We are a little uneasy just now as to whether you will be overjoyed or _under_ joyed by our new scheme of taking an unfurnished apartment.
It would spoil all, for instance, if your dear mother seemed disappointed--vexed--in the least degree. And I can understand how, to persons at a distance and of course unable to understand the whole circ.u.mstances of the case, the fact of an apartment taken and furnished may seem to involve some dreadful giving up for ever and ever of country and family--which would be as dreadful to us as to you! How could we give you up, do you think, when we love you more and more? Oh no. If Robert has succeeded in making clear the subject to you, you will all perceive, just as _we know_, that we have simply thus solved the problem of making our small income carry us to England, not only next summer, but many a summer after. We should like to give every summer to dear England, and hide away from the cold only when it comes. By our scheme we shall have saved money even at the end of the present year; while for afterward, here"s a residence--that is, a_pied a terre_--in Italy, all but free when we wish to use it; and when we care to let it, producing eight or ten pounds a month in help of travelling expenses. It"s the best investment for Mr. Moxon"s money we could have looked the world over for. So the learned tell us; and after all, you know, we only pay in the proportion of your working cla.s.ses in the Pancras building contrived for them by the philanthropy of your Southwood Smiths. I do wish you could see what rooms we have, what ceilings, what height and breadth, what a double terrace for orange trees; how cool, how likely to be warm, how perfect every way!
Robert leaned once to a ground floor in the Frescobaldi Palace, being bewitched by a garden full of camellias, and a little pond of gold and silver fish; but while he saw the fish I saw the mosquitos in clouds, such an apocalypse of them as has not yet been visible to me in all Florence, and I dread mosquitos more than Austrians; and he, in his unspeakable goodness, deferred to my fear in a moment and gave up the camellias without one look behind. A heavy conscience I should have if it were not that the camellia garden was certainly less private than our terrace here, where we can have camellias also if we please. How pretty and pleasant your cottage at Windsor must be! We had a long _muse_ over your father"s sketch of it, and set faces at the windows.
That the dear invalid is better for the change must have brightened it, too, to her companions, and the very sound of a "forest" is something peculiarly delightful and untried to me. I know hills well, and of the sea too much; but now I want forests, or quite, quite mountains, such as you have not in England.
Robert says that if "Blackwood" likes to print a poem of mine and send you the proofs, you will be so very good as to like to correct them.
To me it seems too much to ask, when you have work for him to do beside. Will it be too much, or is nothing so to your kindness? I would ask my _other_ sisters, who would gladly, dear things, do it for me; but I have misgivings through their being so entirely unaccustomed to occupations of the sort, or any critical reading of poetry of any sort. Robert is quite well and in the best spirits, and has the headache now only very occasionally. I am as well as he, having quite recovered my strength and power of walking. So we wander to the bridge of Trinita every evening after tea to see the sunset on the Arno. May G.o.d bless you all! Give my true love to your father and mother, and my loving thanks to yourself for that last st.i.tch in the stool. How good you are, Sarianna, to your ever affectionate sister
BA.
Always remind your dear mother that we are no more _bound_ here than when in furnished lodgings. It is a mere name.
_To Mrs. Martin_ Palazzo Guidi: June 20, [1848].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Now I am going to answer your letter, which I all but lost, and got ever so many days beyond the right day, because you directed it to Mrs. _William_ Browning. Pray remember _Robert Browning_ for the future, in right descent from _Robert Brunnyng_,[178] the first English poet. Mrs. Jameson says, "It"s ominous of the actual Robert"s being the _last_ English poet;" a saying which I give you to remember us by, rejecting the omen....
We have grown to be Florentine citizens, as perhaps you have heard.
