' and as we went away she called me 'chère Madame' and kissed me,
and desired to see us both again.
I did not read myself the passage in question from Miss M.'s book. I
couldn't make up my mind, my courage, to look at it. But I understood
from Robert.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 27, [1852].
I get your second letter, my dearest Mrs. Martin, before I answer your
first, which makes me rather ashamed.
... Dearest friend, it is true that I have seldom been so upset as by
this act of poor dear Miss Mitford's, and the very impossibility of
being vindictive on this occasion increased my agitation at the
moment....
There are defects in delicacy and apprehensiveness, one cannot deny it,
and yet I assure you that a more generous and fervent woman never lived
than dear Miss Mitford is, and if you knew her you would do her this
justice. She is better in herself than in her books--more large, more
energetic, more human altogether. I think I understand her better on the
whole than she understands me (which is not saying much), and I admire
her on various accounts. She talks better, for instance, than most
writers, male or female, whom I have had any intercourse with. And
affectionate in the extreme, she has always been to me.
So I have mystified you and disgusted you with my politics, and my
friends in England have put me in the corner; just so....
The French nation is very peculiar. We choose to boast ourselves of
being different in England, but we have simply _les qualités de nos
défauts_ after all. The clash of speculative opinions is dreadful here,
practical men catch at the ideal as if it were a loaf of bread, and they
literally set about cutting out their Romeos 'into little stars,' as if
that were the most natural thing in the world. As for the socialists, I
quite agree with you that various of them, yes, and some of their chief
men, are full of pure and noble aspiration, the most virtuous of men and
the most benevolent. Still, they hold in their hands, in their clean
hands, ideas that kill, ideas which defile, ideas which, if carried out,
would be the worst and most crushing kind of despotism. I would rather
live under the feet of the Czar than in those states of perfectibility
imagined by Fourier and Cabet, if I might choose my 'pis aller.' All
these speculators (even Louis Blanc, who is one of the most rational)
would revolutionalise, not merely countries, but the elemental
conditions of humanity, it seems to me; none of them seeing that
antagonism is necessary to all progress. A man, in walking, must set one
foot before another, and in climbing (as Dante observed long ago) the
foot behind 'è sempre il più basso.' Only the gods (Plato tells us) keep
both feet joined together in moving onward. It is not so, and cannot be
so, with men.
But I think that not only in relation to the socialists, but to the
monarchies, is L.N. the choice of the French people. I think that they
will not _bear_ the monarchies, they will not have either of them, they
put them away. It seems to me that the French people is essentially
democratical, and that by the vote in question they never meant to give
away either rights or liberties. The extraordinary part of the actual
position is that the Government, with these ugly signs of despotism in
its face, stands upon the democracy (is no 'military despotism,'
therefore, in any sense, as the English choose to say), and may be
thrown, and will be thrown, on that day when it disappoints the popular
expectation. For my part, I am hopeful both for this reason and for
others. I hope we shall do better, when there is greater calm; that
presently there will be relaxation where there is stringency, and room
to breathe and speak. At present it is a dictatorship, and we can't
expect at such a time the ease and liberty of a regular government. The
constitution itself may be modified, as the very terms of it imply, and
the laws of the Press not carried out. Even as it is, all the English
papers, infamous in their abuse of the Government (because of their
falsifications and exaggerations properly called infamous) and highly
immoral in their tone towards France generally, come in as usual,
without an official finger being lifted up to hinder them. Louis
Philippe would not admit Punch, you remember, on account of a few
personal sarcasms....
So much there is to say, and the post going. Can you read as I write on
at a full gallop? Don't be out of heart. Do let us trust France--not L.
Napoleon, but _France_....
Dearest friends, think of me as your
Ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
April 7, 1852.
What a time seems to have passed since I wrote to you, my ever loved
friend! Again and again I have been on the point of writing, and
something has stopped me always. I have wished to wait till I had more
about this and that to gossip of, and so the time went on. Now I am
getting impatient to have news of you, and to learn whether the lovely
spring has brought you any good yet as to health and strength. Don't
take vengeance on my silence, but write, write....
Yes, I want to see Béranger, and so does Robert. George Sand we came to
know a great deal more of. I think Robert saw her six times. Once he
met her near the Tuileries, offered her his arm, and walked with her the
whole length of the gardens. She was not on that occasion looking as
well as usual, being a little too much 'endimanchée' in terrestrial
lavenders and supercelestial blues--not, in fact, dressed with the
remarkable taste which he has seen in her at other times. Her usual
costume is both pretty and quiet, and the fashionable waistcoat and
jacket (which are a spectacle in all the 'Ladies' Companions' of the
day) make the only approach to masculine _wearings_ to be observed in
her. She has great nicety and refinement in her personal ways, I think,
and the cigarette is really a feminine weapon if properly understood.
Ah, but I didn't see her smoke. I was unfortunate. I could only go with
Robert three times to her house, and once she was out. He was really
very good and kind to let me go at all, after he found the sort of
society rampant around her. He didn't like it extremely, but, being the
prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires and yielded the point.
She seems to live in the abomination of desolation, as far as regards
society--crowds of ill-bred men who adore her _à genoux bas_, betwixt a
puff of smoke and an ejection of saliva. Society of the ragged Red
diluted with the lower theatrical. She herself so different, so apart,
as alone in her melancholy disdain! I was deeply interested in that poor
woman, I felt a profound compassion for her. I did not mind much the
Greek in Greek costume who tutoyéd her, and kissed her, I believe, so
Robert said; or the other vulgar man of the theatre who went down on his
knees and called her 'sublime.' 'Caprice d'amitié,' said she, with her
quiet, gentle scorn. A noble woman under the mud, be certain. _I_ would
kneel down to her, too, if she would leave it all, throw it off, and be
herself as God made her. But she would not care for my kneeling; she
does not care for me. Perhaps she doesn't care for anybody by this
time--who knows? She wrote one, or two, or three kind notes to me, and
promised to 'venir m'embrasser' before she left Paris; but she did not
come. We both tried hard to please her, and she told a friend of ours
that she 'liked us'; only we always felt that we couldn't
penetrate--couldn't really _touch_ her--it was all vain. Her play
failed, though full of talent. It didn't draw, and was withdrawn
accordingly. I wish she would keep to her romances, in which her real
power lies.
