The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume Ii Part 45

_To Mrs. Martin_

Villa Alberti, Siena: August 21, [1860].

I thank you, my dearest friend, from my heart for your letter, and the ray of suns.h.i.+ne it brought with it. Do you know I was childish enough to kiss it as if it knew what it did. I wish I could kiss _you_. Yes, I have been very unhappy, not giving way on the whole, going about my work as usual, but with a sense of a black veil between me and whatever I did, sometimes feeling incapable of crawling down to sit on the cus.h.i.+on under my own fig-tree for an hour's vision of this beautiful country--sometimes in 'des transes mortelles' of fear.

But we must not be atheists, as a friend said to me the other day. I hope I do not live quite as if I were. But it was a great shock from the beginning. Henrietta always seemed so strong that I never feared that way.

My first impulse was to rush to England, but this has been over-ruled by everybody, and I believe wisely. With my usual luck I should just have increased the sum of evil instead of bringing a single advantage to anyone. The best thing I can do for the others, is to keep quiet and try not to give cause for trouble on my account, to be patient and live on G.o.d's daily bread from day to day. I had a crumb or two the day before yesterday through Storm, who thought there might be a little less pain--and here you have sent me almost a slice--may G.o.d be thanked! How good you were to mention the doctor! It is grievous to me to think of her suffering. Darling!

I knew how strong your sympathy and personal feeling would be, and, even on that account, I had not the heart and courage to write to you. But no, dearest friends, I did not receive the letter you speak of, though I heard of your grief a good while afterwards. And so sorry I was--we both were--so sorry for f.a.n.n.y, so sorry for you! May G.o.d bless you all! How the spiritual world gets thronged to us with familiar faces, till at last, perhaps, the world here will seem the vague and strange world, even while we remain.

Still, it is beautiful out of this window; and of public affairs in Italy, I am stirred to think with the most vivid interest through all.

The rapture is not as in the northern war last year, because (you don't understand that in England) last year we fought the Austrian and now it is Italian against Italian,[90] which tempers every triumph with a certain melancholy. Also the Italian question in the south was decided in the north, and remained only a question of time, abbreviated (many think rashly) by our hero Garibaldi. For the crisis, so quickened, involves very serious dangers and most solemn thoughts. The southern difficulty may be considered solved--so we think--but just now that very solution opens out, as we all fear a new Austrian invasion in the north, backed indirectly at least by Prussia and Germany, who will use the opportunity in carrying out the coalition against France. There seems no doubt of the mischief hatched at Toeplitz. I wish I had known that England's influence was not used in drawing together those two powers.

Prussia deserves to be--what shall I say?--docked of her Rhenish provinces? It would be a too slight punishment. She caused the Villafranca halt (according to her official confession by the mouth of Baron Schleinitz, last spring), and now this second time, would she interrupt the liberation of Italy? The aspect of affairs looks very grave. As to England, England wishes well to this country at this present time, but _she will make no sacrifices_ (not even of her hatreds, least of all, perhaps, of her blind hatreds), for the sake of ten Italys. Tell dear Mr. Martin that after the speech for the Defences, I gave up Lord Palmerston for ever. He plays double. He is too shrewd to believe in the probability of invasions, &c., &c., but he wants a s.h.i.+eld to guard his sword-arm. The statesmans.h.i.+p of England pines for new blood, for ideas of the epoch, and the Russell old-fogyism will not do any more at all. These old bottles won't hold the new wine. People are positively calling on the Muse and William Pitt. It's religion to hate France, and to set up a 'Boney' as a 'raw head and b.l.o.o.d.y bones' sort of scarecrow. But it won't do. As the Revolutionists say, 'e troppo tardi.'

