3396. EBB to Anne Braun
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 193–194.
[Rome]
[19 April 1854] [1]
The dentist [2] is excellent, dearest Mrs Braun, as I hear from sundry victims, and I am glad to be able from good authority, to recommend him to you–
For the rest, I cant stop to write a word, having been beset with visitors, so that I could not read & answer your note till this moment, when Robert is prophecying to me that, if I dont go to dress, I shall be too late for our engagement referring to the torch-lighted sculpture– [3]
Yet I must congratulate Dr Braun & you on this day, [4] & wish for you both the blessings & happiness which could not come to one alone.
Your affectionate
EBB–
Penini is much better, thank you!
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Dr. Braun’s birthday (see note 4).
2. Levi Spear Burridge (1829–87), American dentist who had begun practicing at Rome in 1852. Born in Painesville, Ohio, he was the youngest child of Samuel Burridge and his wife Hannah (née Parmly). After gaining a degree in dentistry from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1850 and an M.D. from the Baltimore College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1851, he became an associate in the New York dental office of his uncle, Eleazar Parmly. In late summer/early autumn, Burridge would be in Florence where he treated the Brownings (see the second paragraph in letter 3482). He became well-known in Europe, counting royalty and nobility among his clientele. He relocated his practice to Paris in 1870 and was “made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France by Napoleon III” (The Dental Cosmos, 65, 488). He died at Cannes on 28 November 1887 as a result of a carriage accident.
3. A popular outing for travellers to Rome was a night-time tour of the sculpture in the Vatican Museum by torchlight. It was believed that a statue’s quality could be discerned more easily through such means. That EBB went on a torchlight tour is evidenced by a letter to John Ruskin of 5 November [1855], in which she writes: “Just as we, when we carried torches into the Vatican, were not perfectly clear how much we brought to that wonderful Demosthenes” (LEBB, II, 218). EBB would have seen that statue in the Hall of the Muses. According to Murray’s A Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy (1853), “to see the statues by torchlight an application must be made to the major-domo, through the consul or a diplomatic agent, which is never refused; his order will admit 13 persons on each evening. The fee to the custode on this occasion is 8 to 10 scudi. The Swiss guard expect 1 scudo, and the wax torches, of 4 lb. each, which the party are required to provide, cost nearly 5 scudi more” (part II, 156–157).
4. Dr. Braun’s birthday. He was born on 19 April 1809.
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