We have found out Jadin, Alexandre Dumas' friend and companion in the
'_Speronare_.' He showed Robert at his house poor Louis Philippe's
famous 'umbrella,' and the Duke of Orleans' uniform, and the cup from
which Napoleon took his coffee, which stood beside him as he signed the
abdication. Then there was a picture of 'Milord' hanging up. I must go
to see too. Said Robert: 'Then Alexandre Dumas doesn't write romances
always?' (You know it was like a sudden spectacle of one of Leda's
eggs.) 'Indeed,' replied Jadin, 'he wrote the true history of his own
travels, only, of course, seeing everything, like a poet, from his own
point of view.' Alfred de Musset was to have been at M. Buloz's, where
Robert was a week ago, on purpose to meet him, but he was prevented in
some way. His brother Paul de Musset, a very different person, was there
instead--but we hope to have Alfred on another occasion. Do you know his
poems? He is not capable of large grasps, but he has poet's life and
blood in him, I assure you. He is said to be at the feet of Rachel just
now, and a man may nearly as well be with a tigress in a cage. He began
with the Princess Belgiojoso--followed George Sand--Rachel finishes, is
likely to 'finish' in every sense. In the intervals, he plays at chess.
There's the anatomy of a _man_!
We are expecting a visit from Lamartine, who does a great deal of honour
to both of us, it appears, in the way of appreciation, and is kind
enough to propose to come. I will tell you all about it.
But now tell _me_. Oh, I want so to hear how you are. Better, stronger,
I hope and trust. How does the new house and garden look in the spring?
Prettier and prettier, I dare say....
The dotation of the President is enormous certainly, and I wish for his
own sake it had been rather more moderate. Now I must end here. Post
hour strikes. God bless you.
Do love me as much as you can, always, and think how I am your ever
affectionate
BA.
Our darling is well; thank God.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
[Paris]: 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
April 12, Monday, 1852.
Your letter was pleasant and not so pleasant, dearest Monna Nina; for it
was not so pleasant indeed to hear how ill you had been--and yet to be
lifted into the hope, or rather certainty, of seeing you next week
pleased us extremely of course, and the more that your note through Lady
Lyell had thrown us backward into a slough of despond and made me
sceptical as to your coming here at all....
What a beautiful Paris it is! I walked out a little yesterday with
Robert, and we both felt penetrated with the sentiment of southern life
as we watched men, women, and children sitting out in the sun, taking
wine and coffee, and enjoying their _fête_ day with good happy faces.
The mixture of classes is to me one of the most delicious features of
the South, and you have it here exactly as in Italy. The colouring too,
the brightness, even the sun--oh, come and enjoy it all with us. We have
had a most splendid spring beginning with February. Still, I have been
out very seldom, being afraid of treacherous winds combined with burning
sunshine, but I have enjoyed the weather in the house and by opening
the windows, and have been revived and strengthened much by it, and
shall soon recover my summer power of walking, I dare say. What do you
think I did the other night? Went to the Vaudeville to see the 'Dame aux
Camélias' on above the fiftieth night of the representation. I disagree
with the common outcry about its immorality. According to my view, it is
moral and human. But I never will go to see it again, for it almost
broke my heart and split my head. I had a headache afterwards for
twenty-four hours. Even Robert, who gives himself out for _blasé_ on
dramatic matters, couldn't keep the tears from rolling down his cheeks.
The exquisite acting, the too literal truth to nature everywhere, was
_exasperating_--there was something profane in such familiar handling of
life and death. Art has no business with real graveclothes when she
wants tragic drapery--has she? It was too much altogether like a bull
fight. There's a caricature at the shop windows of the effect produced,
the pit protecting itself with multitudinous umbrellas from the tears of
the boxes. This play is by Alexandre Dumas _fils_--and is worthy by its
talent of Alexandre Dumas _père_.
Only that once have I been in a Parisian theatre. I couldn't go even to
see 'Les Vacances de Pandolphe' when George Sand had the goodness to
send us tickets for the first night. She failed in it, I am sorry to
say--it did not 'draw,' as the phrase is. Now she has left Paris, but is
likely to return.
I am sure it will do you great good to have change and liberty and
distraction in various ways. The '_anxiety_' you speak of--oh, I do hope
it does not relate to Gerardine. I always think of her when you seem
anxious.
I shall be very glad if, when you come, you should be inclined to give
your attention, you with your honest and vigorous mind, to the facts of
the political situation, not the facts as you hear them from the
English, or from our friend Madme Mohl, who confessed to me one day
that she liked exaggerations because she hated the President. She is a
clever shrewd woman, but most eminently and on all subjects a woman; her
passions having her thoughts inside them, instead of her thoughts her
passions. That's the common distinction between women and men, is it
not?
Robert, too, will tell you that he hates all Buonapartes, past, present,
or to come, but then _he_ says _that_ in his self-willed, pettish way,
as a manner of dismissing a subject he won't think about--and knowing
very well that he doesn't think about it, not mistaking a feeling for a
reason, not for a moment. There's the difference between women and men.
Well, but you won't come here to knit your brows about politics, but
rather to forget all sorts of anxieties and distresses, and be well and
happy, I do hope. You deserve a holiday after all that work. God bless
you, dear friend.
Our united love goes to you and stays with you.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mulock_
[Paris]: 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
April 27, [1852].
I am afraid you must think me--what can you have thought of me for not
immediately answering a letter which brought the tears both to my eyes
and my husband's? I was going to write just _so_, but he said: 'No, do
not write yet; wait till we get the book and then you can speak of it
with knowledge.' And I waited.
But the misfortune is that Messrs. Chapman & Hall waited too, and that
up to the present time 'The Head of the Family' has not arrived. Mr.
Chapman is slow in finding what he calls his opportunities.
