2646. EBB to Anne Thomson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 92–93.
Pisa, Collegio Ferdinando
Decr 26– [1846] [1]
My dear Miss Thomson
Your kindness in writing to me on the occasion of my marriage, added much to the pleasant & grateful sense of the sympathy you have given me on other subjects & so long. I have been on the very point several times, of saying this to you, but once or twice have been prevented, & thus drawn into the procrastination, which does all manner of evil certainly, but does not mean thanklessness from me to you .. cannot. I never was thankless to you for the kind feelings you gave me, & least I could be so now, when my dear friend Miss Bayley’s kindness to me, makes my heart overflow upon you who are the nearest to her– If not for your own sake yet for hers .. but for your own sake too—let me say that I thank you warmly.
You will care to hear that I continue to be well and very happy .. happier than I ever dreamed of being .. as far back as when I had lived a little in the world, & was able to dream still. We like our seclusion here at Pisa, though rather extreme perhaps, for people who want to see Italy & the Italians .. for I might as well almost (for the world-seeing) be shut up in my old room—so very, very quiet we are .. knowing not a creature. We have modern Italian books from the library & are at liberty to abuse them righteously, .. & can look out of the window at the Duomo & Leaning Tower, .. and on mild days (which are in the majority) I am able to walk out, & watch the lizards in the walls, & see the ceremonies in the churches .. the lizards being the more rational of the two .. lizards & ecclesiastics. All is delightful to me .. and the quietness, to us both—but in the spring, we mean to learn something from the faces of these Italians, from living Italy, & see the country better,—& we have plans of visiting Florence & Venice & Rome .. what names!– Dear Mrs Jameson, whom we love with good reason, wrote to me from Florence two days ago, & was then snowed up fairly, & prevented from beginning her journey to Rome. We have had snow here even .. but it did not last long, .. and on this Christmas night when I write to you the air is like June’s—. What a climate! My health is much improved, & I escaped suffering from the week’s cold weather we had, by some simple precautions & by the strength I brought to meet it– Perhaps I could not walk so far now as before that interval of cold .. but otherwise I am well.
And you? and your book? [2] If you have the goodness to write to me ever, I hope you will tell me all about yourself. Shall you be in London this year? Dearest Mr Kenyon, that prince of friends, has been more than himself to me on the late occasion, & dearly & gratefully & more than ever I love him.
And now my dear Miss Thomson, as you have heard my husband speak of me, will you hear me speak of him, & offer you his regards, with most affectionate thoughts & wishes
from your friend
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Address, on integral page: Miss Thomson / Primrose.
Publication: Charles T. Dougherty, “Browning Letters in the Vatican Library,” Manuscripta, 4 (October 1960), pp. 164–166.
Manuscript: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
1. Year determined by the Brownings’ residence in Collegio Ferdinando in December 1846.
2. A reference to Miss Thomson’s “Classical Album,” for which EBB had provided translations (see Appendix IV in vol. 10); however, this projected work was never completed.
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