Health and means both forbade our settlement in England; and the journey backwards and forwards being another sort of expense, and very necessary with our ties and affections, we had to think how to live here, when we were here, at the cheapest. The difference between taking a furnished apartment and an unfurnished one is something immense. For our furnished rooms we have had always to pay some four guineas a month; and unfurnished rooms of equal pretension we could have for twelve a year, and the furniture (out and out) for fifty pounds. This calculation, together with the consideration that we could let our apartment whenever we travelled and receive back the whole cost, could not choose, of course, but determine us. On coming to the point, however, we grew ambitious, and preferred giving five-and-twenty guineas for a n.o.ble suite of rooms in the Palazzo Guidi, a stone"s throw from the Pitti, and furnishing them after our own taste rather than after our economy, the economy having a legitimate share of respect notwithstanding; and the satisfactory thing being that the whole expense of this furnishing--rococo chairs, spring sofas, carved bookcases, satin from cardinals" beds, and the rest--is covered by the proceeds of our books during the last two winters. This is satisfying, isn"t it? We shall stand safe within the borders of our narrow income even this year, and next year comes the harvest! We shall go to England in the spring, and return _home_ to Italy. Do you understand? Mr. Kenyon, our friend and counsellor, writes to applaud--such prudence was never known before among poets.
Then we have a plan, that when the summer (this summer) grows too hot, we shall just take up our carpet-bag and Wilson and plunge into the mountains in search of the monasteries beyond Vallombrosa, from Arezzo go to St. Sepolchro in the Apennines, and thence to Fano on the seash.o.r.e, making a round back perhaps (after seeing the great fair at Sinigaglia) to Ravenna and Bologna home. As to Rome, our plan is to give up Rome next winter, seeing that we _must_ go to England in the spring. I _must_ see my dearest sisters and whoever else dear will see me, and Robert _must_ see his family beside; and going to Rome will take us too far from the route and cost too much; and then we are not inclined to give the first-fruits of our new apartment to strangers if we could let it ever so easily this year. You can"t think how well the rooms look already; you must come and see them, you and dear Mr.
Martin. Three immense rooms we have, and a fourth small one for a book room and winter room--windows opening on a little terrace, eight windows to the south; two good bedrooms behind, with a smaller terrace, and kitchen, &c., all on a first floor and Count Guidi"s favorite suite. The Guidi were connected by marriage with the Ugolino of Pisa, Dante"s Ugolino, only we shun all traditions of the Tower of Famine, and promise to give you excellent coffee whenever you will come to give us the opportunity. We shall have vines and myrtles and orange trees on the terrace, and I shall have a watering-pot and garden just as you do, though it must be on the bricks instead of the ground. For temperature, the stoves are said to be very effective in the winter, and in the summer we are cool and airy; the advantage of these thick-walled palazzos is coolness in summer and warmth in winter. I am very well and quite strong again, or rather, stronger than ever, and able to walk as far as Cellini"s Perseus in the moonlight evenings, on the other side of the Arno. Oh, that Arno in the sunset, with the moon and evening star standing by, how divine it is!...
Think of me as ever your most affectionate BA.
[Footnote 178: Otherwise known as Robert Mannyng, or Robert de Brunne, author of the _Handlyng Synne_ and a _Chronicle of England_. He flourished about 1288-1338.]
_To Miss Mitford_ Florence: July 4, [1848].
It does grieve me, my ever dearest Miss Mitford, to hear of the suffering which has fallen upon you! Oh, rheumatism or not, whatever the name may be, do take care, do consider, and turn your dear face toward the seaside; somewhere where you can have warm sea bathing and sea air, and be able to a.s.sociate the word "a drive" not with mad ponies, but the mildest of donkeys, on a flat sand. The good it would do you is incalculable, I am certain; it is precisely a case for change of air, with quiet....