Therefore I can't wait any more, no indeed. The voice which called
'Dinah' in the garden--which was true, because certainly I did call from
Florence with my whole heart to the writer of these verses[13] (how
deeply they moved me!)--will have seemed to you by this time as fabulous
as the garden itself. And we had no garden at Florence, I must confess
to you, only a terrace facing the grey wall of San Felice church, where
we used to walk up and down on the moonlight nights. But San Felice was
always a good saint to me, and when I had read and cried over those
verses from the 'Athenæum' (my husband wrote them out for me at the
reading room) and when I had vainly written to England to find out the
poet, and when I had all as vainly, on our visit to England last summer,
inquired of this person and that person, it turns out after all that
'Dinah' answers me. Do you not think I am glad?
The beautiful verses touched me to the quick, so does your letter. We
shall be in London again perhaps in two months for a few weeks, and then
you will let us see you, I hope, will you not? And, in the meanwhile,
you will believe that we do not indeed think of you as a stranger. Ah,
your dream flattered me in certain respects! Yet there was some truth in
it, as I have told you, even though you saw in the dreamlight more roses
than were growing.
Certainly Mr. Chapman will at last send me 'The Head of the Family,' and
then I will write again of course.
Dear Miss Mulock, may I write myself down now, because I _must_,
Affectionately yours and gratefully,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[Paris],138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
May 9, [1852].
I began a long letter to you in the impulse left by yours upon me, and
then destroyed it by accident. That hindered me from writing as soon as
I should have done, for indeed I am anxious to have other news of you,
my dearest dear Miss Mitford, and to know, if possible, that you are a
little better.... Tell me everything. Why, you looked really well last
summer; and I want to see you looking well this summer, for we shall
probably be in London in June--more's the pity, perhaps! The gladness I
have in England is so leavened through and through with sadness that I
incline to do with it as one does with the black bread of the monks of
Vallombrosa, only pretend to eat it and drop it slyly under the table.
If it were not for some ties I would say 'Farewell, England,' and never
set foot on it again. There's always an east wind for _me_ in England,
whether the sun shines or not--the moral east wind which is colder than
any other. But how dull to go on talking of the weather: _Sia come
vuole_, as we say in Italy.
To-morrow is the great _fête_ of your Louis Napoleon, the distribution
of the eagles. We have done our possible and impossible to get tickets,
because I had taken strongly into my head to want to go, and because
Robert, who didn't care for it himself, cared for it for me; but here's
the eleventh hour and our prospects remain gloomy. We did not apply
sufficiently soon, I am afraid, and the name of the applicants has been
legion. It will be a grand sight, and full of significances.
Nevertheless, the empire won't come _so_; you will have to wait a little
for the Empire. Who were your financial authorities who praised Louis
Napoleon? and do the same approve of the late measure about the three
per cents.? I am so absolutely _bête_ upon such subjects that I don't
even _pretend_ to be intelligent; but I heard yesterday from a direct
source that Rothschild expressed a high admiration of the President's
financial ability. A friend of that master in Israel said it to our
friend Lady Elgin. Commerce is reviving, money is pouring in, confidence
is being restored on all sides. Even the Press palpitates again--ah, but
I wish it were a little freer of the corset. This Government is not
after my heart after all. I only tolerate what appear to me the
necessities of an exceptional situation. The masses are satisfied and
hopeful, and the President stronger and stronger--not by the sword, may
it please the English Press, but by the democracy.
I am delighted to see that the French Government has protested against
the reactionary iniquities of the Tuscan Grand Duke, and every day I
expect eagerly some helping hand to be stretched out to Rome. I have
looked for this from the very first, and certainly it is significant
that the Prince of Canino, the late President of the Roman Republic,
should be in favour at the Elysée. Pio Nono's time is but short, I
fancy--that is, reforms will be forced upon him.
When George Sand had audience with the President, he was very kind; did
I tell you that? At the last he said: 'Vous verrez, vous serez contente
de moi.' To which she answered, 'Et vous, vous serez content de moi.' It
was repeated to me as to the great dishonour of Madame Sand, and as a
proof that she could not resist the influence of power and was a bad
republican. I, on the contrary, thought the story quite honourable to
both parties. It was for the sake of her _rouge_ friends that she
approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched
out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same,
being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant.
Victor Cousin and Villemain refuse to take the oath, and lose their
situations in the Academy accordingly; but they retire on pensions, and
it's their own fault of course. Michelet and Quinet should have an
equivalent, I think, for what they have lost; they are worthy, as poets,
orators, dreamers, speculative thinkers--as anything, in fact, but
instructors of youth.
No, there is a brochure, or a little book somewhere, pretending to be a
memoir of Balzac, but I have not seen it. Some time before his death he
had bought a country place, and there was a fruit tree in the garden--I
think a walnut tree--about which he delighted himself in making various
financial calculations after the manner of César Birotteau. He built the
house himself, and when it was finished there was just one defect--it
wanted a staircase. They had to put in the staircase afterwards. The
picture gallery, however, had been seen to from the first, and the great
writer had chalked on the walls, 'Mon Raffaelle,' 'Mon Corrège,' 'Mon
Titien,' 'Mon Léonard de Vinci,' the pictures being yet unattained. He
is said to have been a little loth to spend money, and to have liked to
dine magnificently at the restaurant at the expense of his friends,
forgetting to pay for his own share of the entertainment. For the rest,
the 'idée fixe' of the man was to be rich one day, and he threw his
subtle imagination and vital poetry into pounds, shillings, and pence
with such force that he worked the base element into spiritual
splendours. Oh! to think of our having missed seeing that man. It is
painful. A little book is published of his 'thoughts and maxims,' the
sweepings of his desk I suppose; broken notes, probably, which would
have been wrought up into some noble works, if he had lived. Some of
these are very striking.
Lamartine has not yet paid us the promised visit. Just as we were
beginning to feel vexed we heard that the intermediate friend who was to
have brought him had been caught up by the Government and sent off to
Saint-Germain to 'faire le mort,' on pain of being sent farther. I mean
Eugène Belleton. If he talked in many places as he talked in this room,
I can't be very much surprised, but I am really very sorry. He is one of
those amiable domestic men who delight in talking 'battle, murder, and
sudden death.'
[_The end of this letter is wanting_]
* * * * *
_To Miss Mulock_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
June 2, [1852].
