3324. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 74–75.
[Rome]
[15 January 1854] [1]
My dearest Sarianna Robert has written to you, & Penini has put in his little word. You are to understand that until the middle of December Penini could’nt write even a ‘m’ or an ‘a’ in manuscript writing, all his experience being restricted to the printed letters. I consider his copybook (in large text hand) quite miraculous——and, as to the running hand, here is the tour de force performed today & addressed to you!. The ‘Penini’ is better written than the rest because he writes it most days under his copy– From about the fifteenth of December to this fifteenth of January .. exactly a month .. that has been the term of his writing studies. Certainly I do think he is a wonderful child– The comfort is that he looks stronger than he used to do, or I should really be frightened– Fat & rosy the child is, & in inextinguishable spirits, his long glittering ringlets more beautiful than ever, & the grace of his attitudes carried out by his immense vivacity & mobility most strikingly to everybody. I hear he was generally considered the prettiest child of the forty at Mrs Sartoris’s. Oh, admiration & kindness is lavished upon him here—and I was saying the other day that I should be forced to keep an engagement-book for his especial use, one got so puzzled to remember the various dinners & play-parties he is invited to. Such a divine, lovely spirit the child has!– The other night he had the toothache (I am afraid one of his double-teeth is not sound—of no consequence, you know, except for the pain of it, in the case of first teeth) & Wilson was rubbing his cheek & hugging him up in her arms. “What shall we do,” said she, “with this toothache!”– “Play to Dod”, said he quietly– (Pray to God.) It is the sweetest thing .. a thing to bring tears to one’s eyes .. to hear him pray. This morning it was—“Thank you, God, for making me sleep so well in the night.” (Sant ou, Dod.) He has been a child of many prayers from others, & it seems to me that they have been heard in grace– Pray for us Sarianna, that we may keep him! His passion for Ferdinando continues. The other day he complained of being unwell, & Penini said .. in Italian of course .. “I hope, Ferdinando, you are not going to die, for I should be very sorry … (molto dispiacente.) If you died I should do like Joe .. eat a quantity of fruit & take no medecine, & then I should die too & go to you, & they would put wings on our backs & we should fly about wherever we liked.—Le piace?” [2] What an agreeable plan for us, Sarianna? You may suppose that it thrilled through me a little to hear of it. Oh, he is too precious, indeed.
I am vexed that Miss Heaton should have teazed you as I am sure she must have done. She would push through a stone wall. She wrote from Paris to me to ask for letters of introduction—which if I could have given, I would not .. I have not strength of mind to give my “lascia passare” [3] to anyone so excessively unrefined & provincial & unfitted for the sort of society, I do confess to you—though she is intelligent & good .. Kind certainly .. & I would do her any real kindness. But Lady Elgin is ill in England .. Madme Mohl, ill there too .. (or in Paris, perhaps)—our English-Parisian, friends dispersed .. & the French salons we had access to, we could not certainly take liberties with– As for you, I would not have bored you so for reasons apart. If she were a table-mover I should swear to “involuntary action”. She cant help pushing– When she becomes a spirit out of the body, we shall have the Alps pushed over some morning. I dont at all wonder that she quenched “le feu sacré” [4] in poor Alexis– She makes me always feel as if I were under a pump. For my good, understand—oh, for my good, certainly. She is very kind & well meaning, & I am obliged to her from the depths of my ..... understanding. <***>
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to “this fifteenth of January.”
2. “Do you like it?”
3. “Permission to pass through.” An official document suggested by the Papal government for persons travelling to Rome in private carriages “in order to avoid the formalities of the custom-house” (Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy, 1853, part I, p. 2).
4. “The holy fire.”
___________________
