2868. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 166–167.
[Florence]
Saturday night. [?27 July] [1850] [1]
Here is Mrs Miller’s card, [2] my dear Miss Blagden, and the buns are promised to be ready for you at eight on monday morning. I have been very unwell & very vexed all the week, my former indisposition & uncomfortableness turning out to be some slight obstruction which lasted just long enough to make one sick & hopeful. Perhaps all may be traced back to a glass of iced water drunk at a wrong time. So disappointed I am!– Dont laugh at me too much! Now it is all over, and in a few days I shall be quite well I suppose, & under the “weight of too much liberty”, [3] which leads us to think again of the villa near Vallombrosa. Our ‘little Napoleon’ has cut two double teeth, but others are coming, & whenever we have a hot night, he does nothing but toss about. Change of air will do him good certainly I think—only before we go you will hear & see much more of it .. & us.
There is no procession tomorrow, sunday, to draw you to us– So sorry I am that we did not know in time of the one last week!
I return the ‘Confidences’ [4] with thanks upon thanks. Both Robert & I began with a sort of interest & pleasure, & ended with a sort of sickness of the book & the man. Weakness & falseness are two bad things indeed.
Do keep Mrs Jameson [5] as long as you are inclined—& come to see us, when you come to Florence, .. & make use of us at breakfast time, dinner time or tea time, just as you like, & set it down always as our gain.
The poor ‘balia’ has lost her baby by a putrid fever– She cried bitterly at first, but caught back her spirits in the rebound, as a child would do, & sings now as gaily as ever. You will see at least Robert very soon. His kindest regards
with those of your affectionate EBB–
Very glad I am to hear of Miss Agassiz being better.
We have subscribed to Brecker, [6] & I am finishing the ‘Memoires d’un medecin’– [7]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Conjectured date suggested by EBB’s reference to Pen’s cutting “two double teeth,” an event also described in letter 2870.
2. The card, no longer with the letter, was possibly that of Hannah Miller (née Bromage) who married John Miller (b. 1820) of Nassau on 25 March 1845 in Florence (ICS). Presumably, John Miller is “the English baker” referred to in a letter from EBB to Sarianna ([2 December 1854], ms at Lilly).
3. Wordsworth, “Prefatory Sonnet” (“Nuns fret not at their Convent’s narrow room,” 1807), line 13.
5. Probably her Sacred and Legendary Art.
7. Mémoires d’un médecin: Joseph Balsamo (19 vols., 1846–48) by Alexandre Dumas (père).
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