My husband went directly to Rue Vivienne and came back without the book.
We waited and waited, but at last it reached us, and we have read it,
and since then I have let some days go by through having been unwell.
You seemed to let me sit still in my chair and do nothing; you did not
call too loud. So was it with most other things in the universe. Now,
having awakened from my somnolency, recovered from 'La Grippe' (or what
mortal Londoners call the influenza), the first person and first book I
think of must naturally be you and yours.
So I thank you much, much, for the book. It has interested me, dear Miss
Mulock, as a book should, and I am delighted to recognise everywhere
undeniable talent and faculty, combined with high and pure aspiration. A
clever book, a graceful book, and with the moral grace besides--thank
you. Many must have thanked you as well as myself.
At the same time, precisely because I feel particularly obliged to you,
I mean to tell you the truth. Your hero is heroic from his own point of
view--accepting his own view of the situation, which I, for one, cannot
accept, do you know, for I am of opinion that both you and he are rather
conventional on the subject of his marriage. I don't in the least
understand, at this moment, why he should not have married in the first
volume; no, not in the least. It was a matter of income, he would tell
me, and of keeping two establishments; and I would answer that it ought
rather to have been a matter of faith in God and in the value of God's
gifts, the greatest of which is love. I am romantic about love--oh, much
more than you are, though older than you. A man's life does not develop
rightly without it, and what is called an 'improvident marriage' often
appears to me a noble, righteous, and prudent act. Your Ninian was a man
before he was a brother. I hold that he had no right to sacrifice a
great spiritual good of his own to the worldly good of his family,
however he made it out. He should have said: 'God gives me this gift, He
will find me energy to work for it and suffer for it. We will all live
together, struggle together if it is necessary, a little more poorly, a
little more laboriously, but keeping true to the best aims of life, all
of us.'
That's what _my_ Ninian would have said. I don't like to see noble
Ninians crushed flat under family Juggernauts, from whatever heroic
motives--not I. Do you forgive me for being so candid?
I must tell you that Mrs. Jameson, who is staying in this house, read
your book in England and mentioned it to me as a good book, 'very
gracefully written,' before I read it, quite irrespectively, too, of my
dedication, which was absent from the copy she saw at Brighton. It was
mentioned as one of the novels which had pleased her most lately.
I shall like to show you my child, as you like children, and as I am
vain--oh, past endurance vain, about him. You won't understand a word he
says, though, for he speaks three languages at once, and most of the
syllables of each wrong side foremost.
No, don't call me a Bonapartist. I am not a Bonapartist indeed. But I am
a Democrat and singularly (in these days) consequent about universal
suffrage. Also, facts in England have been much mis-stated; but there's
no room for politics to-day.
When I thank you, remember that my husband thanks you. We both hope to
see you before this month shall be quite at an end, and then you will
know me better, I hope; and though I shall lose a great deal by your
knowing me, of course, yet you won't, _after that_, make such mistakes
as you 'confess' in this note which I have just read over again. Did I
think you 'sentimental'? Won't you rather think _me_ sentimental to-day?
Through it all,
Your affectionate
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
[Paris], 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées:
June 16, [1852].
My first word must be to thank you, my dearest kind friend, for your
affectionate words to me and mine, which always, from you, sink deeply.
It was, on my part, great gratification to see you and talk to you and
hear you talk, and, above all, perhaps, to feel that you loved me still
a little. May God bless you both! And may we meet again and again in
Paris and elsewhere; in London this summer to begin with! As the
Italians would say in relation to any like pleasure: 'Sarebbe una
_benedizione_.'
We are waiting for the English weather to be reported endurable in order
to set out. Mrs. Streatfield, who has been in England these twelve days,
writes to certify that it is past the force of a Parisian imagination to
imagine the state of the skies and the atmosphere; yet, even in Paris,
we have been moaning the last four days, because really, since then, we
have gone back to April, and a rather cool April, with alternate showers
and sunshine--a crisis, however, which does not call for fires, nor
inflict much harm on me. It was the thunder, we think, that upset the
summer.
You seem to have had a sort of inkling about my brittleness when you
were here. It was the beginning of a bad attack of cough and pain in the
side, the consequence of which was that I turned suddenly into the
likeness of a ghost and frightened Robert from his design of going to
England. About that I am by no means regretful; he was not wanted, as
the event proved abundantly. The worst was that he was annoyed by the
number of judicious observers and miserable comforters who told him I
was horribly changed and ought to be taken back to Italy forthwith. I
knew it was nothing but an accidental attack, and that the results would
pass away, as they did. I kept quiet, applied mustard poultices, and am
now looking again (tell dear Mr. Martin) 'as if I had shammed.' So all
these misfortunes are strictly historical, you are to understand.
To-night we are going to Ary Scheffer's to hear music and to see ever so
many celebrities. Oh, and let me remember to tell you that M. Thierry,
the blind historian, has sent us a message by his physician to ask us to
go to see him, and as a matter of course we go. Madame Viardot, the
prima donna, and Leonard, the first violin player at the Conservatoire,
are to be at M. Scheffer's.
After all, you are too right. The less amused I am, clearly the better
for me. I should live ever so many years more by being shut up in a
hermitage, if it were warm and dry. More's the pity, when one wants to
see and hear as I do. The only sort of excitement and fatigue which does
me no harm, but good, is _travelling_. The effect of the continual
change of air is to pour in oil as the lamp burns; so I explain the
extraordinary manner in which I bear the fatigue of being
four-and-twenty hours together in a diligence, for instance, which many
strong women would feel too much for them.
All this talking of myself when I want to talk of you and to tell you
how touched I was by the praises of your winning little Letitia!
Enclosed is a note to Chapman & Hall which will put her 'bearer' (if she
can find one in London) in possession of the two volumes in question. I
shall like her to have them, and she must try to find my love, as the
King of France did the poison (a 'most unsavoury simile,' certainly),
between the leaves. I send with them, in any case, my best love. Ah, so
sorry I am that she has suffered from the weather you have had. She is a
most interesting child, and of a nature which is rare....