As for when you come to Florence, we won"t have "a pony carriage between us," if you please, because we may have a carriage and a pair of horses and a coachman, and pay as little as for the pony-chair in England. For three hundred a year one may live much like the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, and go to the opera in the evening at fivepence-halfpenny inclusive. Indeed, poor people should have their patriotism tenderly dealt with, when, after certain experiments, they decide on living upon the whole on the Continent. The differences are past belief, beyond expectation, and when the sunshine is thrown in, the head turns at once, and you fall straight into absenteeism. Ah, for the "long chats" and the "having England at one another"s fireside!" You talk of delightful things indeed. We are very quiet, politically speaking, and though we hear now and then of melancholy mothers who have to part with their sons for Lombardy,[179] and though there are processions for the blessing of flags and an occasional firing of guns for a victory, or a cry in the streets, "Notizie della guerra--leggete, signori;" this is all we know of Radetsky in Florence; while, for civil politics, the meeting of the senate took place a few days since to the satisfaction of everybody, and the Grand Duke"s speech was generally admired. The elections have returned moderate men, and many land-proprietors, and Robert, who went out to see the procession of members, was struck by the grave thoughtful faces and the dignity of expression. We are going some day to hear the debates, but it has pleased their signoria to fix upon twelve (noon) for meeting, and really I do not dare to go out in the sun. The hour is sufficiently conclusive against dangerous enthusiasm. Poor France, poor France!
News of the dreadful ma.s.sacre at Paris just reaches us, and the letters and newspapers not arriving to-day, everybody fears a continuation of the crisis. How is it to end? Who "despairs of the republic?" Why, _I_ do! I fear, I fear, that it cannot stand in France, and you seem to have not much more hope. My husband has a little, with melancholy intermediate prospects; but my own belief that the people have had enough of democratic inst.i.tutions and will be impatient for a kingship anew. Whom will they have? How did you feel when the cry was raised, "Vive l"Empereur"? Only Prince Napoleon is a Napoleon cut out in paper after all. The Prince de Joinville is said to be very popular. It makes me giddy to think of the awful precipices which surround France--to think, too, that the great danger is on the question of _property_, which is perhaps divided there more justly than in any other country of Europe. Lamartine has comprehended nothing, that is clear, even if his amount of energy had been effectual.... Yes, do send me the list of Balzac, _after_ "Les Miseres de la Vie Conjugale," I mean. I left him in the midst of "La Femme de Soixante Ans," who seemed on the point of turning the heads of all "la jeunesse" around her; and, after all, she did not strike me as so charming. But Balzac charms me, let him write what he will; he"s an inspired man. Tell me, too, exactly what Sue has done after "Martin."
I read only one volume of "Martin." And did poor Soulie finish his "Dramas"? And after "Lucretia" what did George Sand write? When Robert and I are ambitious, we talk of buying Balzac in full some day, to put him up in our bookcase from the convent, if the carved-wood angels, infants and serpents, should not finish mouldering away in horror at the touch of him. But I fear it will rather be an expensive purchase, even here. Would that he gave up the drama, for which, as you observe, he has no faculty whatever. In fact, the faculty he has is the very reverse of the dramatic, ordinarily understood.... Dearest Mr. Kenyon is called quite well and delightful by the whole world, though he suffered from cough in the winter; and he is bringing out a new book of poems, a "Day at Tivoli," and others; and he talks energetically of coming to Florence this autumn. Also, we have hopes of Mr. Chorley. I congratulate you on the going away of Madame. Coming and going bring very various a.s.sociations in this life of ours. Why, if _you_ were to come we should appreciate our fortune, and you should have my particular chair, which Robert calls mine because I like sitting in a cloud; it"s so sybaritically soft a chair. Now I love you for the kind words you say of _him_, who deserves the best words of the best women and men, wherever spoken! Yes, indeed, I am happy. Otherwise, I should have a stone where the heart is, and sink by the weight of it.
You must have faith in me, for I never can make you thoroughly to understand what he is, of himself, and to me--the n.o.blest and perfectest of human beings. After a year and ten months" absolute soul-to-soul intercourse and union, I have to look higher still for my first ideal. You won"t blame me for bad taste that I say these things, for can I help it, when I am writing my heart to you? It is a heart which runs over very often with a grateful joy for a most peculiar destiny, even in the midst of some bitter drawbacks which I need not allude to farther....
