p. 214
‘Mr Arnauld [sic]… There’s kindness… The quality… Paris…’ EBB to Julia Martin 6 August 1851, #2936.
p. 215
‘Miseries…’ They move into No. 138 on 10 October 1851. Carlyle to RB 10 October 1851, #2964; EBB to Sarianna Browning c.7 October 1851, #2963; EBB to Arabella MB 12–14 October 1851, #2965. ‘A drawing room…’ EBB to Anna Jameson 21 October 1851, #2969. ‘Has taken to…’ #2965.
‘Peninni…’ EBB to Eliza Ogilvy 17 October 1851, #2967. By Christmas, Elizabeth borrows the coinage: ‘He’s really a darling more & more, the sweetest little Peninni of a child that ever was seen.’ EBB to Arabella MB 25 December 1851, #2988. In her sketch of his new hat he looks like Flush! EBB to Arabella and Henrietta MB, 19 October 1849, #2819. This is also where we read of Righi’s disappearance. Pen’s costume: EBB to Henrietta Cook 2 November 1851, #2974. ‘Do you know…’ EBB to Henrietta Cook 1 December 1852, #3149.
p. 216
Desirée: EBB to Arabella MB 31 October–23 November 1851, #2973. £800: equivalent to about £110,757.73 in 2020: http://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1852?amount=800 [retrieved 29 June 2019]. ‘To the heart…’ EBB to Anna Jameson 7 July 1852, #3060. ‘Neither Robert nor I had apprehended the real character of the letters.’ She goes on to repeat the untruth that Mrs von Müller was a bigamist, and ‘an intriguing woman’: there’s no evidence of this, as the judge pointed out in summing up. The case is reported in The Times (2 July 1852), p. 7; The Morning Chronicle (2 July 1852), pp. 7–8; and in Galignani’s Messenger (5 July 1852).
p. 217
RB and Milsand finally meet in mid-December. Letter of introduction: #2972. ‘She seemed…’ EBB to Kenyon 15–16 February 1852, #3005.
p. 218
Robert senior had moved to Bayswater, perhaps to elude Mrs von Müller, earlier that year. Wilson stays: ‘I have learnt the use of Wilson.’ EBB to Henrietta Cook 21 August 1851, #2938. ‘Only bone…’ EBB to Jameson 4 January 1853, #3156. ‘To my deep joy… We have no fires…’ EBB to Arabella MB 13–15 November 1852, #3146.
p. 219
‘Neither I nor Baby…’ #2792. EBB continues, ‘We are like the church bells of San Felice opposite, which, with a sublime impartiality rang when the Grand Duke ran away & when he was invited back again, when the general assembly met & when it would’nt meet any more, when the republic was declared and when it was denied.’. ‘Kissing Pen…’ EBB to Arabella MB 13–15 November 1852, #3146. ‘A very happy winter…’ EBB to Jameson 17 March 1853, #3179.
BOOK NINE
Epigraph
AL Bk. 9, L. 939.
p. 222
‘Well—here’s…’ EBB to Arabella MB 11–12 September 1853, #3266. ‘Likely indeed… Cheerful little blue room…’ EBB and RB to George Goodin MB 16–18 July 1853, #3227. ‘Our little Penini…’ EBB to Hiram Powers 1 August 1853, #3242.
‘An artist must…’ EBB to Henry Fothergill Chorley, influential literary critic of The Athenaeum, 10 August 1853, #3246. She continues, ‘We, neither of us, show our work to one another till it is finished.’
p. 223
‘There was…’ #3227. ‘She & I…’ #3246.
Although EBB is said to have called herself ‘a Swedenborgian’ in an unlocated 1857 letter to Henrietta, just two months later she writes that ‘I object much to seeing Christ’s name in the category with Shakespeare’s or even Swedenborg’s.’ EBB to Henrietta Cook 8–9 October 1857, #4070; EBB to James Jackson Jarvis 5 December 1857, #4103. Swedenborgian friends include Euphrasia Fanny Haworth, family friend Charles Augustus Tulk, and a Wimpole Street neighbour, homeopath James John Garth Wilkinson.
p. 224
Bulwer-Lytton is a British diplomatic attaché in Florence. ‘The subject deepens…’ EBB to Miss Mitford c.26 October 1853, #3278.
p. 225
‘To see Rome…’ EBB to George Goodin MB 7–8 October 1853, #3274.
‘Remember unless…’ EBB to Emelyn Story 18 November 1853, #3290.
‘Which is considered…’ EBB to Arabella MB 28–29 November 1853, #3292.
p. 226
The Storys: #3290. ‘Robert & I… She may not live…’ #3292.
p. 227
‘We had no night-room… This dust…’ #3292.
Thackeray’s wife has been locked up since their third daughter’s birth in 1840.
‘The greatest woman…’ These journal entries record slightly later London meetings with EBB in September 1855, by which time Anne is eighteen. Hester Thackeray Ritchie, ed, The Letters and Journals of Anne Thackeray Ritchie with Many letters of William Makepeace Thackeray (New York and London: Harper and brothers, 1924), pp. 77–78.
The Secretary is August Emil Braun. Anne Thomson, his literary wife, commissioned EBB for Classical Album (April 1845).
p. 228
‘The talk was…’ EBB to Miss Mitford 10 May 1854, #3413.
p. 229
‘Delicate, pale… I have’nt taken…’ #3413. ‘He died…’ EBB to Arabella MB 17–20 June 1854, #3434. ‘Our own child…’ RB to William Wetmore Story 11 June 1854, #3430.
p. 230
‘Lameness…’ EBB to Arabella MB 12 September 1854, #3468. ‘At home…’
‘Florence, June 30, 1854’ in The Critic (1 August 1854) pp. 422–23. Cited in Kelley et al, fn. 5 to #3468.
The David Lyon dividend may be £175. #3468.
‘The cough…’ EBB to Eliza Ogilvy 6 March 1855, #3530. ‘Constantly supposes…’ EBB to Sarianna Browning late January 1855, #3512.
p. 231
Arabella’s availability: EBB to Arabella MB 10 January 1855, #3508. “Not […] the best use… Since the siege…’ EBB to Anna Jameson 24 February 1855, #3524.
Arabella does raise Emma, child of her second cousin Samuel Goodin Barrett; bizarrely, Elizabeth feels that Henrietta should give up one of her children to Arabella to raise.
‘Robert & I…’ #3508.
p. 232
‘In blots…’ #3530.
p. 233
AL Bk. 5, LL. 41, 43, 45–49, 57–64, 66, 69, 72–73.
p. 234
‘Stocks… People have been so kind…’ EBB to Anna Jameson 2 February 1857, #3963.
p. 235
Emily Dickinson, #312. AL Bk. 4, Ll. 1212–18.
p. 236
‘Punch…’ #3508. ‘A single lady…’ EBB to Arabella MB 12 March 1850, #2836.
