2702. EBB to Fanny Dowglass
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 308–309.
Florence.
Sept. 17. 1847.
I thought not to teaze you any more, dearest friend, till face to face I should do it,—but from a combination of reasons & temptations we have resolved on remaining where we are, for one month more, and I must tell you of it, lest you should pass through Florence & not catch sight of us in passing. Also there is need to tell you that Lady Morgan’s name revived the whole remembrance you referred to, .. my husband remembered perfectly everything in the flash of a moment, .. & so he & I were prepared by your letter to receive our visitor that very morning, with her clever vivacious talk, so exactly justifying your description of her. She said she was going to write to you, her dear enchanted & enchanting “White Cat, who had opened your palace-doors to herself & her brother,” [1] —and I liked to hear of your “galloping” .. because that seemed stranger than the fairy tale even. Yet you are not well.! Ah yes, do get to Rome—do not run mortal risks in an unfavorable climate. Here, it is so cool as to be almost cold in the evenings & mornings—but I like the air, I like the sky & the hills, & the yellow Arno itself,—& I cant help loving places a little, when I like them a great deal. Robert says that he shall never get me away from Rome, there is such deep room there for the roots. In the meanwhile as you once sent me a diploma of tormentor general, I will ask you to write to me (now that you will be at Rome before us) any information you may collect about an apartment—it would be doing us a very great kindness. On the same kindness I rely, not [2] to let me torment you really, & trouble you when you are not well. We were promised a letter of introduction to Mr Crawford [3] before you named him, by Mr Powers the distinguished sculptor here, who is one of our very few acquaintances and one of the simplest, gentlest men of genius in the world. He is doing in the marble now, a most beautiful Eve, with that chaste purity of expression which people agree to call classical, yet free from the pedantry of the old forms. She holds the apple in her hand untasted, .. with the sin so near, that the first shade of sorrow has fallen upon her face– It is a very lovely work. So is his “Greek Slave”, which is more celebrated. If you pass through Florence, do remember us, and let me be the happier for the sight of your dear kind face. Then, be sure that I must be ready to love everyone whom you love much .. it will not be hard, believe me.
For Rome, keep in mind that we would rather be away from the English quarter– The Strada Giulia has been talked of by us, & the Via Gregoriana [4] .. we dont mind any desolation of fashionable life. I am well, but not able to do much in the way of exertion just now– Whenever you write, just say how you are .. not that I would teaze you even for that, dearest Fanny. May God bless you & keep you as best He knows how.
Your most affectionate
Ba—
Think of my forgetting to thank you for the kindness of writing to Mr Colyar. Thank you– But if he is only learned in the English quarter, his information will not precisely meet our wants.— Oh, I should like so much to know if enclosures (such as this for instance) are paid for double at the Roman Office. A dreadful tradition of such a misfortune has reached us .. and we who have packets of letters, fold within fold, should not like it at all, I can assure you. Must every letter be written on one single undivided sheet? Now dont think of writing to me till you are settled & inclined to write .. but when you do, just give me a no or yes to the above question.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Presumably an allusion to Mme. d’Aulnoy’s 17th-century fairy tale La Chatte Blanche.
2. Underscored three times.
3. Thomas Crawford (1814–57), an American sculptor, had been in Rome since 1835; his studio was in the Piazza Barberini. In 1844 Crawford married Louisa Cutler Ward (1823–97), sister of Julia Ward Howe. The Brownings later became acquainted with the Crawfords in Rome. Crawford completed a bust of John Kenyon in 1841 (see Reconstruction, H115 and H263).
4. Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy (1843), notes that “a good sitting-room, with three bedrooms and a kitchen, in the fashionable quarter, costs on the average from thirty to thirty-five scudi. In the streets which lie beyond the ordinary beat of English visitors, as in the Strada Giulia, the same accommodation may be obtained for less than half this sum” (p. 249); see letter 2691, note 2.
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