May G.o.d bless you continually, even as I am
Your affectionate BA.
[Footnote 179: The insurrection of Lombardy against Austrian rule had taken place in March, and was immediately followed by war between Sardinia and Austria, in which the Italians gained some initial successes. Fighting continued through the summer, and was temporarily closed by an armistice in August.]
_To Mrs. Jameson_ Palazzo Guidi: July 15, [1848].
Now at last, my very dear friend, I am writing to you, and the reproach you sent to me in your letter shall not be driven inwardly any more by my self-reproaches. Wasn"t it your fault after all, a little, that we did not hear one another"s voice oftener? You are _so long_ in writing. Then I have been putting off and putting off my letter to you, just because I wanted to make a full letter of it; and Robert always says that it"s the bane of a correspondence to make a full letter a condition of writing at all. But so much I had to tell you! while the mere outline of facts you had from others, I knew.
Which is just said that you may forgive us both, and believe that we think of you and love you, yes, and talk of you, even when we don"t write to you, and that we shall write to you for the future more regularly, indeed. Your letter, notwithstanding its reproach, was very welcome and very kind, only you must be f.a.gged with the book, and saddened by Lady Byron"s state of health, and anxious about Gerardine perhaps. The best of all was the prospect you hold out to us of coming to Italy this year. Do, do come. Delighted we shall be to see you in Florence, and wise it will be in you to cast behind your back both the fear of Radetsky and as much English care as may be. Now, would it not do infinite good to Lady Byron if you could carry her with you into the sun? Surely it would do her great good; the change, the calm, the atmosphere of beauty and brightness, which harmonises so wonderfully with every shade of human feeling. Florence just now, and thanks to the panic, is tolerably _clean_ of the English--you scarcely see an English face anywhere--and perhaps this was a circ.u.mstance that helped to give Robert courage to take our apartment here and "settle down."
You were surprised at so decided a step I dare say, and, I believe, though too considerate to say it in your letter, you have wondered in your thoughts at our fixing at Florence instead of Rome, and without seeing more of Italy before the finality of making a choice. But observe, Florence is wonderfully cheap, one lives here for just nothing; and the convenience in respect to England, letters, and the facility of letting our house in our absence, is incomparable altogether. At Rome a house would be habitable only half the year, and the distance and the expense are objections at the first sight of the subject.... Altogether, if I could but get a supply of French books, turning the c.o.c.k easily, it would be perfect; but as to _anything_ new in the book way, Vieusseux seems to have made a vow against it, and poor Robert comes and goes in a state of desperation between me and the bookseller ("But what _can_ I do, Ba?"), and only brings news of some pitiful revolution or other which promises a full flush of republican virtues and falls off into the fleur de lis as usual. Think of our not having read "Lucretia" yet--George Sand"s. And Balzac is six or seven works deep from us; but these are evils to be borne. We live on just in the same way, having very few visitors, and receiving them in the quietest of hospitalities. Mr. Ware, the American, who wrote the "Letters from Palmyra," and is a delightful, earnest, simple person, comes to have coffee with us once or twice a week, and very much we like him. Mr. Hillard, another cultivated American friend of ours, you have in London, and we should gladly have kept longer.
Mr. Powers does not spend himself much upon visiting, which is quite right, but we do hope to see a good deal of Mademoiselle de Fauveau.