I am not, however, in furies all day, dearest Mrs. Martin. (I answer satisfactorily your question whether I am 'ever calm.') The newspapers from various parts of Italy thunder down on us here, not to speak of 'Galignanis' and 'Sat.u.r.day Reviews.' See how calm-blooded I must be to bear the 'Sat.u.r.day Review.' (I consider it a curiosity in vice, certainly.) Then we have books from the subscription library in Florence, and sights of the 'Cornhill,' and political pamphlets by the book-post; nay, even the 'Spiritual Magazine,' sent by Chapman and Hall, in the last number of which that clever and brave William Howitt (who, like a man, is foolish sometimes) suggests gravely in an article that I have lately been 'biologised by infernal spirits,' in order to the production of certain bad works in the service of 'Moloch,' meaning, of course, L.N. Oh! and did anyone tell you how Harriet Martineau, in her political letters to America, set me down with her air of serene superiority? But such things never chafe me--never. They don't even quicken my pulsation. And the place we are pa.s.sing the summer in is very calm--a great lonely villa, in the midst of purple hills and vineyards, olive-trees and fig-trees like forest-trees; a deep soothing silence. A mile off we have friends, and my dear friend Miss Blagden is in a villa half a mile off. This for the summer. Also, we brought with us from Florence and dropped in a villino not far, our friend Mr. Landor (Walter Savage), who is under Robert's guardians.h.i.+p, having quarrelled with everybody in and out of England. I call him our adopted son. (You did not know I had a son of eighty-six and more.) Wilson lives with him, and Robert receives from his family in England means for his support. But really the office is hard, and I tell Robert that he must be prepared for the consequences: an outbreak and a printed statement that he (Robert), instigated by his wicked wife, had attempted to poison him (Landor) slowly. Such an extraordinary union of great literary gifts and incapacity of will has seldom surprised the world. Of course he does not live with us, you know, either here or in Florence, but my husband manages every detail of his life, and both the responsibility and trouble are considerable. Still he is a great writer. We owe him some grat.i.tude therefore.

Penini has his pony here, and rides with his father. We have had the coolest summer I ever remember in Italy. I _could_ have been very happy.

But G.o.d, who 'tempers the wind,' finds it necessary for the welfare of some of us to temper the suns.h.i.+ne also....

As the very poorest proof of grat.i.tude for your letter, Robert suggests that I should enclose this photograph of Penini and myself taken at Rome this last spring. You will like to have them, we fancy, but it is Robert's gift. I was half inclined last year to send you a photograph from Field Talfourd's picture of me,[91] but I shrank back, knowing that dear Mr. Martin would cry out at the flattery of it, which he well might do. But this photograph from nature can't be flattered, so I hazard it.

You see the locks are dark still, not white, and the sun, in spite, has blackened the face to complete the harmony. Pen is very like, and very sweet we think.

Do, when you write, speak of yourself--yourselves. I hope you like the 'Mill on the Floss.'

Our love to dearest Mr. Martin and you.

Let me be as ever,

Your affectionate and grateful BA.

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Villa Alberti, Siena, Sardegna: August 25, [1860].

My dearest f.a.n.n.y,--I received your letter with thanks upon thanks. It seemed long since I heard or wrote. I have been very sad, very--with a stone hung round my heart, and a black veil between me and all that I do, think, or look at. One of my sisters is very ill in England--my married sister--an internal tumour, accompanied with considerable suffering, and doubtful enough as to its issue to keep us all (I can answer at least for myself) in great misery. Robert says I exaggerate, and I think and know that consciously or unconsciously he wants to save me pain. She went to London, and the medical man called it an anxious case. We all know what that must mean. For a little time I was in an anguish of fear, and though come to believe now that no great change any way is to be expected quickly, you would pity what I feel when the letters are at hand. May G.o.d have mercy on us all! I wanted at first to get to England, but everyone here and there was against it, and I suppose it would have been a pure selfishness on my part to persist in going, seeing that the fatigue and the cold in England alone would have broken me up to a f.a.ggot (though of not so much use as to burn) so that I should have complicated other people's difficulties, without much mending my own. Still it would have been comfort to me (however selfish) to have just held her hand. But no. Oh, I am resigned to its being wiser. I am shaken, even at this distance. She has three children younger than my Peni. Don't let me talk of it any more.

You see, f.a.n.n.y, my 'destiny' has always been to be entirely useless to the people I should like to help (except to my little Pen sometimes in pus.h.i.+ng him through his lessons, and even so the help seems doubtful, scholastically speaking, to Robert!) and to have only power at the end of my pen, and for the help of people I don't care for. At moments lately, thanks from a stranger for this or that have sounded ghastly to me who can't go to smooth a pillow for my own darling sister. Now, I _won't_ talk of it any more. After all I try to be patient and wait quietly, and there ought to be hope and faith meantime.

The pen-utilities themselves don't pa.s.s uncontested, as you observe.

Yes, I see the 'Spiritual Magazine,' and remarked how I was scourged in the house of my friends. Robert shouted in triumph at it, and hoped I was pleased, and as for myself, it really did make me smile a little, which was an advantage, in the sad humour I was in at the time.

