2822. EBB to Margaret Fuller
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 31–32.
Palazzo Guidi.
[early December 1849] [1]
My dear Madame Ossoli,
I have not sent to you before, through my difficulty in getting at the name of the person I mentioned to you for Baby-linen—Mrs Loverin, via dei Fossi– [2] She has written herself up on a board, I hear, close to her establishment– Toys are to be had at a worsted shop almost opposite the Hotel de York– Neither of these places is far from you– I hope you may find the cap I send, useful as a pattern, though of course it must be much too small for your child–
We return the newspaper extract about poor Mr Poe,—my husband reserving to himself the pleasure of carrying the books back to you himself. Poor Mr Poe– Could no more merciful last words be found for him?—and is any human being justified in saying of another that he died without a friend? [3]
Most truly yours always,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Crouse Autograph Collection.
1. Approximate dating provided by Margaret Fuller’s reply of 6 December [1849], letter 2823.
2. Possibly Eliza Loverin who lived at 12 Via del Fossi. She died in Florence on 12 September 1855, aged 50 (ICS).
3. Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) died on 7 October in Baltimore. In a notice of his death in the New-York Daily Tribune two days later, Rufus W. Griswold wrote: “This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had readers in England, and in … Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends” (Arthur Hobson Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, Baltimore, 1998, p. 646).
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