Robert exceedingly admires her. As to Italian society, one may as well take to longing for the evening star, for it seems quite as inaccessible; and indeed, of society of any sort, we have not much, nor wish for it, nor miss it. Dearest friend, if I could open my heart to you in all seriousness, you would see nothing there but a sort of enduring wonder of happiness--yes, and some grat.i.tude, I do hope, besides. Could everything be well in England, I should only have to melt out of the body at once in the joy and the glow of it. Happier and happier I have been, month after month; and when I hear _him_ talk of being happy too, my very soul seems to swim round with feelings which cannot be spoken. But I tell you a little, because I owe the telling to you, and also that you may set down in your philosophy the possibility of book-making creatures living happily together. I admit, though, to begin (or end), that my husband is an exceptional human being, and that it wouldn"t be just to measure another by him. We are planning a great deal of enjoyment in this "going to the fair" at Sinigaglia, meaning to go by Arezzo and San Sepolchro, and Urbino, to Fano, where we shall pitch our tent for the benefit, as Robert says, of the sea air and the oysters. Fano is very habitable, and we may get to Pesaro and the footsteps of Castiglione"s "courtier," to say nothing of Bernardo Ta.s.so; and Ancona beckons from the other side of Sinigaglia, and Loreto beside, only we shall have to restrain our flights a little. The pa.s.sage of the Apennine is said to be magnificent, and, altogether, surely it must be delightful; and we take only two carpet bags--not to be weighed down by "impedimenta,"
and have our own home, left in charge of the porter, to return to at last, I am very well and shall be better for the change, though Robert is dreadfully afraid, as usual, that I shall fall to pieces at the first motion....
May G.o.d bless you!
Ever I am your affectionate BA.
Write to Florence as usual--Poste Restante. You will hear how we are in great hopes of dear Mr. Kenyon.
Dear Aunt Nina,--Only a word in all the hurry of setting off. We love you as you love us, and are pretty nearly as happy as you would have us. All love and prosperity to dear Geddie, too; what do you say of "Landor," and my not sending it to Forster or somebody? _Che che_ (as the Tuscans exclaim), _who_ was it promised to call at my people"s, who would have tendered it forthwith? I will see about it as it is.
Goodbye, dearest aunt, and let no revolution disturb your good will to Ba and
R.B.
_To Miss Mitford_ Florence: August 24, 1848.
Ever dearest Miss Mitford,--It"s great comfort to have your letter; for as it came more lingeringly than usual, I had time to be a little anxious, and even my husband has confessed since that he thought what he would not say aloud for fear of paining me, as to the probability of your being less well than usual. Your letters come so regularly to the hour, you see, that when it strikes without them, we ask why.
Thank G.o.d, you are better after all, and reviving in spirits, as I saw at the first glance before the words said it clearly....
As for ourselves, we have scarcely done so well, yet well; having enjoyed a great deal in spite of drawbacks. Murray, the traitor, sent us to Fano as a "delightful summer residence for an English family,"
and we found it uninhabitable from the heat, vegetation scorched with paleness, the very air swooning in the sun, and the gloomy looks of the inhabitants sufficiently corroborative of their words, that no drop of rain or dew ever falls there during the summer. A "circulating library" "which doesn"t give out books," and "a refined and intellectual Italian society" (I quote Murray for that phrase) which "never reads a book through" (I quote Mrs. Wiseman, Dr. Wiseman"s mother, who has lived in Fano seven years), complete the advantages of the place, yet the churches are beautiful, and a divine picture of Guercino"s is worth going all that way to see.[180] By a happy accident we fell in with Mrs. Wiseman, who, having married her daughter to Count Gabrielli with ancestral possessions in Fano, has lived on there from year to year, in a state of permanent moaning as far as I could apprehend. She is a very intelligent and vivacious person, and having been used to the best French society, bears but ill this exile from the common civilities of life. I wish Dr. Wiseman, of whose childhood and manhood she spoke with touching pride, would ask her to minister to the domestic rites of his bishop"s palace in Westminster; there would be no hesitation, I fancy, in her acceptance of the invitation. Agreeable as she and her daughter were, however, we fled from Fano after three days, and, finding ourselves