2910. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 18–19.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 23 April 1851]
My dearest Sarianna I do hope that Robert takes his share of the blame in using and abusing you as we have done. It was altogether too bad .. shameful .. to send that last m∙s. for you to copy out, [1] .. and I did indeed make a little outcry about it .. only he insisted on having it so. Was it very wrong, I wonder? Your kindness & affectionateness I never doubt of, but if you are not quite strong just now, you might be teazed in spite of your heart by all that copying-work .. not pleasant at any time. Well—believe that I thank you, at least, gratefully, for what you have done. So quickly too! The advertisement at the end of the week [2] proves how you must have worked for me.– Thank you, dear Sarianna.
Robert will have told you our schemes .. & how we are going north, & are to love you near for the future, I hope. You who are wise, will approve of us, I think, for keeping on our Florentine apartment, so as to run no more risk than is necessary, in making the Paris experiment. We shall let the old dear rooms, & make money by them, & keep them to fall back upon, in case we fail at Paris. “But we’ll not fail” [3] —— Well, I hope not—though I am very brittle still, & susceptible to climate. Dearest Sarianna, it will do you infinite good, to come over to us every now & then– You want change, absolute change of scene & air & climate, I am confident, .. & you never will be right till you have had it. We talk, Robert & I, of carrying you back with us to Rome next year, as an English trophy– Meanwhile you will see Wiedeman—you & dear Mr Browning. Dont expect to see a baby of Anak [4] —that’s all. Robert is always measuring him on the door & reporting such wonderful growth (some inch a week, I think) that if you receive his reports, you will all cry out on beholding the child– At least you’ll say, “How little he must have been, to be no larger now.” You’ll fancy he must have begun from a mustard-seed!– The fact is, he is small .. only full of life & joy to be him. I am not afraid of your not loving him, nor of his not loving you. He has a loving little heart, I assure you. If anyone pricks a finger with a needle, he begins to cry—he cant bear to see the least living thing hurt. And when he loves, it is well– We are parting him by degrees from his balia, & he is getting accustomed to sleeping without her .. but it is with difficulty. At first, after every separation, he used to sob & cry at seeing her again, to express to her what he had suffered during her absence. Robert says I must finish– So here ends dearest Sarianna’s
ever affectionate sister Ba.
Address, on integral page, in RB’s hand: Angleterre viâ France. / Miss Browning, / New Cross, Hatcham, / Surrey, / near London.
Publication: LEBB, I, 477–478 (in part).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Of Casa Guidi Windows, which was published on 21 May 1851.
2. In the 12 April 1851 issue of The Athenæum (no. 1224, p. 413):
new poem on italy, by mrs. browning.
Shortly will be published, in 1 vol. fcap.
casa guidi windows.
By elizabeth barrett browning.
London: Chapman & Hall, 193, Piccadilly.
3. Cf. Macbeth, I, 7, 61.
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