2511. EBB to Fanny Dowglass
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 201–202.
[London]
Wednesday– [?29] [July 1846] [1]
I send you my dear friend, the books you speak of receiving with such affectionate words– Also I stopped to write in them two sonnets yet unprinted [2] —I thought you might not dislike that little more of me– And the whole will remain with your kindness, as something to remind you of an unchangeable & grateful affection–
Will you tell me when you go to Italy & how? By sea or by your land? You surely will not think of “crossing the mountains,” though you talk of them to me– Remember that you may travel by the Seine, Soane [sic] & Rhone to Marseilles, so as scarcely to touch the earth with your foot!—then to Civita Vecchia by the steamer. But now you smile at me! It is so like the mole giving advice to the eagle– So I draw back under my little hill, & think rather of my mole-catcher.
I shall tell the servant to enquire how you are, but you, dearest Fanny, will have the goodness to tell me yourself, when you write, whether you are worse since you came to England–
Oh no—I am not anxious to see you just now .. it would be a pleasure too like pain. Pray for me my dear friend, & let us think sometimes of one another. I cannot tell you what I am likely to do,—but you shall hear in time—. If I wait in England for the winter, (we cannot expect another winter without frost & east wind) I shall be ill again—& here I am of no use to any, .. &, once in the warmth, there is every prospect for me of life and activity– But I ask you not to speak to others of this. My position is painful in some respects—with my health very good, & the strength returning with everyday’s sunshine– As to Rome, Pisa has been recommended to me,—and I am afraid of the English in Rome– The English seem worse than the earthquakes– If I go, it will be into quiet & retirement—are you never teazed with the English? And are not the expences greater at Rome? But of course everybody who goes to Italy at all, must go to Rome sooner or later,—as the French proverb says, ‘Tout chemin y mene’– [3] So we shall meet .. if I go—and if you love me then.
You “have a home there”? Does that mean that you have taken an apartment for anytime? But you are to be heard of, you say, at your banker’s.
I have written you a letter as if I were writing to my catechumen—question after question.
May God bless you & comfort you, dear dear friend–
Think of me as your affectionate Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. This letter follows letter 2500.
2. Presumably two of the several sonnets that appeared the following year in Blackwood’s.
3. “All roads lead there.” From the French proverbial phrase “Tout chemin mène à Rome.” “All roads lead to Rome.”
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