Elizabeth Barett Browning and Robert Browning had one son, Pen in Italy. Pen was the light of Elizabeth's life. She spoiled him outrageously. He was schooled at home by Elizabeth and Robert. While not interested in clothes herself, she bought elaborate expensive outfits for the boy. He was kept in dresses with the same flair as her romantic poetry even at 9 years of age and at 11 wore a tunic with lacey pantalettes. Until Elizabeth's untimely death, Pen wore long carefully curled hair. Pen did not object as a younger boy, enjoying the attention and compliments from his mother's friends. As an older boy he began to object, but with little success in the face of his strong opinioned mother who had very definite ideas on the subject.
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Pen spent his first years in Italy, but had only limited
contacts with Italian children. His parents had gone to Florence first
in 1846 when they first arrived in Italy. They lived at Casa Guidi
Palace, made famous by one of Elizabeth's poems, Casa Guidi Windows
(1851). Considerable discussion was devoted as to
whether he sholdd learn English or Italian first--one of several issues
on which they disagreed. As the Barrett's were in a foreign
country, Pen priobably had even less contact with other children than might
have been the case had he been raised in England. They lived for a while in Venice. Elizabeth loved the "intricate beauty and open glory ... the mystery of the rippling streets and soundless gondolas." She liked Venice better than Florence or even Paris and knew within hours of arriving that she would be happy to live there forever. Unfortunately, neither Robert nor Wilson (Elizabeth's maid) felt the same way. Robert soon became "uncomfortable
and nervous" and could neither eat nor sleep, while Wilson was
sick and complained of a continual headache. Elizabeth was impatient with
both of them: she liked "these soft, relaxing climates" and so did
Pen. In spite of his indisposition, Robert gallantly led "a truly
Venetian life" with his eager wife.
Elizabeth wanted to introduce Pen to art and culture at an early age.
Robert was more skeptical. They went in a gondola to the Lido, to a
festa at Chioggia and even to the opera and to a play. They took Pen with them to "a day theatre"--rather against Robert's wishes, paying 18 pence to have
a whole box to themselves. The play was a heroic verse melodrama in five
acts but, as Elizabeth wrote to a friend), it was only in the last act that Pen showed signs of being "a little tired". He started to sing a song of his own composition which had a complicated melody but only two words ("Mama" and "Papa"). He also did a little shouting to the audience and a lot of clapping in the wrong places. When an actor was very convincingly put in chains, Pen started to scream and Robert removed him saying that "it was quite wrong to expose a young child to the shows of grief before he could possibly discern the meaning of the imitation of Art". Such cultural outings were one of the many issues on which the new parents disagreed on about Pen. Elizabeth realised
Robert was becoming increasingly irritated with her determination to treat
their 2-year-old son as an adult. Outings to the theater were just one
example. Reluctantly, Elizabeth agreed that experience had proved him right
and was obliged to cancel another theatrical outing for Pen.
But it was not
only Robert who disapproved of her treatment of Pen; Wilson did so too.
It was not so much the fancy clothes Wilson objected to as the hours Pen
kept and the unsuitable nature of some of his activities. Elizabeth might
say, indulgently, how Pen enjoyed a late, dinner but it
was Wilson who had to calm the overstimulated gourmet afterwards. The child
had trouble sleeping in any case and would often wake up very agitated
when she had finally managed to get him to sleep. She prophesied "nervous
collapse" which Elizabeth dismissed as nonsense and put down to Wilson's
general sulkiness. The previous year Wilson had been let down by her intended,
Mr Right. Elizabeth had told Henrietta that Wilson had been "very sensible"
and was "quite over" the shock, but the truth was she remained depressed.
Elizabeth observed with alarm that her maid grew thinner and thinner as
she herself thrived.
Elizabeth only a few months after Pen's birth became pregnant again.
She was excited about the prospect of a daughter. She
tried to be very careful indeed. Her own fertility pleased and astonished
her! She was now 43 and yet had conceived only 7 months after the birth
of Pen, making a total of four pregnancies in 3 years. This time, she
wanted a daughter. Unhappily, at the end of November she began to bleed
and, though Dr Harding said this was not necessarily a sign of miscarrying,
she was less optimistic. By Christmas, she was proved right. The miscarriage
caused her "vexation and disappointment certainly" but she got over it
rapidly announcing that her little boy "does for us very well".
