3542. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 131–132.
[Florence]
[ca. 5 April 1855] [1]
My dearest kindest Isa you must forgive Robert for not going to you tonight– He has been uncomfortable & bilious for several days .. the back-stroke of the cold he had, I suppose .. and after the necessary hard work every morning he wants his slippers & neutral company, (as good as none) .. meaning mine. Last night he could’nt even play on the piano for lack of “energy”,—only read congenial cheerful poetry like Heine’s, and exasperated against Mr Read’s. [2]
Mr N. [3] came here this morning with Lytton’s poems & a note from Mrs Wilson– Get her to allow me to send the book to you before I return it .. lest I should be forced to keep my oath– The poems seem full of beauty–
Go back at nine? But that’s too bad, Isa!
I have been thinking about saturday. It is a day devoted to various Florentine ceremonies .. the dove of fire & the rest. [4] Would’nt it be as well if we had our great Louisa-festa on a clear day, such as monday? Ask her. We are her servants. Penini thinks so much of her that I believe he would rather give up the fire-dove than lose her, even for saturday– I dare say he would, if I were to ask him– But the weather may be finer by monday .. who knows? .. & you may accept the other reasons. Decide, yourselves, & tell me tomorrow when you come back with Penini. I will give you Mrs B’s letter then, [5] & am ever
Your most affectionate
Ba–
Address, on integral page: Miss Blagden.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 72–73.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to the “dove of fire” ceremony, which is held on the Saturday before Easter. In 1855 Easter fell on 8 April.
2. Presumably, Thomas Buchanan Read’s The New Pastoral (Philadelphia, 1855), which bears a dedication date of 5 August 1854. EBB had mentioned the book in letter 3460. Read published another volume of poetry in 1855, also at Philadelphia, The House By the Sea, but its dedication (to Hiram Powers) is dated Bagni di Lucca, 1 September 1855. A copy of that volume was presented to RB by Read on 25 December 1855; it sold as part of lot 931 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1930).
3. Thomas Brinsley Norton, bringing a copy of Clytemnestra … and Other Poems.
4. According to Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1856), on Holy Saturday, “a chariot, laden with small mortars or chambers, and filled with fireworks, is brought in the morning into the Piazza del Duomo, and placed opposite to the central door of the cathedral. A string is carried from the chariot to the choir, by which a dove is made to descend, and ignite the fireworks. This takes place when the choir has reached the ‘Gloria in excelsis;’ the mortars are then discharged, and all the bells in the city, which have been silent during the week, begin to ring. … This festival is popularly called lo scoppio del carro [‘the explosion of the chariot’]” (part II, p. 605).
5. Probably from Mary Brotherton.
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