The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume Ii Part 18

What a time of anxiety this war time is![38] I do thank G.o.d that _we_ have no reasons for its being a personal agony, through having anyone very precious at the post of danger. I have two first cousins there, a Hedley, and Paget Butler, Sir Thomas's son. I understand that the gloom in England from the actual bereavements is great; that the frequency of deep mourning strikes the eye; that even the shops are filled chiefly with black; and that it has become a sort of _mode_ to wear black or grey, without family losses, and from the mere force of sympathy.

My poor father is still unable to stir from the house, and he has been unwell through a bilious attack, the consequence of want of exercise.

Nothing can induce him to go out in a carriage, because he 'never did in his life drive out for mere amus.e.m.e.nt,' he says. There's what Mr. Kenyon calls 'the Barrett obstinacy,' and it makes me uneasy as to the effect of it in this instance upon the general health of the patient. Poor darling Arabel seems to me much out of spirits--'out of humour,' _she_ calls it, dear thing--oppressed by the gloom of the house, and looking back yearningly to the time when she had sisters to talk to. Oh Sarianna, I wish we were all together to have a good gossip or groaning, with a laugh at the end!...

Your ever affectionate sister, BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Florence: November 1854.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--You make me wait and I make you wait for letters. It is bad of us both--and remember, _worse of you_, seeing that you left two long letters of mine unanswered for months. I felt as if I had fallen down an _oubliette_, and I was about to utter the loud shrieks befitting the occasion, when you wrote at last. Don't treat me so another time; I want to know your plans for the winter, since the winter is upon us. Next summer, if it pleases G.o.d, we shall certainly meet somewhere--say Paris, say London. We shall have money for it, which we had not this year; and now the disappointment's over, I don't care.

The heat at Florence was very bearable, and our child grew into his roses lost at Rome, and we have lived a very tranquil and happy six months on our own sofas and chairs, among our own nightingales and fireflies. There's an inclination in me to turn round with my Penini and say, 'I'm an Italian.' Certainly both light and love seem stronger with me at Florence than elsewhere....

The war! The alliance is the consolation; the necessity is the justification. For the rest, one shuts one's eyes and ears--the rest is too horrible. What do you mean by fearing that the war itself may not be all the evil of the war? I expect, on the contrary, a freer political atmosphere after this thunder. Louis Napoleon is behaving very tolerably well, won't you admit, after all? And I don't look to a treason at the end as certain of his enemies do, who are reduced to a 'wait, wait, and you'll see.' There's a friend of mine here, a traditional anti-Gallican, and very lively in his politics until the last few months. He can't speak now or lift up his eyelids, and I am too magnanimous in opposition to talk of anything else in his presence except Verdi's last opera, which magnanimity he appreciates, though he has no ear. About a month ago he came suddenly to life again. 'Have you heard the news? Napoleon is suspected of making a secret treaty with Russia.' The next morning he was as dead as ever--poor man! It's a desperate case for him.

Are you not happy--_you_--in this fast union between England and France?

Some of our English friends, coming to Italy through France, say that the general feeling towards England, and the affectionate greetings and sympathies lavished upon them as Englishmen by the French everywhere, are quite strange and touching. 'In two or three years,' said a Frenchman on a railroad, 'French and English, we shall make only one nation.' Are you very curious about the subject of gossip just now between Lord Palmerston and Louis Napoleon? We hear from somebody in Paris, whose _metier_ it is to know everything, that it refers to the readjustment of affairs in Italy. May G.o.d grant it! The Italians have been hanging their whole hope's weight upon Louis Napoleon ever since he came to power, and if he does now what he can for them I shall be proud of my _protege_--oh, and so glad! Robert and I clapped our hands yesterday when we heard this; we couldn't refrain, though our informant was reactionary and in a deep state of conservative melancholy. 'Awful things were to be expected about Italy,' quotha!

Now do be good, and write and tell me what your plans are for the winter. We shall remain here till May, and then, if G.o.d pleases, go north--to Paris and London. Robert and I are at work on our books. I have taken to a.s.s's milk to counteract the tramontana, and he is in the twenty-first and I in the twenty-second volume of Alexandre Dumas's 'Memoirs.' The book is _un peu hasarde_ occasionally, as might be expected, but extremely interesting, and I really must recommend it to your attention for the winter if you don't know it already.

We have seen a good deal of Mrs. Sartoris lately on her way to Rome (Adelaide Kemble)--eloquent in talk and song, a most brilliant woman, and n.o.ble. She must be saddened since then, poor thing, by her father's death. Tell me if it is true that Harriet Martineau has seceded again from her atheism? We heard so the other day. Dearest Mrs. Martin, do write to me; and do, both of you, remember me, and think of both of us kindly. With Robert's true regards,

I am your as ever affectionate BA.