Robert's warm regards, with those of your
Ever affectionate and grateful
BA.
Madame Viardot is George Sand's heroine Consuelo. You know that
beautiful book.
* * * * *
With the last days of June the long stay in Paris came to an end, and
the Brownings paid their second visit to London. Their residence on this
occasion was at 58 Welbeck Street ('very respectable rooms this time,
and at a moderate price'), and here they stayed until the beginning of
November. Neither husband nor wife seems to have written much poetry
during this year, either in Paris or in London.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
[London], 58 Welbeck Street: Saturday,
[June-July 1852].
... We saw your book in Paris, the Galignani edition, and I read it all
except the one thing I had not courage to read. Thank you, thank you. We
are both of us grateful to you for your most generous and heartwarm
intentions to us. As to the book, it's a book made to go east and west;
it's a popular book with flowers from the 'village' laid freshly and
brightly between the critical leaves. I don't always agree with you. I
think, for instance, that Mary Anne Browne should never be compared to
George Sand in 'passion,' and I can't grant to you that your extracts
from her poems bear you out to even one fiftieth degree in such an
opinion. I agree with you just as little with regard to Dr. Holmes and
certain others. But to _have_ your opinion is always a delightful thing,
and 'it is characteristic of your generosity,' to say the least, we say
to ourselves when we are 'dissidents' most.
I am writing in the extremest haste, just a word to announce our arrival
in England. We are in very comfortable rooms in 58 Welbeck Street, and
my sister Henrietta is some twenty doors away. To-morrow Robert and I
are going to Wimbledon for a day to dear Mr. Kenyon, who looks radiantly
well and has Mr. Landor for a companion just now. Imagine the uproar and
turmoil of our first days in London, and believe that I think of you
faithfully and tenderly through all. I am overjoyed to see my sisters,
who look well on the whole ... and they and everybody assure me that I
show a very satisfactory face to my country, as far as improved looks
go.
What nonsense one writes when one has but a moment to write in. I find
people talking about the 'facts in the "Times"' touching Louis Napoleon.
Facts in the 'Times'!
The heat is _stifling_. Do send one word to say how you are, and love me
always as I love you.
Your most affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
58 Welbeck Street: Friday, July 31, 1852 [postmark].
I want to hear about you again, dear, dearest Miss Mitford, and I can't
hear. Will you send me a line or a word.... I mean to go down to see you
one day, but certainly we must account it right not to tire you while
you are weak, and not to spoil our enjoyment by forestalling it. Two
months are full of days; we can afford to wait. Meantime let us have a
little gossip such as the gods allow of.
Dear Mr. Kenyon has not yet gone to Scotland, though his intentions
still stand north. He passed an evening with us some evenings ago, and
was brilliant and charming (the two things together), and good and
affectionate at the same time. Mr. Landor was staying with him (perhaps
I told you that), and went away into Worcestershire, assuring me, when
he took leave of me, that he would never enter London again. A week
passes, and lo! Mr. Kenyon expects him again. Resolutions are not always
irrevocable, you observe.
I must tell you what Landor said about Louis Napoleon. You are aware
that he loathed the first Napoleon and that he hates the French nation;
also, he detests the present state of French affairs, and has foamed
over in the 'Examiner' 'in prose and rhyme' on the subject of them.
Nevertheless, he who calls 'the Emperor' 'an infernal fool' expresses
himself to this effect about the President: 'I always knew him to be a
man of wonderful genius. I knew him intimately, and I was persuaded of
what was in him. When people have said to me, "How can you like to waste
your time with so trifling a man?" I have answered: "If all your Houses
of Parliament, putting their heads together, could make a head equal to
this trifling man's head it would be well for England."
It was quite unexpected to me to hear Mr. Landor talk so.
He, Mr. Landor, is looking as young as ever, as full of life and
passionate energy.
Did Mr. Horne write to you before he went to Australia? Did I speak to
you about his going? Did you see the letter which he put into the papers
as a farewell to England? I think of it all sadly.
Mazzini came to see us the other day, with that pale spiritual face of
his, and those intense eyes full of melancholy illusions. I was
thinking, while he sate there, on what Italian turf he would lie at last
with a bullet in his heart, or perhaps with a knife in his back, for to
one of those ends it will surely come. Mrs. Carlyle came with him. She
is a great favorite of mine: full of thought, and feeling, and
character, it seems to me.
London is emptying itself, and the relief will be great in a certain
way; for one gets exhausted sometimes. Let me remember whom I have seen.
Mrs. Newton Crosland, who spoke of you very warmly; Miss Mulock, who
wrote 'The Ogilvies' (that series of novels), and is interesting,
gentle, and young, and seems to have worked half her life in spite of
youth; Mr. Field we have not seen, only heard of; Miss ----, no--but I
am to see her, I understand, and that she is an American Corinna in
yellow silk, but pretty. We drove out to Kensington with Monckton Milnes
and his wife, and I like her; she is quiet and kind, and seems to have
accomplishments, and we are to meet Fanny Kemble at the Procters some
day next week. Many good faces, but the best wanting. Ah, I wish Lord
Stanhope, who shows the spirits of the sun in a crystal ball, could show
us _that_! Have you heard of the crystal ball?[14] We went to meet it
and the seer the other morning, with sundry of the believers and
unbelievers--among the latter, chief among the latter, Mr. Chorley, who
was highly indignant and greatly scandalised, particularly on account of
the combination sought to be established by the lady of the house
between lobster salad and Oremus, spirit of the sun. For my part, I
endured both luncheon and spiritual phenomena with great equanimity. It
was very curious altogether to my mind, as a sign of the times, if in no
other respect of philosophy. But I love the marvellous. Write a word to
me, I beseech you, and love me and think of me, as I love and think of
you. God bless you. Robert's love.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Jameson_
58 Welbeck Street: Tuesday, [July-October 1852].
Dearest Monna Nina,--Here are the verses. I did them all because that
was easiest to me, but of course you will extract the two you want.
