3421. EBB to Joanna Hilary Bonham Carter

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 225–226.

Rome.

Thursday night– [25 May 1854] [1]

My dear Miss Carter,

I have left the cutting of the hair to the last moment .. just as I have left a heap of commissions to this last festa day [2] when all the shops are shut .. & poor Penini is fast asleep & I cant get at his under-locks so as to disentangle them properly– Will you wait therefore? I will send you in some niggardly way the ‘hairs’ you ask for [3] —confessing myself a miser. This little head is my California.

With a true feeling for all the kindness & sympathy you express for us, I remain

most truly yours

Elizabeth B Browning

I could not get a moment & send Penini to you indeed—his nurse & I have been so occupied.

Address, on integral page: Miss Carter.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Mrs. William A. Shurcliff.

1. Date provided by EBB’s implication that the Brownings are about to leave Rome, which they did on 26 May 1854, and by her reference to “this last festa day” (see note 2).

2. Ascension Thursday, which in 1854 fell on 25 May.

3. With this letter is a lock of hair and a note, probably in Miss Carter’s hand, as follows: “Pennie Browning—‘the great darling.’ May 25th. 1854.—Rome.”

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