Tell me dear Mr. Martin's mind upon politics--in the Austrian and Prussian question, for instance. We have no fears, in spite of Dr.

c.u.mming and the prophets generally, of ultimate results.

_To Miss Mitford_

Florence: December 11, 1854.

I should have written long ago, my dearest Miss Mitford, to try to say half the pleasure and grat.i.tude your letter made for me, but I have been worried and anxious about the illnesses, not exactly in my family but nearly as touching to me, and hanging upon posts from England in a painful way inevitable to these great distances....

I understand that literature is going on flaggingly in England just now, on account of n.o.body caring to read anything but telegraphic messages.

So Thackeray told somebody, only he might refer chiefly to the fortunes of the 'Newcomes,' who are not strong enough to resist the Czar. The book is said to be defective in story. Certainly the subject of the war is very absorbing; we are all here in a state of tremblement about it.

Dr. Harding has a son at Sebastopol, who has had already three horses killed under him. What hideous carnage! The allies are plainly numerically too weak, and the two governments are much blamed for not reinforcing long ago. I am discontented about Austria. I don't like handshaking with Austria; I would rather be picking her pocket of her Italian provinces; and, while upon such civil terms, how _can_ we? Yet somebody, who professes to know everything, told somebody at Paris, who professes to tell everything, that Louis Napoleon and Lord Palmerston talked much the other day about what is to be done for Italy; and here in Italy we have long been all opening our mouths like so many young thrushes in a nest, expecting some 'worme small' from your Emperor. Now, if there's an Austrian alliance instead!...

Do you hear from Mr. Kingsley? and, if so, how is his wife? I am reading now Mrs. Stowe's 'Sunny Memories,' and like the naturalness and simplicity of the book much, in spite of the provincialism of the tone of mind and education, and the really wretched writing. It's quite wonderful that a woman who has written a book to make the world ring should write so abominably....

Do you hear often from Mr. Chorley? Mr. Kenyon complains of never seeing him. He seems to have withdrawn a good deal, perhaps into closer occupations, who knows? Aubrey de Vere told a friend of ours in Paris the other day that Mr. Patmore was engaged on a poem which 'was to be the love poem of the age,' parts of which he, Aubrey de Vere, had seen.

Last week I was vexed by the sight of Mrs. Trollope's card, brought in because we were at dinner. I should have liked to have seen her for the sake of the opportunity of talking of _you_.

Do you know the engravings in the 'Story without an End'? The picture of the 'child' is just my Penini. Some one was observing it the other day, and I thought I would tell you, that you might image him to yourself.

Think of his sobbing and screaming lately because of the Evangelist John being sent to Patmos. 'Just like poor Robinson Crusoe' said he. I scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry, I was so astonished at this crisis of emotion.

Robert's love will be put in. May G.o.d bless you and keep you, and love you better than we all.

Your ever affectionate BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Casa Guidi: February 13, [1855].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--How am I to thank you for this most beautiful shawl, looking fresh from Galatea's flocks, and woven by something finer than her fingers? You are too good and kind, and I shall wrap myself in this piece of affectionateness on your part with very pleasant feelings.

Thank you, thank you. I only wish I could have seen you (though more or less dimly, it would have been a satisfaction) in the face of your friend who was so kind as to bring the parcel to me. But I have been very unwell, and was actually in bed when he called; unwell with the worst attack on the chest I ever suffered from in Italy. Oh, I should have written to you long since if it had not been for this. For a month past or more I have been ill. Now, indeed, I consider myself convalescent; the exhausting cough and night fever are gone, I may say, the pulse quiet, and, though considerably weakened and pulled down, that will be gradually remedied as long as this genial mildness of the weather lasts. You were quite right in supposing us struck here by the cold of which you complained even at Pau. Not only here but at Pisa there has been snow and frost, together with a bitter wind which my precaution of keeping steadily to two rooms opening one into another could not defend me from. My poor Robert has been horribly vexed about me, of course, and indeed suffered physically at one time through sleepless nights, diversified by such pastimes as keeping fires alight and warming coffee, &c. &c. Except for love's sake it wouldn't be worth while to live on at the expense of doing so much harm, but you needn't exhort--I don't give it up. I mean to live on and be well.