It has struck me besides that you might care to see this old ballad
which I find among my papers from one of the Percy or other antiquarian
Society books, and which I transcribed years ago, modernising slightly
in order to make out some sort of rhythm as I went on. I did this
because the original poem impressed me deeply with its pathos. I wish I
could send you the antique literal poem, but I haven't it, nor know
where to find it; still, I don't think I quite spoilt it with the very
slight changes ventured by me in the transcription.
God bless you. Let us meet on Wednesday. Robert's best love, with that
of your ever affectionate
BA.
STABAT MATER
Mother full of lamentation,
Near that cross she wept her passion,
Whereon hung her child and Lord.
Through her spirit worn and wailing,
Tortured by the stroke and failing,
Passed and pierced the prophet's sword.
Oh, sad, sore, above all other,
Was that ever blessed mother
Of the sole-begotten one;
She who mourned and moaned and trembled
While she measured, nor dissembled,
Such despairs of such a son!
Where's the man could hold from weeping,
If Christ's mother he saw keeping
Watch with mother-heart undone?
Who could hold from grief, to view her,
Tender mother true and pure,
Agonising with her Son?
For her people's sins she saw Him
Down the bitter deep withdraw Him
'Neath the scourge and through the dole!
Her sweet Son she contemplated
Nailed to death, and desolated,
While He breathed away His soul.
E.B.B.
BALLAD--_Beginning of Edward II.'s Reign_
'Stand up, mother, under cross,
Smile to help thy Son at loss.
Blythe, O mother, try to be!'
'Son, how can I blythely stand,
Seeing here Thy foot and hand
Nailèd to the cruel tree?'
'Mother, cease thy weeping blind.
I die here for all mankind,
Not for guilt that I have done.'
'Son, I feel Thy deathly smart.
The sword pierces through my heart,
Prophesied by Simeon.'
'Mother, mercy! let me die,
Adam out of hell to buy,
And his kin who are accurst.'
'Son, what use have I for breath?
Sorrow wasteth me to death--
Let my dying come the first.'
'Mother, pity on thy Son!
Bloody tears be running down
Worse to bear than death to meet!'
'Son, how can I cease from weeping?
Bloody streams I see a-creeping
From Thine heart against my feet.'
'Mother, now I tell thee, I!
Better is it one should die
Than all men to hell should go.'
'Son, I see Thy body hang
Foot and hand in piercèd pang.
Who can wonder at my woe?'
'Mother, now I will thee tell,
If I live, thou goest to hell--
I must die here for thy sake.'
'Son, Thou art so mild and kind,
Nature, knowledge have enjoined
I, for Thee, this wail must make.'
'Mother, ponder now this thing:
Sorrow childbirth still must bring,
Sorrow 'tis to have a son!'
'Ay, still sorrow, I can tell!
Mete it by the pain of hell,
Since more sorrow can be none.'
'Mother, pity mother's care!
Now as mother dost thou fare,
Though of maids the purest known.'
'Son, Thou help at every need
All those who before me plead--
Maid, wife--woman, everyone.'
'Mother, here I cannot dwell.
Time is that I pass to hell,
And the third day rise again.'
'Son, I would depart with Thee.
Lo! Thy wounds are slaying me.
Death has no such sorrow--none.'
When He rose, then fell her sorrow.
Sprang her bliss on the third morrow.
A blythe mother wert thou so!
Lady, for that selfsame bliss,
Pray thy Son who peerless is,
Be our shield against our foe.
Blessed be thou, full of bliss!
Let us not heaven's safety miss,
Never! through thy sweet Son's might.
Jesus, for that selfsame blood
Which Thou sheddest upon rood,
Bring us to the heavenly light.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Martin_
58 Welbeck Street: Thursday, [September 2, 1852].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Your letters always make me glad to see them,
but this time the pleasure was tempered by an undeniable pain in the
conscience. Oh, I ought to have written long and long ago. I have
another letter of yours unanswered. Also, there was a proposition in it
to Robert of a tempting character, and he put off the 'no'--the
ungracious-sounding 'no'--as long as he could. He would have liked to
have seen Mrs. Flood, as well as you; she is a favorite with us both.
But he finds it impossible to leave London. We have had no less than
eight invitations into the country, and we are forced to keep to London,
in spite of all 'babbling about' and from 'green fields.' Once we went
to Farnham, and spent two days with Mr. and Mrs. Paine there in that
lovely heathy country, and met Mr. Kingsley, the 'Christian Socialist,'
author of 'Alton Locke,' 'Yeast,' &c. It is only two hours from town (or
less) by railroad, and we took our child with us and Flush, and had a
breath of fresh air which ought to have done us good, but didn't. Few
men have impressed me more agreeably than Mr. Kingsley. He is original
and earnest, and full of a genial and almost tender kindliness which is
delightful to me. Wild and theoretical in many ways he is of course, but
I believe he could not be otherwise than good and noble, let him say or
dream what he will. You are not to confound this visit of ours to
Farnham with the 'sanitary reform' picnic (!) to the same place, at
which the newspapers say we were present. We were _invited_--that is
true--but did not go, nor thought of it. I am not up to picnics--nor
_down_ to some of the company perhaps; who knows? Don't think me grown,
too, suddenly scornful, without being sure of the particulars....
Mr. Tennyson has a little son, and wrote me such three happy notes on
the occasion that I really never liked him so well before. I do like men
who are not ashamed to be happy beside a cradle. Monckton Milnes had a
brilliant christening luncheon, and his baby was made to sweep in India
muslin and Brussels lace among a very large circle of admiring guests.
Think of my vanity turning my head completely and admitting of my taking
Wiedeman there (because of an express invitation). He behaved like an
angel, everybody said, and looked very pretty, I said myself; only he
disgraced us all at last by refusing to kiss the baby, on the ground of
his being 'troppo grande.' He has learnt quantities of English words,
and is in consequence more unintelligible than ever. Poor darling! I am
in pain about him to-day. Wilson goes to spend a fortnight with her
mother, and I don't know how I shall be comforter enough. There will be
great wailing and gnashing of teeth certainly, and I shall be in prison
for the next two weeks, and have to do all the washing and dressing
myself....
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
58 Welbeck Street:
Saturday, September 14, 1852 [postmark].
