3169. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 335–337.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 24 February 1853]
My dearest Sarianna, you may be quite sure that Penini will no more forget you, either of you, than Robert & I shall. You are his favorite subject of discourse. As to the drawing it was intensely admired, & so was the poem—the worst was that the two admirations would not admit of the proper glorification of the object, as the picture could by no means be glued into the red album without defacing the verses. There is a letter half written to Nonno, but the author became “so velly tired” in the middle, (which arrived from his aspiring to write it “wiz int” (ink)) that I fear it wont be done for today’s post. Oh—forget you! there’s no fear. That child forgets nothing & nobody—he is as constant to Napoleon for instance as ever. I dare say you think I prime him with bad politics, but I do nothing of the kind .. he insists on hearing some news out of the “newspaper” about ‘Peone’, & then I am obliged to tell him certain facts historical & statistical about the breaking off or completion of marriages &c. [1] He was full of consternation at the failure of the Princess Wasa’s, particularly as Napoleon had been at the expense of buying her shoes (see Galignani)—such sighs and “poor Peone”s,—such exclamations .. “I sint Peone muss tly velly mush”. (cry very much) On receiving the news of the real wife being found, he clasped his hands together .. “Oh, I so dlad!” He plays a martial piece of music on the piano, which he calls “Napoleon”– Then he plays something quite softly, and that, he says, is “Napoleon’s wife.” What a notion for a child of his age .. is’nt it? He never looked so well I think as he does now, with cheeks like roses and round little arms. I sent him to see Mrs Marsh the other day, the wife of the American minister to Constantinople (Robert says he has told you of them) at her particular request,—& though he had a shy fit before he went & great unwillingness to go which I combatted by representing to him that he would certainly be left out of the invitation to Constantinople if he did’nt show himself, Wilson says that he behaved beautifully & talked quite at his ease about the waterfalls he had seen in the mountains, & Flush, & other deep questions. He has taken to talk of his heart lately, & none of us can imagine where he can have heard of such a thing as a heart. He said to Wilson in the middle of the night, “Lily, I lost mine heart”—“Lost your heart” said she, “why who has it then?” “I tell you .... God! but dont tell Papa & Mama.” The next day he said, “Now, Papa & Mama got mine heart.” Which rather relieved my imagination I must say. Such things sound supernatural from such a child.
Nobody writes from England—except Arabel, who wonders why “Sarianna does’nt write to her as she promised”. The weather here is very bad just now,—I never saw so much snow in Florence as has fallen in showers, .. but it does’nt remain—there’s no frost, happily for me. Still, I feel the change—as I shall do in all such cases till I am disembodied. Robert is looking delightfully well—he is the joy of my eyes just now, as well as of the rest of me—and he is writing [2] —good in all ways. Paris has corrupted him satisfactorily I assure you—he “misses the blaze of life there” he told me yesterday, I wont put up with our twilight existence much longer. What is this news about rents rising? If I were you I certainly would look about for unfurnished apartments. The saving is enormous. We are unreliable people & certainly cannot get to Paris by April or May either .. & you could always move to us, in the case of our achieving our ideal of two apartments—could you not? Furniture is very cheap & Mr Burn [3] seemed by his own account very understanding by the way of purchasing it– You wd not want carpets in the summer—you might furnish by degrees. Certainly I wd not, if I were you, go on another six months paying a pound a week. Give my love to Mrs Corkran & thank her much for her letter which I will answer.
You are at ease in your heart, dearest Sarianna, are you not now? Ah—we shall have if God will it, some happy days yet all together. God bless you–
Your ever affectionate sister
Ba–
Love to dear ‘nonno’ from us all!——
Do you know, I have a distrust of persons going to Australia, who are not prepared for manual labour– The expenses for a family are prodigious. Mr Dyke would not without a sure prospect, do such a thing, of course– I do sympathize, to a certain extent with Mrs Dyke .. from Paris to Melbourne! .. but as to letting my husband go without me, that wd overtop all misery. She never could do that when it came to the point.
Address, in RB’s hand: Madlle Browning, / 63 Rue des Ecuries d’Artois / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Before proposing marriage to Eugénie, Napoleon III had made overtures to other candidates. Chief among these were Princess Carola of Vasa (1833–1907), granddaughter of King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, and Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe (1835–1900), niece of Queen Victoria. Neither of their families was willing to sanction such a match. The Morning Chronicle of 20 January 1853 (p. 5) listed two other young women who had been offered marriage by the French emperor: “The daughter of the Duchess of Braganza”; that is, Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil (1831–53), and “the daughter of the King of Sweden”; that is, Princess Charlotte Eugenia (1830–89).
3. Miles Byrne; see letter 3029, note 3.
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