3197. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 81–83.
[Florence]
[ca. 1 May 1853] [1]
I like to think of you, dearest Sarianna, in the nest at the top of our old house. Mrs Jameson was delighted with it (in everything except Mr By[r]ne’s [2] furniture) & talked seriously of coming to settle there in the event of being free from her family ties. A more splendid view cant be. It’s like fairy-land on summer evenings .. that sweep of green trees, sparkled through by a thousand lights. Also the staircase is so easy that the height is less really objectionable than it seems. For the rest, I who am of an obstinate turn of mind, am not convinced of the wisdom of delay in the matter of unfurnished apartments. I do grudge the monthly payments for the use of frail & uncomfortable sofas &c. If we had paid for an unfurnished [sic] apartment all this time in Italy, we should have spent much more money already than was spent on our furniture, although the furniture is of an expensive sort & there’s a good deal of it. Yet much the same reasons might have held with us as are holding with you. If I were in Paris for only a year I wd buy my furniture—and if I were you, even at Mr Byrne’s, I would buy anything cheap (looking about for it) & interpolate it quietly. Observe—the very causes which make houses dear, you say, must make furniture cheap– Now, is it not so?– Oh—after all, you are right in following your instincts & inclinations,—tho’ I cant myself see why there shd be anything entangling in an apartment of your own—which you could let at anytime & make money. In the meantime I like to think of you in the old house. That’s pleasant. And if we can get to Paris we may push in to our old quarters close to you. Penini is already congratulating himself that he may call out loud, “Nonno, Nonno, loot at the lights.” That child remembers everything about living in that “home,” as still he names it–
Dearest Sarianna, your plan about England is unexceptionable, if we can but manage it– Robert says we are to consider the ways & means .. & we seem to be, just now what is idiomatically called (& literally) “in a fix”. He will tell you about the ship-money [3] &c—& how one difficulty is solved, leaving another in its place. As for me, I have a great deal of faith in incredible things—such as the sky falling, & people catching larks [4] in consequence—and by no means will I give up my hope of England– No indeed– My hope of England. Arabel never had such a compliment paid to her (dear thing!) as is implied in my saying .. “hope of England”—instead of fear!! But even you who are so patriotic can understand, dearest Sarianna, why, except for Arabel, I must hate & detest going to England. Ah well!– But I dont you see, after all!——
The poor Hedleys are in great trouble about one of their sons, who has got into a scrape & a court-martial (for using “disgusting language,” & “pumping” on a younger officer) & is dismissed the service. [5] His father is dreadfully distressed of course, & has gone to England to present a petition to Prince Albert .. which must be ineffectual, they say. How sad! A young man destroying his whole career! It’s a stain for ever. And this is the second son distinguished for getting into scrapes! [6] I am very sorry for them. Kinder & more tender parents could not be.
Another of my cousins .. a daughter of Sir Thomas Butler’s .. is obstinately bent on marrying her brother-in-law—her dead sister’s husband. [7] They will have to marry abroad, & never show their faces in England again—as the marriage will be no marriage by English law. Her family is in consternation. No wonder. At the same time, I do say that, <if I were in the same circumstances &> [8] if the man seemed to me worthy the sacrifice of friends & country, & all social consideration in England, .. I would do as she does—for it is an unrighteous, cruel law, & not to be justified by any law of God. The matter of sentiment & feeling is another thing. What do you say?
Arabel has had a very bad cold but is getting over it she says, & full of the “Refuge” as usual.
Penini is radiant just now. He said in his prayers this morning, “Gentle Jesus, I lite to see nonno, velly mush.” Oh– tell Nonno, not to write the pretty verses on the other side of the drawings, because we always want to stick the drawings into the red album .. you remember .. & then, we have to choose between drawings & verses, which is too painful. Yes indeed, people admire that child. Wilson says he cant walk down the street without people praising him. Italian ladies stop him for “un bacino”, [9] which he considers quite natural. A French gentleman had the impertinence to say of him the other day in the Boboli gardens (it’s the best reason I have yet heard for the “national defences”!) “Quelle charmante petite fille!” [10] His hair is grown thicker & longer, & the golden ringlets it hangs in, are really beautiful. And then as Mr Kirkup had the wit to say the other morning, “Such a good face”!!
He is quite a faultless child—a darling. Oh—I should like to show him to you, Sarianna–
Robert says, ‘no more’. The post!– I am very very anxious about our play. Such a play must [11] be too good for the stage, I keep fearing. Yet the theatrical people ought to know– Best of loves to the dear nonno– Peninni is as vain as possible of his “large letter” which he considers a masterpiece. He talks now of “mine pinion” (my opinion!) and “mine own idea”.
Your ever most affectionate
Ba.
We have had green peas & asparagus a fortnight or three weeks. After peas at 4d the English pound. That is, a small dish for two pence English.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Approximate dating suggested by EBB’s references to the “poor Hedleys” and to Arabella’s “bad cold,” both of which subjects are discussed in letter 3195.
2. Miles Byrne was the Brownings’ landlord at 138 Avenue des Champs Élysées, where they resided from the autumn of 1851 to the summer of 1852. Sarianna and RB, Sr. removed there at about this time, probably on the 1st of May. Anna Jameson had taken rooms for a month at the same address in the spring of 1852 (see the third to last paragraph of letter 3034).
3. i.e., the return on EBB’s shares in the West Indies packet, the David Lyon, which this year would amount to nothing; see the second paragraph in letter 3195.
4. Cf. “Si le Ciel tomboit il y auroit bien des allouetes prises,” Adrien de Montluc (1571–1646), La Comedie de proverbes (1633), I, 4, 66–67.
6. The other was George Hedley; see letter 3053.
7. Two married daughters of Thomas Butler, 8th Baronet, and his wife Frances (née Graham-Clarke) had died by this time: Isabella Horatia (1822–46), who had married Leonard Graham-Clarke (1817–83) in 1843, and Laura Mary (1826–45), who had married Robert Chaloner (1813–55) in 1846. Although we have been unable to determine which of the two husbands EBB has in mind, it seems unlikely that it was Isabella’s: Leonard Graham-Clarke married secondly on 3 May 1853 Lavinia Horsford (1813–1901). The Butler daughter who was “bent on marrying … her dead sister’s husband” is doubtless Henrietta Maria (d. 1916, aged 89), the only unmarried daughter then living. She did not marry Chaloner but did marry her first cousin, John Hedley, of the aforementioned court-martial, on 19 May 1857.
8. The phrase in angle brackets is interpolated above the line.
9. “A little kiss.”
10. “What a charming little girl!”
11. Underscored three times.
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