My dearest Miss Mitford,--I am tied and bound beyond redemption for the
next fortnight at least, therefore the hope of seeing you must be for
_afterwards_. I dare say you think that a child can be stowed away like
other goods; but I do assure you that my child, though quite capable of
being amused by his aunts for a certain number of half-hours, would
break his little heart if I left him for a whole day while he had not
Wilson. When she is here, he is contented. In her absence he is
sceptical about happiness, and suspicious of complete desolation. Every
now and then he says to me, 'Will mama' (saying it in his pretty,
broken, unquotable language) 'go away and leave Peninni all alone?' He
won't let a human being touch him. I wash and dress him, and have him to
sleep with me, and Robert is the only other helper he will allow of.
'There's spoiling of a child!' say you. But he is so good and tender and
sensitive that we can't go beyond a certain line. For instance, I was
quite frightened about the effect of Wilson's leaving him. We managed to
prepare him as well as we could, and when he found she was actually
gone, the passion of grief I had feared was just escaped. He struggled
with himself, the eyes full of tears, and the lips quivering, but there
was not any screaming and crying such as made me cry last year on a like
occasion. He had made up his mind.
You see I can't go to you just now, whatever temptations you hold out.
Wait--oh, we must wait. And whenever I do go to you, you will see Robert
at the same time. He will like to see _you_; and besides, he would as
soon trust me to travel to Reading alone as I trust Peninni to be alone
here. I believe he thinks I should drop off my head and leave it under
the seat of the rail-carriage if he didn't take care of it....
I ought to have told you that Mr. Kingsley (one of the reasons why I
liked him) spoke warmly and admiringly of you. Yes, I ought to have told
you that--his praise is worth having. Of course I have heard much of Mr.
Harness from Mr. Kenyon and you, as well as from my own husband. But
there is no use in measuring temptations; I am a female St. Anthony, and
_won't_ be overcome. The Talfourds wanted me to dine with them on
Monday. Robert goes alone. You don't mention Mr. Chorley. Didn't he find
his way to you?
Mr. Patmore told us that Tennyson was writing a poem on Arthur--_not_ an
epic, a collection of poems, ballad and otherwise, united by the
subject, after the manner of 'In Memoriam,' but in different measures.
The work will be full of beauty, whatever it is, I don't doubt.
I am reading more Dumas. He never flags. I _must_ see Dumas when I go
again to Paris, and it will be easy, as we know his friend Jadin.
Did you read Mrs. Norton's last book--the novel, which seems to be so
much praised? Tell me what it is, in your mind....
I will write no more, that you may have the answer to my kind
proposition as soon as possible. _After the fortnight._
God bless you.
Your ever affectionate
E.B.B.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
58 Welbeck Street: Tuesday, [September 1852].
Alas, no; I cannot go to you before the Saturday you name, nor for some
days after, dearest friend. It is simply impossible. Wilson has not come
back, nor will till the end of next week, and though I can get away from
my child for two or three hours at once during the daytime, for the
whole day I could not go. What would become of him, poor darling?...
And I can't go to you this week, nor next week, probably. How vexatious!
My comfort is that you seem to be better--much, much better--and that
you have courage to think of the pony carriages and the Kingsleys of the
earth. That man impressed me much, interested me much. The more you see
of him, the more you will like him, is my prophecy. He has a volume of
poems, I hear, close upon publication, and Robert and I are looking
forward to it eagerly.
Mr. Ruskin has been to see us (did I tell you that?)... We went to
Denmark Hill yesterday by agreement, to see the Turners--which, by the
way, are divine. I like Mr. Ruskin much, and so does Robert. Very
gentle, yet earnest--refined and truthful. I like him very much. We
count him among the valuable acquaintances made this year in England....
Mr. Kenyon has come back, and most other people are gone away; but he is
worth more than most other people, so the advantage remains to the
scale. I am delighted that you should have your dear friend Mr. Harness
with you, and, for my own part, I do feel grateful to him for the good
he has evidently done you. Oh, continue to be better! Don't overtire
yourself--don't use improvidently the new strength. Remember the winter,
and be wise; and let me see you, before it comes, looking as bright and
well as I thought you last year. God bless you always.
Love your ever affectionate
BA.
Robert's love.
* * * * *
_To Miss Mitford_
London: Friday, [October 6, 1852].
My dearest Miss Mitford,--I am quite in pain to have to write a farewell
to you after all. As soon as Wilson had returned--and she stayed away
much longer than last year--we found ourselves pushed to the edge of our
time for remaining in England, and the accumulation of business to be
done before we could go pressed on us. I am almost mad with the amount
of things to be done, as it is; but I should have put the visit to you
at the head of them, and swept all the rest on one side for a day, if it
hadn't been for the detestable weather, and my horrible cough which
combines with it. When Wilson came back she found me coughing in my old
way, and it has been without intermission up to now, or rather waxing
worse and worse. To have gone down to you and inflicted the noise of it
on you would have simply made you nervous, while the risk to myself
would have been very great indeed. Still, I have waited and waited,
feeling it scarcely possible to write to you to say, 'I am not coming
this year.' Ah, I am so very sorry and disappointed! I hoped against
hope for a break in the weather, and an improvement in myself; now we
must go, and there is no hope. For about a fortnight I have been a
prisoner in the house. This climate won't let me live, there's the
truth. So we are going on Monday. We go to Paris for a week or two, and
then to Florence, and then to Rome, and then to Naples; but we shall be
back next year, if God pleases, and then I shall seize an early summer
day to run down straight to you and find you stronger, if God blesses me
so far. Think of me and love me a little meanwhile. I shall do it by
you. And do, _do_--since there is no time to hear from you in
London--send a fragment of a note to Arabel for me, that I may have it
in Paris before we set out on our long Italian journey. Let me have the
comfort of knowing exactly how you are before we set out. As for me, I
expect to be better on crossing the Channel. How people manage to live
and enjoy life in this fog and cold is inexplicable to me. I understand
the system of the American rapping spirits considerably better....