'Biologised by infernal spirits since "_Casa Guidi Windows_"' yet 'Casa Guidi Windows' was not wholly vicious it seems to me, nor 'Aurora'

utterly corrupt. And Mr. Howitt is both a clever man, and an honest and brave man, for all his sweeping opinions. Biologised and be-Harrised _he_ is certainly. What an extraordinary admiration! I wonder at _that_ more than at any of the external spiritual phenomena. Dearest f.a.n.n.y, you were very, very good and generous to take my part with the editor--but _laissez faire_. These things do one no harm--and, for me, they don't even vex me. I had an anonymous letter from England the other day, from somebody who recognised me, he said, in some prodigious way as a great Age-teacher, all but divine, I believe, and now gave me up on account of certain atrocities--first, for the poem 'Pan'[92] in the 'Cornhill'

(considered _immoral_!) and then for having had my 'brain so turned by the private attentions and flatteries of the Emperor Napoleon when I was in Paris, that I have devoted myself since to help him in the gratification of his selfish ambitions.' Conceive of this, written with an air of conviction, and on the best information. Now, of the two imputations, I much prefer 'the inspiration from h.e.l.l.' There's something grandiose about that, to say nothing of the superior honesty of the position.

What a 'mountainous me' I am 'piling up' in this letter, I who want rather to write of _you_....

Italy ought not to draw you just now, f.a.n.n.y. We are all looking for war, and wondering where the safety is. A Piccolomini said yesterday that it was as safe at Rome as in Florence, which only proved Florence unsafe.

Austria may come down on Central Italy any day; and sooner or later there must be war. The Storys are alarmed enough to avoid going back to Rome until the end of November, when things may be a little arranged.

The indignation here is great against 'questa canaglia di Germania.'

Toeplitz means mischief both against France and Italy--that is plain.

The Prince of Prussia gave his 'parole de gentilhomme' meaning the word of a rascal. My poor Venice! But you will see presently, only the fear is that our fire here may flash very far. In any case, it would not be desirable for Englishmen to come southwards this year. Our plans for the winter depend entirely on circ.u.mstances. If we can go to Rome in any reasonable security, I suppose we shall go. But I have no heart for plans just now.

Dear Isa Blagden is spending the summer in a rough _cabin_, a quarter of an hour's walk from here, and Mr. Landor is hard by in the lane. This (with the Storys a mile off) makes a sort of colonisation of the country here. Otherwise it's a solitude, 'very _triste_,' say the English, not even an English church, even in the city of Siena. We get books from Florence, and newspapers from everywhere, or one couldn't get on quite well. As it is I like it very much. I like the quiet! the lying at length on a sofa, in an absolute silence, n.o.body speaking for hours together (Robert rides a great deal), not a chance of morning visitors, no voices under the windows. The repose would help me much, if it were not that circ.u.mstances of pain and fear walk in upon me through windows and doors, using one's own thoughts, till they tremble. Pen has had an abbe to teach him Latin, and his pony to ride on, and he and Robert are very well and strong, thank G.o.d.

Thank you for your words on spiritualism. I have not _yet_ seen the last 'Cornhill.' It pleases me that Thackeray has had the courage to maintain the facts before the public; I think _much the better of him_ for doing so. Owen's book I shall try to get. There is a weak reference to the subject in the 'Sat.u.r.day Review' (against it), and I see an article advertised in 'Once a Week,' all proving that the public is awaking to a consideration of the cla.s.s of phenomena. _Investigation_ is all I desire. The 'Spiritual Magazine' lingers so this month that I fear, and Robert hopes, something may have happened to it.

On returning to Rome for the winter, which they did about September, the Brownings found quarters at 126 Via Felice. The following letter was written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning's sister.

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

[Rome: autumn 1860.]

In one word, my dearest f.a.n.n.y, I will thank you for what is said and not said, for sympathy true and tender each way. It is a great privilege to be able to talk and cry; but _I cannot_, you know. I have suffered very much, and feel tired and beaten. Now, it's all being lived down; thrown behind or pushed before, as such things must be if we _are_ to live: not forgetting, not feeling any tie slackened, loving unchangeably, and believing how mere a _line_ this is to overstep between the living and the dead.