cheated out of our dream of summer coolness, resolved on subst.i.tuting for it what the Italians call "un bel giro." So we went to Ancona, a striking sea city, holding up against the brown rocks and elbowing out the purple tides, beautiful to look upon. An exfoliation of the rock itself, you would call the houses that seem to grow there, so identical is the colour and character. I should like to visit Ancona again when there is a little air and shadow; we stayed a week as it was, living upon fish and cold water. Water, water, was the cry all day long, and really you should have seen me (or you should not have seen me) lying on the sofa, and demoralised out of all sense of female vanity, not to say decency, with dishevelled hair at full length, and "sans gown, sans stays, sans shoes, sans everything," except a petticoat and white dressing wrapper. I said something feebly once about the waiter; but I don"t think I meant it for earnest, for when Robert said, "Oh, don"t mind, dear," certainly I didn"t mind in the least. People _don"t_, I suppose, when they are in ovens, or in exhausted receivers. Never before did I guess what heat was--that"s sure. We went to Loreto for a day, back through Ancona, Sinigaglia (oh, I forgot to tell you, there was no fair this year at Sinigaglia; Italy will be content, I suppose, with selling her honour), Fano, Pesaro, Rimini to Ravenna, back again over the Apennines from Forli. A "bel giro," wasn"t it? Ravenna, where Robert positively wanted to go to live once, has itself put an end to those yearnings. The churches are wonderful: holding an atmosphere of purple glory, and if one could live just in them, or in Dante"s tomb--well, otherwise keep me from Ravenna. The very antiquity of the houses is whitewashed, and the marshes on all sides send up stenches new and old, till the hot air is sick with them. To get to the pine forest, which is exquisite, you have to go a mile along the ca.n.a.l, the exhalations pursuing you step for step, and, what ruffled me more than all beside, we were not admitted into the house of Dante"s tomb "without an especial permission from the authorities." Quite furious I was about this, and both of us too angry to think of applying: but we stood at the grated window and read the pathetic inscription as plainly as if we had touched the marble. We stood there between three and four in the morning, and then went straight on to Florence from that tomb of the exiled poet. Just what we should have done, had the circ.u.mstances been arranged in a dramatic intention. From Forli, the air grew pure and quick again; and the exquisite, almost visionary scenery of the Apennines, the wonderful variety of shape and colour, the sudden transitions and vital individuality of those mountains, the chestnut forests dropping by their own weight into the deep ravines, the rocks cloven and clawed by the living torrents, and the hills, hill above hill, piling up their grand existences as if they did it themselves, changing colour in the effort--of these things I cannot give you any idea, and if words could not, painting could not either.
Indeed, the whole scenery of our journey, except when we approached the coast, was full of beauty. The first time we crossed the Apennine (near Borgo San Sepolcro) we did it by moonlight, and the flesh was weak, and one fell asleep, and saw things between sleep and wake, only the effects were grand and singular so, even though of course we lost much in the distinctness. Well, but you will understand from all this that we were delighted to get home--_I_ was, I a.s.sure you. Florence seemed as cool as an oven after the fire; indeed, we called it quite cool, and I took possession of my own chair and put up my feet on the cushions and was charmed, both with having been so far and coming back so soon. Three weeks brought us home. Flush was a fellow traveller of course, and enjoyed it in the most obviously amusing manner. Never was there so good a dog in a carriage before his time! Think of Flush, too! He has a supreme contempt for trees and hills or anything of that kind, and, in the intervals of natural scenery, he drew in his head from the window and didn"t consider it worth looking at; but when the population thickened, and when a village or a town was to be pa.s.sed through, then his eyes were starting out of his head with eagerness; he looked east, he looked west, you would conclude that he was taking notes or preparing them. His eagerness to get into the carriage first used to amuse the Italians. Ah, poor Italy! I am as mortified as an Italian ought to be. They have only the rhetoric of patriots and soldiers, I fear! Tuscany is to be spared forsooth, if she lies still, and here she lies, eating ices and keeping the feast of the Madonna.