Robert was all for leaving Vinece sooner than intended because,
quite apart from Wilson's condition and his own feelings of malaise, Venice
was too expensive. He commented that the family would soon be reduced to bread
and cheese. Elizabeth was unperturbed. As far as she was concerned, bread
alone would do. They left Venice for Milan on June 13. They went by Padua, where Elizabeth insisted on making a literary pilgrimage to Arqua to see Petrarch's house. Wilson was left with Pen while his parents struggled in the burning heat to reach their destination on foot after their coach driver had told them the last mile was too steep for his horses. Elizabeth was exhausted but reckoned it worth the gruelling climb to see Petrarch's "little, little
room ... the homely look of that room". She and Robert were both moved
to tears just by the sight of it. A 16-hour coach ride followed from
Padua to Verona and so to Milan. Pen enjoyed it hugely: "think of that
child!" wrote Elizabeth fondly. Wilson, a trifle grimly, waited for the
reaction after 16 hours of bouncing and shrieking in a coach. In Milan
they stayed 2 days to rest before continuing to Switzerland. Only Elizabeth
did not rest; instead, she climbed the 250 steps to the
top of the cathedral. This more than anything she had ever done demonstrated
how strong she now was: at Pisa, five years before, she had been quite
unable to contemplate climbing the leaning tower. Whenever Robert attempted
to veto some expedition as too arduous on this trip she brushed his anxieties
aside. When they reached Lugano, she was so eager to include Lake Maggiore
on their itinerary that she once more left Pen with Wilson and went off
with Robert to visit it. Her own theory
about her renewed energy was that having a child had somehow mysteriously
cleared her whole system but there were more prosaic explanations. The
last 5 years had been spent in what was on the whole a mild, sunny climate
of the type greatly beneficial to anyone.
Finally they arrived in Paris. Pen had missed Wilson. The maid
when she rejoined the family bustled about the apartment pushing
"about the chairs and tables in a sort of distracted my" until she felt
satisfied she had made them her own. Pen was a reformed character, happy
to have Wilson safely back. To complete his happiness there were "four
Punches in the immediate neighborhood!
Here's civilisation for
you!" Apparently the Punch and Judy shows were much more to Pen's tastes
than the Venice theater.
Elizabeth was delighted with Paris. It was civilisation
to which Elizabeth was looking forward. It might be argued that London
was just as civilised as Paris but from her point of view it was not. In
Paris, she went out without coughing, firmly believing he air was safe
for her. She adored Parisian street life every bit as much as Pen did,
finding it in many ways more colorful and varied than that in her beloved
Florence. All her re gular correspondents - her sisters, Mrs Mitford, Mrs
Jameson, Mrs Ogilvy, Mrs Martin and now also her brother George--were
treated to lively descriptions of everything she and Pen saw and heard.
There were "dancing dogs, turn-about horses", wonderful shop windows,
magnificently dressed people and every kind of crowd to mingle with.
Elizabeth brought
her sister Henrietta up-to-date with that most Parisian of all attractions
--fashion--knowing it vould appeal most to her, because fashion was not something that
appealed to Elizabeth. The novelty of the season
was "point behind" a sort of bustle) and the general style of the moment
"basque dresses". It was considered "utterly barbaric ... to wear over
full petticoats".
Elizabeth never missed an opportunity to show that
she thought caring or fashion was frivolous, and hid her own interest in
the subject by lying she had to buy new clothes only because Robert liked
her to be well and modishly dressed. But her pleasure in her purchases
that Autumn was obvious and had little to do with Robert's opinions. She
bought a bonnet - "a drawn maroon satin trimmed with velvet of the same
shade, with purple flowers inside" - and, because she had been imprudent
and yielded to an impulse to buy it from "a shop in a fashionable situation",
it cost a scandalous 16 shillings (or roughly Wilson's wage for one
whole week's work). She also bought a new dress - "very pretty ... black
merino polka".
