The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume Ii Part 6

Yes, I want to see Beranger, 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 'endimanchee' 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 _a 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 compa.s.sion for her. I did not mind much the Greek in Greek costume who tutoyed 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'amitie,' said she, with her quiet, gentle scorn. A n.o.ble 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 G.o.d 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'embra.s.ser' 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 a.s.sure 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[Paris]: 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysees: 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 _fete_ day with good happy faces.

The mixture of cla.s.ses 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 Camelias' 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 _blase_ 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 mult.i.tudinous umbrellas from the tears of the boxes. This play is by Alexandre Dumas _fils_--and is worthy by its talent of Alexandre Dumas _pere_.

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 pa.s.sions having her thoughts inside them, instead of her thoughts her pa.s.sions. 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. G.o.d 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-Elysees: 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 'Athenaeum' (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.-Elysees: 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 s.h.i.+nes 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 _fete_ 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 _bete_ 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 ma.s.ses 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 Elysee. 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 Cesar 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 Correge,' 'Mon t.i.tien,' 'Mon Leonard 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 'idee fixe' of the man was to be rich one day, and he threw his subtle imagination and vital poetry into pounds, s.h.i.+llings, 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 n.o.ble 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 Eugene 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_