3505. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 42–45.
[Florence]
[ca. 27 December 1854] [1]
My dearest Sarianna I am delighted that you should be so pleased with our Penini’s productions– I think myself that some of them are exquisite—with such graceful, poetical babyhood in them. Robert observed modestly “I could’nt write like that, if I tried ever so.” I should think not indeed!–
One of my favorites is about the rabbits—I mean the one where he talks of the sudden noise in his room .. “Of course I thought at first it was a spirit or an angel– .. What do you think I saw? The white rabbit walking.” As if the apparition of the white rabbit was so much more wonderful than the celestial vision. That’s very characteristic of Penini. He’s the believer in spiritualism! Only,—such a thing as a moving table &c &c appears to him excessively commonplace, & not to be made a fuss about. I suppose it’s in his blood, from my side. But his fancies are all smiling & shining—he has none of the superstitious terrors from which I suffered as a child. He said the other day, “How beautiful God must be! I never did see Him. I sint I should be a little afraid at first if I saw him—but he must be velly beautiful.” Then he desires to see “little angels”—“not too large”!
He asked if there were a great many children with Jesus. Yes, said I– “Oh,” he exclaimed, his blue eyes sparkling, “how nice it must be in Heaven. It must be quite a festa!” Did I tell you that when he was reading that childish abstract of the Gospels, the ‘Peep of Day’ one morning, Robert cried out from the piano “You should explain to him, Ba, the nature of miracles.” Said I, [“]my dear Robert, a miracle’s a matter of course to this child—the difficult thing would be to persuade him that there are none.” Three minutes after .. as he read the account of the turning of the water into wine [2] .. (one of the “impossible absurdities” about which Straus[s] is pugnacious) [3] Penini observed quietly .. “Yes! I’ve seen that done in Rome.” Oh no—my Penini—you never did. “Yes—indeed, .. with great animation .. “at Mrs Sartoris’s I saw it.” “You mean the conjuror– But that was only a trick .. only pretence”– “No—it was’nt—(with indignation) You did’nt see it. I saw it. The man said “Signorini .. you would like to see this changed to wine .. per farle piacere”– [4] And May Sartoris said, ‘Yes, change it.’ And I saw the water grow redder & redder till it grew wine– I saw it!!” more & more vehemently. You might as well have talked to the wall as make him doubt of his conjuror, poor darling! Robert & I could only look at one another & be passive & resigned.
Yesterday evening as he & I sate at the fire I was reading to myself & he was in deep thought .. ‘Dear mama’. “What? my darling.” “I’m sinting of one sing. You remember gentle Jesus made Peter catch a hundred & fifty three fishes—and then they had only two fishes to give the people on the mountain. [5] I sint they might leally have kept some of those quantities of fishes in buttets ..” (buckets)! That’s the only biblical objection Penini was ever known to make!—his contribution to German exegism or neology.
Dont imagine we stuff him with the theologies—or with anything hard to understand, & to be received formally. Not a bit of a catechism has ever pricked his poor little brain. Christmas has been very joyous to him. First among the gifts let us name Nonno’s famous squirrel, dog, & poem, which have all delighted him. Then Mr Buchanan Read’s (American poet) children [6] sent him a bonbon box & a ‘game’. Isa Blagden gave him a soldier’s hat .. Alice Tassinari, a top .. & Robert & I, a drum, knapsack, a china teaset, with plates & spoons, and a magnificent Noah’s Ark. I assure you, we spent some fourteen or fifteen shillings on these gifts– Then .. I forget .. Ferdinando gave him a toy of rocking figures, and Wilson, a magnetic ship. The child has been in the paradisaical state therefore, as you may imagine.
We think much of you at this season & with tender love my dearest best Sarianna, & dearest Nonno. I am so happy that you, dear, are better in health. Penini will write to his nonno & you very soon, & I need not ask you to love him & us .. me a little, for his sake & Robert’s .. as we love you.
Give my love to the kind Corkrans– Yes—they are very kind .. but you seem to me to be by no means behindhand in affectionateness. How good of you to afflict yourself with a child– [7] Well—if “afflict” is too stern a word, we must find another like it. I know what it is to have even a Penini hanging about one at all hours, whether you feel sad or merry, well or ill– I used to say in England that I never knew quite the use of Wilson till she went away for that fortnight. I love children, & adore my own child .. but even he can be overpowering at times. It was very, very good of you, and I am sure Mrs Corkran must have felt it–
Ah—dearest Sarianna, our poor dear Trippy remains in much the same state—very low but without pain. It has made this Christmas a very sad thing to me. At post time everyday I feel terrified. Surtees Cook does’nt go to the East—that’s a comfort at least. They did not comply with his proposition. [8] My father goes out occasionally in the carriage, & the swelling is subdued—& he is to leave off one of his crutches soon. It makes me very melancholy to think of it. Henry had a commission offered him for the east, but there was a great explosion when he came to talk of it. Such a thing is not to be thought of.
One of Mrs Story’s amiable peculiarities is, to be always in boiling water with her household. It would be miraculous, if one party were not cheated, & the other starved. I am glad that poor Mr Story shd have another child, & a boy—it will be a consolation.
Our weather has been very disagreeable for some time—half cold, & half wet—and at Rome it has rained without stopping during six weeks–
Dearest Sarianna—Penini’s books are for Nonno—so dont take the pains to copy– Arabel will just look them over & send them back. Certainly you have the best right to them, & I never thought otherwise.
The sketches are by Mr Leighton here from Rome this autumn. [9] They are much less pretty than Peni. “Che brutto bocco!” [10] said Ferdinando.
Your attached Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Dated by EBB’s references to Christmas and to the birth of the Story’s son; RB writes of the latter event in letter 3504.
2. As described in The Peep of Day, Lesson 19, entitled “The First Miracle.” The incident occurs in the story of the wedding feast at Cana in John 2:1–11.
3. In George Eliot’s translation of the fourth edition of Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (1840) by David Friedrich Strauss, there is a reference to “the absurdities of the miracles, when literally understood” (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1846, I, 13).
4. “To please you.”
5. Pen is bringing together two separate episodes; Jesus’s feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes (Matthew 14:14–21), and Jesus’s third appearance to the disciples after his death (John 21:3–11). Pen read these stories in The Peep of Day: Lesson 24, “The Loaves and Fishes,” and Lesson 48, “The Dinner.”
6. Alice (1845–70) and Lilian (d. 1855, aged 5).
7. Evidently, Sarianna was taking care of one of the Corkrans’ children; we have been unable to determine which one.
9. Two pencil drawings, full face and profile—both signed by Leighton with his monogram and both dated by RB, 1 October 1854—sold as lot 8 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H77). The drawings are reproduced facing p. 144.
10. “What an ugly good for nothing fellow!”
___________________