In the meantime, in generous exchange for your miraculous shawl, I send you back sixpence worth of rhymes. They were written for Arabel's Ragged School bazaar last spring (she wanted our names), and would not be worth your accepting but for the fact of their not being purchaseable anywhere.[39] A few copies were sent out to us lately. Half I draw back my hand as I give you this little pamphlet, because I seem to hear dear Mr. Martin's sardonic laughter at my phrase about the Czar. 'If she wink, &c.' Well, I don't generally sympathise with the boasting mania of my countrymen, but it's so much in the blood that, even with _me_, it exceeds now and then, you observe. Ask him to be as gentle with me as possible.

Oh, the East, the East! My husband has been almost frantic on the subject. We may all cover our heads and be humble.[40] Verily we have sinned deeply. As to ministers, that there is blame I do not doubt. The Aberdeen element has done its worst, but our misfortune is that n.o.body is responsible; and that if you tear up Mr. So-and-so and Lord So-and-so limb from limb, as a mild politician recommended the other day, you probably would do a gross injustice against very well-meaning persons.

It's the system, the system which is all one gangrene; the most corrupt system in Europe, is it not? Here is my comfort. Apart from the dreadful amount of individual suffering which cries out against us to heaven and earth, this adversity may teach us much, this shock which has struck to the heart of England may awaken us much, and this humiliation will altogether be good for us. We have stood too long on a pedestal talking of our moral superiority, our political superiority, and all our other superiorities, which I have long been sick of hearing recounted. Here's an inferiority proved. Let us understand it and remedy it, and not talk, talk, any more.

[_Part of this letter has been cut out_]

We heard yesterday from the editor of the 'Examiner,' Mr. Forster, who expects some terrible consequence of present circ.u.mstances in England, as far as I can understand. The alliance with France is full of consolation. There seems to be a real heart-union between the peoples.

What a grand thing the Napoleon loan is! It has struck the English with admiration.

I heard, too, among other English news, that Walter Savage Landor, who has just kept his eightieth birthday, and is as young and impetuous as ever, has caught the whooping cough by way of an ill.u.s.trative accident.

Kinglake ('E[=o]then') came home from the Crimea (where he went out and fought as an amateur) with fever, which has left one lung diseased. He is better, however....

Dearest Mrs. Martin, dearest friends, be both of you well and strong.

Shall we not meet in Paris this early summer?

May G.o.d bless you! Your ever affectionate

BA.

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Florence: February 24, 1855.

The devil (say charitable souls) is not as bad as he is painted, and even I, dearest Mona Nina, am better than I seem. In the first place, let me make haste to say that I _never received_ the letter you sent me to Rome with the information of your family affliction, and that, if I had, it could never have remained an unnoticed letter. I am not so untender, so unsympathising, not so brutal--let us speak out. I lost several letters in Rome, besides a good deal of illusion. I did not like Rome, I think I confessed to you. In the second place, when your last letter reached me--I mean the letter in which you told me to write to you directly--I _would_ have written directly, but was so very unwell that you would not have wished me even to try if, absent in the flesh, you had been present in spirit. I have had a severe attack on the chest--the worst I ever had in Italy--the consequence of exceptionally severe weather--bitter wind and frost together--which quite broke me up with cough and fever at night. Now I am well again, only of course much weakened, and grown thin. I mean to get fat again upon cod's liver oil, in order to appear in England with some degree of decency. You know I'm a lineal descendant of the White Cat, and have seven lives accordingly.

Also I have a trick of falling from six-storey windows upon my feet, in the manner of the traditions of my race. Not only I die hard, but I can hardly die. 'Half of it would kill _me_,' said an admiring friend the other day. 'What strength you must have!' A questionable advantage, except that I have also--a Robert, and a Penini!

Dearest friend, I don't know how to tell you of our fullness of sympathy in your late trials.[41] From a word which reached us from England the other day, there will be, I do trust, some effectual arrangement to relieve your friends from their anxieties about you. Then, there should be an increase of the Government pension by another hundred, that is certain; only the 'should be' lies so far out of sight in the ideal, that n.o.body in his senses should calculate on its occurrence. As to Law, it's different from Right--particularly in England perhaps--and appeals to Law are disastrous when they cannot be counted on as victorious, always and certainly. Therefore you may be wise in abstaining; you have considered sufficiently, of course. I only hope you are not trammelled in any degree by motives of delicacy which would be preposterous under the actual circ.u.mstances. You meantime are as n.o.bly laborious as ever.

We have caught hold of fragments in the newspapers from your 'Commonplace Book,' which made us wish for more; and Mr. Kenyon told me of a kind mention of Robert which was very pleasant to me.