2830. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 54–56.
[Florence]
Jan. 29. [1850] [1]
My dearest Sarianna, I have waited to thank you for your great & ready kindness about the new edition, until now when it is fairly on its way to England. Thank you, thank you! I am only afraid … not that you will find anything too ‘learned,’ as you suggest, but a good many things … too careless .. I was going to say: only Robert, with various deep sighs for ‘his poor Sarianna,’ devoted himself during several days to re-arranging my arrangements, & simplifying my complications. It was the old story of Order & Disorder over again—he pulled out the knotted silks with an indefatigable patience:—so that really you will owe to him every moment of ease & facility which may be enjoyable in the course of the work. I am afraid that at the easiest, you will find it a vexatious business, but I throw everything on your kindness & am not distrustful, on such a point, of weights & measures.
Your letter was full of sad news. Robert was deeply affected at the account of the illness of his cousin [2] —was in tears before he could end the letter. I do hope that in a day or two we may hear from you that the happy change was confirmed as time passed on .. I do hope so. It will be a joy not merely to Robert, but to me .. for indeed I never forget the office which his kindness performed for both of us, at a crisis ripe with all the happiness of my life. [3] Then it was sad to hear of your dear father suffering from lumbago– May the last of it have past away long before you get what I am writing. Tell him with my love that Wiedeman shall hear some day (if we all live) the verses he wrote to him [4] —and I have it in my head that little Wiedeman will be very sensitive to verses & kindness too—he likes to hear anything rhythmical & musical, & he likes to be petted & kissed—the most affectionate little creature he is. Sitting on my knee, while I give him books to turn the leaves over, (a favorite amusement) every two minutes, he puts up his little rosebud of a mouth to have a kiss. His cold is quite gone, & he has taken advantage of the opportunity to grow still fatter– As to his activities, there’s no end to them. His nurse & I agree that he does’nt remain quiet a moment in the day. At six or half past five in the morning, he begins pulling at the bed-curtains—(he has a pink cradle of his own, but he is always found in the morning in his nurse’s bed)—and that’s a signal that he wants his playthings directly. So they are heaped on the bed for him .. nine pins, a squeaking doll, (which by the way, produced a panic & a roar when he saw it first) a torn almanack, a string of beads sacred to Sant’Antonio, (but which the nurse allows him to treat very irreverently), a handle from the drawers, & various other valuable possessions. These enable him to keep in bed till nearly eight, and then he is taken up & set in his high chair while the servants breakfast—his share being three or four spoonfulls of coffee (he is very fond of coffee) and a crust of bread, which he shares with Flush. At nine or a little after, he is put in his warm bath, & dressed. Directly he sees the water he begins to shout for joy—he splashes in it, & climbs up the sides of the bath—that is a moment of triumph. After being dressed, we have him in the drawing room & while he runs about the room like a cat,<—or rather a real pupfellow,> [5] under the chairs, under the tables, under the sofas, Robert & I agree that never was anything so divine. He laughs, the little creature, .. he pulls himself up by a chair, or by the touch of one’s gown .. and he does all he can to get into the fire, .. which in his opinion, must be most delightful, .. in the midst of all those sparkling embers. At about eleven, he has his pap .. a horrible compound of bread & water and oil, which I used to make an outcry against, but which agrees so well with him that I have fallen into mute opposition. Then he goes out—oh, what joy to go out! At the ponte Trinità he always kicks & struggles to get down to walk, & there he walks between his nurse & Wilson over the bridge & by the side of the Arno, making the people turn & laugh to look at him .. he is such a little dot of a creature .. pretending to walk indeed!– Oh, now he has real shoes, I assure you! A pair of black velvet ones—and stockings .. and knitted scarlet & white gaiters. He stretched out his legs to me, to show them, as if he were a cardinal at least. We dine at two, & then we take him again while the servants dine. Then he goes out again in fine weather– At five oclock, he has his soup, made of chicken’s legs & vermicelli—and at six he is undressed & put to bed after the usual sucking which, besides, he has recourse to at all hours of the day & night .. whenever he chooses in fact. Now this is a very fair diary of Wiedeman’s adventures, & it goes to meet your dear father’s enquiries about what he can be doing at such & such an hour. Seriously speaking, he is a very forward child .. except in his teeth which keep at four .. understanding everything you say to him in Italian, the English not being quite so intelligible. His delight is to creep under the bed & hide, and to hear people say .. ‘Dove si può trovare questo bambino? Ma questo bambino è perso. Forse sia andato nell’altra camera?’ [6] .. Screams of laughter under the bed at every word!
Now the love of nephews cant bear any more, Sarianna .. can it? Only your father will take my part, & say that it is’nt tedious … beyond pardoning.
May God bless both of you—& enable you to send a brighter letter next time. Robert will be very anxious.
Your ever affectionate sister
Ba.
Mention yourself—do–
Address, on integral page: Miss Browning.
Publication: LEBB, I, 432–434 (in part).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to the “new edition” of Poems (1850).
2. James Silverthorne, who suffered from inflammation of the lungs.
3. Silverthorne witnessed the Brownings’ marriage.
4. We have been unable to trace the verses mentioned.
5. Bracketed passage is interpolated above the line.
6. “Where can this baby be? But this baby is lost. Maybe he has gone into the other room?”
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