2747. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 129.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 22 September 1848]
My dearest Sarianna, I am bidden to write a very few lines .. “beginning here & ending there”, .. & having just escaped a scold about one letter, I must not extend the limits of the other, however much there may be to say to you .. & there is much. Robert has of course told you of his having been very unwell .. the first grief I ever had by his means! .. & also that he is now, I thank God, in full convalescence, & with the dear hands & brow quite cool again, although the cheeks are still pale & the eyes languid. So you are all to be perfectly at ease about him, & to rely upon me that I would not say so to you if only myself were ill at ease. The wrong thing was that he would not see a physician– Only, by a providential happiness, Father Prout came in at the very right moment & expounded such a wise medical doctrine, that the practice of it relieved him directly. I do assure you all, he was able yesterday to dine upon beefsteak,—so you may suppose that the feverishness is a thing past, & that when he has been out on his usual walks once or twice or thrice, he will look as well as ever again. As for me, I have been going on excellently, & begin to take hope. Will you thank, for us both, your dear mother, for her affectionate consideration about the tea caddy? [1] Do you know, in all our purchases, we never once thought of a tea caddy, .. which proves our ignorance & abomination of desolation [2] in such domestic matters. Now, she will be constantly present to our tea-table, until the happy day when we shall all meet & have tea together at New Cross. Never fancy that I think indifferently or with a slight pleasure, of that day. I love you all too much even at this distance. May God bless you– “Ending there” .. it must be.
Dearest Sarianna’s ever affectionate sister
Ba
Address, on integral page, in RB’s hand: Angleterre viâ France. / Mrs Browning, / New Cross, Hatcham, / Surrey, / near London.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Probably the mother-of-pearl tea caddy with landscape engraving that sold as lot 1250 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H674; now at Eton); see also illustration facing p. 240.
2. Matthew 24:15.
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