Do you know, the first thing from without which did me the least good was a letter from America, from dear Mrs. Stowe. Since we parted here in the spring, neither of us had written, and she had not the least idea of my being unhappy for any reason. In fact, her thought was to congratulate me on public affairs (knowing how keenly I felt about them), but her letter dwelt at length upon spiritualism. She had heard, she said, for the fifth time from her boy (the one who was drowned in that awful manner through carrying out a college jest) without any seeking on her part. She gave me a minute account of a late manifestation, not seeming to have a doubt in respect to the verity and ident.i.ty of the spirit. In fact, secret things were told, reference to private papers made, the evidence was considered most satisfying. And she says that all of the communications descriptive of the _state_ of that Spirit, though coming from very different mediums (some high Calvinists and others low infidels) tallied exactly. She spoke very calmly about it, with no dogmatism, but with the strongest disposition to receive the facts of the subject with all their bearings, and at whatever loss of orthodoxy or sacrifice of reputation for common sense.

I have a high appreciation of her power of forming opinions, let me add to this. It is one of the most vital and growing minds I ever knew.

Besides the inventive, the critical and a.n.a.lytical faculties are strong with her. How many women do you know who are _religious_, and yet a.n.a.lyse point by point what they believe in? She lives in the midst of the traditional churches, and is full of reverence by nature; and yet if you knew how fearlessly that woman has torn up the old cerements and taken note of what is a dead letter within, yet preserved her faith in essential spiritual truth, you would feel more admiration for her than even for writing 'Uncle Tom.' There are quant.i.ties of irreverent women and men who profess infidelity. But this is a woman of another order, observe, devout yet brave in the outlook for truth, and considering, not whether a thing be _sound_, but whether it be true. Her views are Swedenborgian on some points, beyond him where he departs from orthodoxy on one or two points, adhering to the orthodox creed on certain others.

She used to come to me last winter and open out to me very freely, and I was much interested in the character of her intellect. Dr. Manning tried his converting power on her. 'It might have answered,' she said, 'if one side of her mind had not confuted what the other side was receptive of.' In fact, she caught at all the beauty and truth and good of the Roman Catholic symbolism, saw what was better in it than Protestantism, and also, just as clearly, what was worse. She admired Manning immensely, and was very keen and quick in all her admirations; had no national any more than ecclesiastical prejudices; didn't take up Anglo-Saxon outcries of superiority in morals and the rest, which makes me so sick from American and English mouths. By the way (I must tell Sarianna _that_ for M. Milsand!) a clever Englishwoman (married to a Frenchman) told Robert the other day that she believed in 'a special h.e.l.l for the Anglo-Saxon race on account of its hypocrisy.'...

Meanwhile you will care for Roman news, and I have not much to tell you.

I am very much in my corner, and very quiet. Robert, who has been most dear and tender and considerate to me through my trial, kept all the people off, and even now, when the door is open a little, gloomy lionesses with wounded paws don't draw the public, I thank G.o.d, and I am not much teased, if at all. Sir John Bowring came with a letter of introduction, and intimate relations with Napoleon to talk of, and he has confirmed certain views of mine which I was glad to hear confirmed by a disciple of Bentham and true liberal of distinguished intelligence.

He said that nothing could be more ludicrous and fanatical than the volunteer movement in England rising out of the most incredible panic which ever arose without a reason. I only hope that if the volunteers ever have to act indeed, they may behave better than at Naples, where they left the worst impression of English morals and discipline. They embarked to return home dead drunk all of them, and the drunkenness was not the worst. Sir John Bowring has been ill since he came, so perhaps he may go before I see him again. Then Madame Swab [Schwabe], whom I slightly knew in Paris, has been with me to-day, talking on Italian affairs. There is room for anxiety about the Neapolitans; but don't believe in exaggerations: we shall do better than our enemies desire.

There will be war probably....

Robert has taken to modelling under Mr. Story (at his studio) and is making extraordinary progress, turning to account his studies on anatomy. He has copied already two busts, the Young Augustus and the Psyche, and is engaged on another, enchanted with his new trade, working six hours a day. In the evening he generally goes out as a bachelor--free from responsibility of crinoline--while I go early to bed, too happy to have him a little amused. In Florence he never goes anywhere, you know; even here this winter he has had too much gloom about him by far. But he looks entirely well--as does Penini. I am weak and languid. I struggle hard to live on. I wish to live just as long as and no longer than to grow in the soul.

May G.o.d bless you, dearest f.a.n.n.y. Write.

America is making me very anxious just know. If they compromise in the north it is a moral death, but a merely physical dissolution of the States would be followed by a resurrection 'in honor,' and I should not fear. What are you painting?

Your affectionate as ever BA.

Did you see Lacordaire received? Those are things I care to see in Paris, wis.h.i.+ng, however, to Guizot, the king of Prussia, and all prigs, the contempt they deserve.