The Tennysons in their kindest words pressed us to be present at their
child's christening, which took place last Tuesday, but I could not go;
it was not possible. Robert went alone, therefore, and nursed the baby
for ten or twelve minutes, to its obvious contentment, he flatters
himself. It was christened Hallam Tennyson. Mr. Hallam was the
godfather, and present in his vocation. That was touching, wasn't it? I
hear that the Laureate talks vehemently against the French President and
the French; but for the rest he is genial and good, and has been quite
affectionate to us....
So I go without seeing you. Grieved I am. Love me to make amends.
Robert's love goes with me.
Your ever affectionate
BA.
* * * * *
_To John Kenyon_
[Paris,] Hôtel de la Ville-l'Évêque, Rue Ville-l'Évêque:
Thursday, [November 1852].
My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--I cannot do better to-day than keep my promise
to you about writing. We have done our business in Paris, but we linger
from the inglorious reason that we, experienced travellers as we are,
actually left a desk behind us in Bentinck Street, and must get it
before we go farther. Meanwhile, it's rather dangerous to let the charm
of Paris work--the honey will be clogging our feet very soon, and make
it difficult to go away. What an attractive place this is, to be sure!
How the sun shines, how the blue sky spreads, how the life lives, and
how kind the people are on all sides! If we were going anywhere but to
Italy, and if I were a little less plainly mortal with this disagreeable
cough of mine, I would gladly stay and see in the Empire with M.
Proudhon in the tail of it, and sit as a watcher over whatever things
shall be this year and next spring at Paris. As it is, we have been very
fortunate, as usual, in being present in a balcony on the boulevard, the
best place possible for seeing the grandest spectacle in the world, the
reception of Louis Napoleon last Saturday. The day was brilliant, and
the sweep of sunshine over the streaming multitude, and all the military
and civil pomp, made it difficult to distinguish between the light and
life. The sunshine seemed literally to push back the houses to make room
for the crowd, and the wide boulevards looked wider than ever. If you
had cursed the sentiment of the day ever so, you would have had eyes for
its picturesqueness, I think, so I wish you had been there to see.
Louis Napoleon showed his usual tact and courage by riding on horseback
quite alone, at least ten paces between himself and his nearest escort,
which of course had a striking effect, taking the French on their weak
side, and startling even Miss Cushman (who had been murmuring
displeasure into my ear for an hour) into an exclamation of 'That's
fine, I must say.' Little Wiedeman was in a state of ecstasy, and has
been recounting ever since how he called '"Vive Napoléon!" _molto molto
duro_,' meaning _very loud_ (his Italian is not very much more correct,
you know, than his other languages), and how Napoleon took off his hat
to him directly. I don't see the English papers, but I conclude you are
all furious. You must make up your minds to it nevertheless--the Empire
is certain, and the feeling of all but unanimity (whatever the motive)
throughout France obvious enough. Smooth down the lion's mane of the
'Examiner,' and hint that roaring over a desert is a vain thing. As to
Victor Hugo's book, the very enemies of the present state of affairs
object to it that _he lies_ simply. There is not enough truth in it for
an invective to rest on, still less for an argument. It's an
inarticulate cry of a bird of prey, wild and strong irrational, and not
a book at all. For my part I did wave my handkerchief for the new
Emperor, but I bore the show very well, and said to myself, 'God bless
the people!' as the man who, to my apprehension, represents the
democracy, went past. A very intelligent Frenchman, caught in the crowd
and forced to grope his way slowly along, told me that the expression of
opinion everywhere was curiously the same, not a dissenting mutter did
he hear. Strange, strange, all this! For the drama of history we must
look to France, for startling situations, for the 'points' which thrill
you to the bone....
May God bless you meantime! Take care of yourself for the sake of us all
who love you, none indeed more affectionately and gratefully than
R.B. and E.B.B.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Holy Scriptures.
[2] Miss Haworth was a friend of Mr. Browning from very early days, and
was commemorated by him in 'Sordello' under the name of 'Eyebright' (see
Mrs. Orr's _Life_, p. 86). Her acquaintance with Mrs. Browning began
with this visit to London, and ripened into a warm friendship. One
subject of interest which they had in common was mesmerism, with the
attendant mysteries of spiritualism and Swedenborgianism; and references
to these are frequent in Mrs. Browning's letters to her.
[3] So spelt in the earlier letters, but subsequently modified to
'Penini.'
[4] Miss Mitford had lately moved into her new home at Swallowfield,
about three miles from the old cottage at Three Mile Cross, commemorated
in 'Our Village.'
[5] The article was by M. Joseph Milsand, and led to the formation of
the warm friendship between him and Mr. Browning which lasted until the
death of the former in 1886.
[6] The May edict restricted the franchise to electors who had resided
three years in the same district. In October Louis Napoleon proposed to
repeal it, and the refusal of the Assembly no doubt strengthened his
hold on the democracy.
[7] The _coup d'état_ took place in the early morning of December 2.
[8] The constitution of 1848.
[9] The point was rather whether they had the _power_.
[10] Miss Mitford's _Recollections of a Literary Life_ contained a
chapter relating to Robert and Elizabeth Browning, in which, with the
best intentions in the world, she told the story of the drowning of
Edward Barrett, and of the gloom cast by it on his sister's life. It was
this revival of the greatest sorrow of her life that so upset Mrs.
Browning.
[11] No doubt M. Milsand was the writer in question.
[12] The (forged) _Letters of Shelley_, to which Mr. Browning wrote an
introduction, dealing rather with Shelley in general than with the
letters.
[13] 'Lines to Elizabeth Barrett Browning on her Later Sonnets', printed
in the _Athenæum_ for February 15, 1851. The allusion to the voice which
called 'Dinah' must refer to something in Miss Mulock's letter. Dinah
was Miss Mulock's Christian name.
[14] In another letter, written about the same date to Mrs. Martin, Mrs.
Browning says: 'Perhaps you never heard of the crystal ball. The
original ball was bought by Lady Blessington from an "Egyptian
magician," and resold at her sale. She never could understand the use of
it, but others have looked deeper, or with purer eyes, it is said; and
now there is an optician in London who makes and sells these balls, and
speaks of a "great demand," though they are expensive. "Many persons,"
said Lord Stanhope, "use the balls, without the moral courage to confess
it." No doubt they did.