3471. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 314–317.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 18 September 1854]
My dearest Sarianna you see there is good news this time. Dear Mr Kenyon was distracted a little, I suppose, by the visit of his brother & sister-in-law, but he always meant kindly & generously in his heart, which is the thing we should remember. Slips and sins are so different! For next year .. the skies have fallen, the larks are caught, [1] you see; and we shall have full liberty & power to go straight to you and early, yes, and to pass a year at least with impunity in the midst of your northern expanses. Of this, I had begun in my secret soul to really despair, .. & the ship has come in like a witch to change everything by a spell! Do not however tell certain of our “friends” [2] too decidedly that we shall be in Paris next spring if you happen to see them. Leave the subject in a vague cloud. While I write, Penini looks over my shoulder. “Whom you write to dear Mama”? “To Sarianna.” “Tell her I wish what I could see her. Tell her I wish to be there many times indeed.” I give you the message with a literal fidelity.
But even before the ‘alliance’, the French used tea as a luxury & dram– For instance, it was always a feature in their soirées—& you see it constantly mentioned in their modern literature of manners. Also, they take it in a manner unknown among us– Madme Ossoli told me that sometimes at Paris when she paid a mid-day visit to literary people, she has found, in a party of men (authors & socialists) the tea kettle on the fire, & the teapot making its rounds among them with the cigar. She was deluged with tea, she said,—“à la mode Anglaise.” [3]
The army however has’nt been in the habit, I suppose, of taking tea. I agree with you that the quantity of animal food consumed by our soldiers (& of porter, perhaps) must be a good defence against the cholera. Still, we suffered dreadfully in the Baltic, [4] —and cholera has been quite as active in London as in Paris,—& more fatal in Newcastle, for instance, than in any French town, even Marseilles. There were reasons however for that. How horrible the desease has been at Messina. [5] Like a plague! A family (an English family) known to Mr Hanna, has been almost extinguished, and an unfortunate Mrs Sanderson [6] has come away without husband or child, having lost eight relatives in all!—— In such a case, to survive is the ultimate misery.
Dearest Sarianna, I have been much moved & pained by news from home– My father was knocked down by a cab some three or four weeks ago, or more .. (they did not let me know till ten days afterwards) & his leg was fractured—a small bone. No fever or inflammation of any kind ensued, and the medical man observed upon the perfect health proved by such a fact,—and now he is up—on the sofa—in a chair I hope by this time. In excellent spirits he has been throughout the trial. The worst is that a permanent lameness is considered as a probable result, the leg being slightly shortened– So they say–. I cant conceive how they should know, before the patient has set foot to the ground, .. or why he should be liable to such a result from a simple fracture if properly treated. But of course the very possibility is saddening & has made me feel sad. I wrote a few words– I ventured to do it, after two years. I made Penini direct the letter that it should not be repudiated for its handwriting, before it was opened—but, for the rest, I expect nothing. My brothers have been very attentive & devoted, Arabel says—and I trust, at least, that some of the wounds of our house may be healed by means of circumstances otherwise so disastrous.
George says that London is dead just now—“nothing lively except the cholera.”
Are you not rather vexed that Napier comes back without taking Cronstadt? [7] Robert is furious. Certainly nobody can reproach the old man with being “too rash,” as his reputation used to run, you know. We hold our breath about Sebastopol. The difficulties are great, & the expedition has been put off too long, according to us, the unlearned– [8] Still we hope for great results.
Give our love to the dear Corkrans—mind. Have you caught sight of Mrs Stowe’s ‘Sunny Memories.’? [9] I am going to read it, and meantime Robert read aloud snatches caught out of the heart of it, to Isa Blagden, Hatty Hosmer & me the other evening, which made us burst with laughter. It will not add to her reasonable reputation in any country or with any class of readers, I should think.
Penini comes again—“Are you writing to my nonno now.” “Well—have you a message to send?.” “Yes– So many thanks for that beau-tiful picture.”!
I must complete my history of the famous ‘dinner-service’ by telling you, that Hatty Hosmer, the American sculptress, who was present on the occasion I told you of, bought it & sent it to him anonymously to his immense rapture. The moral effect is that he believes profoundly, of course, in “gifts” upon thumb-nails. People are so kind to this child that he may even believe in the general goodness & virtue of the world, for aught I know, or anything else as extravagant.
I am glad you take coffee– I am persuaded by long experience it is excellent as a drug .. and yet I am still an insular, insulated barbarian, Sarianna, about black coffee, & cant like it without milk. May God bless you & take care of you both. You are in our thoughts & talk always. Best love to the dearest Nonno from your ever affectionate sister Ba
No cholera in Florence still.
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Mademoiselle Browning, / chez M. Byrne, / Avenue des Champs-Elysées, No. 138. / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
2. Probably the Cranches; see the second paragraph in letter 3429.
3. “In the English manner.”
4. The British and French fleets stationed in the eastern Baltic experienced outbreaks of cholera during the summer of 1854. The Times of 18 July reported on the conditions: “Before the departure of the allied squadrons from Baro Sound, a few fatal cases of cholera had occurred in the fleet. While at anchor off Cronstadt the disease extended itself to most of the ships, and several deaths occurred daily” (p. 9). The number of deaths from cholera steadily declined over the next month, but a new outbreak was announced in the 30 August issue of The Times: “Intelligence is brought of the prevalence of cholera to a great extent on board many of the ships at Led Sund. For a time the disease had almost ceased its ravages, but on reaching Led Sund fresh cases broke out, and several deaths have occurred” (p. 7).
5. The Times of 22 September 1854 reported that as of 16 September “upwards of 13,000 persons” had died at Messina from cholera, and “it was still raging at the rate of between 200 and 300 deaths a-day” (p. 8).
6. Bertha Sanderson (née Aders, 1808–66), second wife of William Sanderson (1786–1854), who had established a citrus company at Messina in 1817. He died of cholera on 28 August; their daughter Bertha (b. 1843) died the following day. Sanderson’s daughter-in-law Frances, wife of his son Thomas Jeans Sanderson by his first marriage, died 30 August. We have been unable to identify the remaining five members of the Sanderson family who died during this epidemic.
7. Or Kronstadt, on Kotlin Island, a heavily fortified Russian naval base at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. In a letter to Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, on 1 July 1854, Sir Charles Napier (1786–1860), commander of the Baltic fleet, described the situation leading to Kronstadt’s harbor from the south: “The batteries are most formidable—all constructed of solid masonry: they are three and four-deckers of stone … and ships going in would be raked by them the moment they came under fire, and would be sunk before they reached the [Russian] ships, which are placed with their broadsides bearing also on the passage. The channel is narrow … and it is most probable that there is only room for one ship, so that the chances are they would be sunk one after the other, or, if the smoke from the guns and from the funnels were dense, they would miss the channel, and go ashore. All attack from the southward by ships is, therefore, out of the question” (Elers Napier, The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, 1862, II, 263–264). Though correct in this and other major decisions, Napier was “made a scapegoat for the failure of the ministers to devise a policy for the Baltic theatre” and by the end of the year was relieved of command (ODNB).
9. Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Boston and London, 1854) was an account of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s travels in Europe in 1853.
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