Perdoni! but she has a review in the Cascine besides, and a gallant show of some "ten thousand men" they are said to have made of it--only don"t think that I and Robert went out to see that sight. We should have sickened at it too much. An amiable, refined people, too, these Tuscans are, conciliating and affectionate. When you look out into the streets on feast days, you would take it for one great "rout,"
everybody appears dressed for a drawing room, and you can scarcely discern the least difference between cla.s.s and cla.s.s, from the Grand d.u.c.h.ess to the Donna di facenda; also there is no belying of the costume in the manners, the most gracious and graceful courtesy and gentleness being apparent in the thickest crowds. This is all attractive and delightful; but the people wants _stamina_, wants conscience, wants self-reverence. Dante"s soul has died out of the land. Enough of this. As for France, I have "despaired of the republic" for very long, but the nation is a great nation, and will right itself under some flag, white or red. Don"t you think so? Thank you for the news of our authors, it is as "the sound of a trumpet afar off," and I am like the war-horse. Neglectful that I am, I forgot to tell you before that you heard quite rightly about Mr. Thackeray"s wife, who is ill _so_. Since your question, I had in gossip from England that the book "Jane Eyre" was written by a governess in his house, and that the preface to the foreign edition refers to him in some marked way. We have not seen the book at all. But the first letter in which you mentioned your Oxford student caught us in the midst of his work upon art.[181] Very vivid, very graphic, full of sensibility, but inconsequent in some of the reasoning, it seemed to me, and rather flashy than full in the metaphysics. Robert, who knows a good deal about art, to which knowledge I of course have no pretence, could agree with him only by s.n.a.t.c.hes, and we, both of us, standing before a very expressive picture of Domenichino"s (the "David"--at Fano) wondered how he could blaspheme so against a great artist. Still, he is no ordinary man, and for a critic to be so much a poet is a great thing. Also, we have by no means, I should imagine, seen the utmost of his stature. How kindly you speak to me of my dearest sisters. Yes, go to see them whenever you are in London, they are worthy of the gladness of receiving you. And will you write soon to me, and tell me everything of yourself, how you are, how home agrees with you, and the little details which are such gold dust to absent friends....
May G.o.d bless you, my beloved friend. Let me ever be (my husband joining in all warm regards) your most affectionate
BA.
[Footnote 180:"Guercino drew this angel I saw teach (Alfred, dear friend!) that little child to pray Holding his little hands up, each to each Pressed gently, with his own head turned away, Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o"er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach.
"We were at Fano, and three times we went To sit and see him in his chapel there, And drink his beauty to our soul"s content My angel with me too."]
[Footnote 181: The first two volumes of _Modern Painters_ bore no author"s name, but were described as being "by a graduate of Oxford."
At a later date Mrs. Browning made Mr. Ruskin"s acquaintance, as some subsequent letters testify.]
_To Miss Mitford_ Florence: October 10, 1848.
My ever dearest Miss Mitford,--Have you not thought some hard thoughts of me, for not instantly replying to a letter which necessarily must have been, to one who loved you, of such painful interest? Do I not love you truly? Yes, indeed. But while preparing to write to you my deep regret at hearing that you had been so ill, illness came in another form to prevent me from writing, my husband being laid up for nearly a month with fever and ulcerated sore throat. I had not the heart to write a line to anyone, much less to prepare a packet to escort your letter free from foreign postage; and to make you pay for a chapter of Lamentations" without the spirit of prophecy, would have been too hard on you, wouldn"t it? Quite unhappy I have been over those burning hands and languid eyes, the only unhappiness I ever had by _them_, and then he wouldn"t see a physician; and if it hadn"t been that, just at the right moment, Mr. Mahony, the celebrated Jesuit, and Father Prout of "Fraser," knowing everything as those Jesuits are apt to do, came in to us on his way to Rome, pointed out that the fever got ahead through weakness and mixed up with his own kind hand a potion of eggs and port wine, to the horror of our Italian servant, who lifted up his eyes at such a prescription for a fever, crying, "O Inglesi, Inglesi!" the case would have been far worse, I have no kind of doubt. For the eccentric prescription gave the power of sleeping, and the pulse grew quieter directly. I shall always be grateful to Father Prout, always. The very sight of some one with a friend"s name and a cheerful face, his very jests at me for being a "bambina" and frightened without cause, were as comforting as the salutation of angels. Also, he has been in Florence ever since, and we have seen him every day; he came to doctor and remained to talk. A very singular person, of whom the world tells a thousand and one tales, you know, but of whom I shall speak as I find him, because the utmost kindness and warmheartedness have characterised his whole bearing towards us.
