2784. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 256–257.
[Florence]
[ca. 15 April 1849] [1]
You will have comfort in hearing, my dearest Sarianna, that Robert is better on the whole than when I wrote last, though still very much depressed. I wish I could get him to go somewhere or do something—at any rate God’s comforts are falling like dew on all this affliction & must in time make it look a green memory to you both. Continually he thinks of you & of his father—believe how continually & tenderly he thinks of you. Dearest Sarianna, I feel so in the quick of my heart how you must feel, that I scarcely have courage to entreat you to go out & take the necessary air & exercise,—and yet that is a duty, clear as other duties, & to be discharged like others by you, as fully & with as little shrinking of the will. If your health should suffer, what grief upon grief to those who grieve already! And besides, we who have to live, are not to lie down under the burden– There will be time enough for lying down presently, very soon, .. & in the meanwhile there is plenty of God’s work to do with the body & with the soul, & we have to do it as cheerfully as we can. Dearest Sarianna, you can look behind & before, on blessed memories & holy hopes—love is as full for you as ever in the old relation, even though her life in the world is cut off. There is no drop of bitterness in all this flood of sorrow– In the midst of the great anguish which God has given you, you have to thank Him for some blessing with every pang as it comes. Never was a more beautiful serene, assuring death, than this we are all in tears for—for believe me, my very dear sister, I have mourned with you, knowing what we all have lost, I who never saw her nor shall see her until a few years shall bring us all together to the place where none mourn nor are parted.
Sarianna, will it not be possible, do you think, for you & your father to come here, if only for a few months? Then, you might decide on the future upon more knowledge than you have now. It would be comfort & joy to Robert & me, if we could all of us live together henceforward– Think what you would like & how you would best like it. Your living on even through this summer at that house, I, who have well known the agony of such bindings to the rack, do protest against. Dearest Sarianna, it is not good or right either for you or for your dear father– For Robert to go back to that house, unless it were to do one of you some good, think how it would be with him! —Tell us now, (for he yearns towards you .. we both do!) what is the best way of bringing us all together, so as to do everyone of us some good? If Florence is too far off, is there any other place, where we could meet & arrange for the future? Could not your dear father’s leave of absence be extended, [2] this summer, out of consideration to what has happened, & would he not so be enabled to travel with you & meet us somewhere? We will do anything. For my part I am full of anxiety,—& for Robert, you may guess what his is, you who know him. Very bitter has it been to me to have interposed unconsciously as I have done, & deprived him of her last words & kisses—very bitter:—& nothing could be so consolatory to me, as to give him back to you at least. So think for me, dearest Sarianna, think for your father & yourself, think for Robert—and remember that Robert & I will do anything which shall appear possible to you. May God bless you, both of you! Give my true love to your father.
Feeling for you & with you always & most tenderly, I am your affectionate sister
Ba–
Publication: LEBB, I, 397–398.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Approximate dating based on EBB’s reference to the death of Sarah Anna Browning.
2. i.e., from the Bank of England where he was employed as a clerk.
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