She adored to see how, when he was in the street, Pen
was always being "stopped and kissed and sometimes has a circle of ladies
around him."
She thought Robert was absurd to disapprove of Pen's narcissism
and pointed out that their child was "extremely fond of society", so much
so that "two minutes" after anyone called he was in the drawing room to
entertain them, having begged Wilson to "do mine hair velly pretty". That
winter of 1851 the entertainment he provided for startled visitors,
used to the prevailing dictum that children be seen and not heard, was
the tambourine. Robert accompanied him on the piano while he twirled about,
in all his golden 3-year-old glory, making up dances to his own beat.
This, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, was what small children should
do: play, amuse themselves, be natural.
By the time they arrived in France, Elizabeth hadvaccepted the fact that
Pen would be her only child and recognised in herself
a slightly defensive tendency to try to keep him a baby as long as
possible. Nor was it only
to keep Pen young that she wished time to stand still. The years were galloping
past for herself, too, and she wished desperately that they would not.
All references to ageing were extremely irritating to her. Mrs Ogilvy,
innocently making a remark about how wonderful Miss Mitford was "for her
great age", was sharply pulled up. Miss Mitford was not, at 65,
a great age: "she is as young ... in the spirit as you yourself are."'
(Mrs Ogilvy was 30.) She hated the outward appearance of ageing, the
"putting on of a mask", the erection of what she thought of as barriers
between the real self and the visible self
Elizabeth considered formal education for Pen when he was 3 or 4 years
old to be quite an abomination. "Mental precocity may mean just nothing,"
she wrote to Mrs Ogilvy and even rebuked Henrietta for teaching her little
son the Lord's Prayer. She asserted, "Play is the occupation of a child
- a child learns most when he plays - and an active vivacious child never
feels the time hang heavily on his hands ... Certainly Pen never did.
Elizabeth finally decided to teaching Pen to read. She was
on the defensive to Henrietta about this, knowing it appeared to contradict
everything she had said about formal education for the young, and assured
her sister she had not "the least notion of beginning a course of education".
It was just that Pen had clamoured to be taught to read. Both parents told
him it would be very hard work, but he solemnly announced he was prepared
to "do mine lessons evelly day". The lessons lasted five minutes each which
was sometimes twice as long as Pen would concentrate. Surprising herself
as well as him, Elizabeth told her small son rather sharply that, if he
was not going to be good, the lessons would stop. Pen, on one occasion,
stalked off only to return later and enquire "You dood now, Mama?" (His
mother said she thought she was and Pen said in that case they could start
the lesson again. They kept pegging away all the time at Bagni di Lucca
with simple, one-syllable words until both Robert and Elizabeth were going
mad with the boredom of it. D-O-G Elizabeth spelled out again and again
while Robert groaned and commented "What a slow business.")
Robert privately
thought it could be a lot quicker if Pen was disciplined more: he lacked
any kind of self-control. Elizabeth was shocked at the suggestion. Pen
was only four and the most delightful child in the world. What on earth
did Robert want to "discipline" him for? Why and how did he propose to
do it? Robert showed her. She watched, aggrieved and contemptuous, while
Robert tried to demonstrate to Pen the virtues of obeying. If Pen disobeyed
a reasonable order, Robert thought he should be punished. The exact nature
of the punishment was difficult to decide but finally Robert made up his
mind to deprive Pen of a pleasure the next time he was naughty. Pen was
informed, when the moment arrived, that he was not to be allowed to eat
any of the delicious pears hanging on the trees all round the garden. Elizabeth
reported to Mrs Ogilvy that "the victim couldn't believe at first that
anything so cruel was seriously intended but, on becoming alive to the
full horror of the situation, he burst into sobs of anguish and exclaimed
with the tears running down his checks, 'Oh naughty Papa! What I do if
the peaches are too sour?"' Elizabeth thought this the most wonderful riposte
in the world and saw that it moved, Robert right, she
added sarcastically,
that she was glad Robert "suffered in his soul ... for seeking to impose
any punishment at all". To "discipline" such an unintentionally witty angel
was an absurdity.
Forster, Margaret. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography.
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