2658. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 136–137.
[Pisa]
[late February 1847] [1]
I must begin by thanking dearest Sarianna again for her note, & by assuring her that the affectionate tone of it quite made me happy & grateful together .. that I am grateful to all of you! Do feel that I am– For the rest, when I see (afar off) Robert’s minute manuscripts, a certain distrust steals over me of anything I can possibly tell you of our way of living, lest it should be the vainest of repetitions, [2] & by no means worth repeating, both at once. Such a quiet silent life it is,—going to hear the Friar preach in the Duomo, a grand event in it!—and the wind laying flat all our schemes about Volterra & Lucca! I have had to give up even the Friar for these three days past—there is nothing for me, when I have driven out Robert to take his necessary walks, but to sit & watch the pinewood blaze. He is grieved about the illness of his cousin [3] —only I do hope that your next letter will confirm the happy change which stops the further anxiety, & come soon for that purpose, besides others. Your letters never can come too often, remember, even when they have not to speak of illness—and I, for my part, must always have a thankful interest in your cousin, for the kind part he took in the happiest event of my life. You have to tell us too of your dear mother– Robert is so anxious about her always. How deeply & tenderly he loves her & all of you, never could have been more manifest than now when he is away from you & has to talk of you instead of to you. By the way (or rather out of the way) I quite took your view of the proposed ingratitude to poor Miss Haworth [4] —it would have been worse in him than the sins of Examiner & Athenæum. If authors wont feel for one another, there’s an end of the world of writing! Oh—I think he proposed it in a moment of hardheartedness .. we all put on tortoise shell now & then, & presently come out into the sun as sensitively as ever. Besides, Miss Haworth has written to us very kindly; & kindness does’nt spring up everywhere, like the violets in your gravel walks. See how I understand Hatcham!—— Do try to love me a little, dearest Sarianna & (with my grateful love always to your father & mother) let me be your affectionate sister,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
or rather Ba.
Address, on integral page: Miss Browning.
Publication: LEBB, I, 321–322.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. EBB’s reference to having “had to give up even the Friar for these three days past” seems to place this letter shortly after letter 2656, in which she mentions having “heard three sermons last week at the Duomo.”
2. Cf. Matthew 6:7.
3. RB’s cousin James Silverthorne (1809–52), who witnessed the Brownings’ marriage, suffered from inflammation of the lungs, eventually resulting in his death on 19 May 1852.
4. Apparently RB was displeased that Fanny Haworth had included a poem about EBB in her volume, St. Sylvester’s Day, and Other Poems (“To Miss Barrett, on Hearing of Her Secluded Life from Illness”), and from the context it seems that he had suggested writing to her to express his displeasure. He had responded positively to her request to include a sonnet about him (see letter 2449, note 2). The volume was published between 30 December 1846 and 14 January 1847 (The Publishers’ Circular, 15 January 1847, p. 27). Evidently Sarianna was concerned that a review of Haworth’s poems had not appeared. Subsequent to this letter it was mentioned in The Athenæum as “an ornament for the drawing-room table” (1 May 1847, no. 1018, p. 463), but we have found no review of Haworth’s poems in The Examiner.
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