Robert met him years ago at dinner at Emerson Tennent"s, and since has crossed paths with him on various points of Europe. The first time I saw him was as he stood on a rock at Leghorn, at our disembarkation in Italy. Not refined in a social sense by any manner of means, yet a most accomplished scholar and vibrating all over with learned a.s.sociations and vivid combinations of fancy and experience--having seen all the ends of the earth and the men thereof, and possessing the art of talk and quotation to an amusing degree. In another week or two he will be at Rome.... How graphically you give us your Oxford student! Well! the picture is more distinct than Turner"s, and if you had called it, in the manner of the Master, "A Rock Limpet," we should have recognised in it the corresponding type of the gifted and eccentric writer in question. Very eloquent he is, I agree at once, and true views he takes of Art in the abstract, true and elevating. It is in the application of connective logic that he breaks away from one so violently.... We are expecting our books by an early vessel, and are about to be very busy, building up a rococo bookcase of carved angels and demons. Also we shall get up curtains, and get down bedroom carpets, and finish the remainder of our furnishing business, now that the hot weather is at an end. I say "at an end," though the gla.s.s stands at seventy. As to the "war," _that_ is rather different, it is painful to feel ourselves growing gradually cooler and cooler on the subject of Italian patriotism, valour, and good sense; but the process is inevitable. The child"s play between the Livornese and our Grand Duke provokes a thousand pleasantries. Every now and then a day is fixed for a revolution in Tuscany, but up to the present time a shower has come and put it off. Two Sundays ago Florence was to have been "sacked" by Leghorn, when a drizzle came and saved us. You think this a bad joke of mine or an impotent sarcasm, perhaps; whereas I merely speak historically. Brave men, good men, even sensible men there are of course in the land, but they are not strong enough for the times or for masterdom. For France, it is a great nation; but even in France they want a man, and Cavaignacso[182] only a soldier. If Louis Napoleon had the muscle of his uncle"s little finger in his soul, he would be president, and king; but he is flaccid altogether, you see, and Joinville stands nearer to the royal probability after all.
"Henri Cinq" is said to be too closely espoused to the Church, and his connections at Naples and Parma don"t help his cause. Robert has more hope of the _republic_ than I have: but call ye _this_ a republic? Do you know that Miss Martineau takes up the "History of England" under Charles Knight, in the continuation of a popular book? I regret her fine imagination being so wasted. So you saw Mr. Chorley? What a pleasant flashing in the eyes! We hear of him in Holland and Norway.
Dear Mr. Kenyon won"t stir from England, we see plainly. Ah! Frederic Soulie! he is too dead, I fear. Perhaps he goes on, though, writing romances, after the fashion of poor Miss Pickering, that prove nothing. I long for my French fountains of living literature, which, pure or impure, plashed in one"s face so pleasantly. Some old French "Memoires" we have got at lately, "Brienne" for instance. It is curious how the leaders of the last revolution (under Louis XVIII.) seem to have despised one another. Brienne is very dull and flat. For Puseyism, it runs counter to the spirit of our times, after all, and will never achieve a church. May G.o.d bless you! Robert"s regards go with the love of your ever affectionate
BA.
[Footnote 182: At this time President of the Council, after suppressing the Communist rising of June 1848.]
_To Mrs. Martin_ Florence: December 3, 1848.