3555. EBB to Sophia Cottrell

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 169.

Casa Guidi.

Monday– [11 June 1855] [1]

My dearest Sophia

I had better write than say an adieu after all. May God bless you, & take care of you all three, & grant us all a happy meeting when we three shall be happy enough to come back– We go on wednesday by the horrible Bastia steamer– [2] If we can be [of] use to you, take anything for you to England, remember that we shall be glad. Dont let dear Hal forget my Penini– Oh—I wish I were coming back instead of going– Once more—goodbye—& think of us as we shall of you–

Your ever affectionate

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Imagine what a confusion I am in– Else I would go to you somehow–

Address, on integral page: À Madame, / Madme la Comtesse Cottrell.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to leaving Italy on Wednesday, 13 June, the day the Brownings first attempted to catch the steamer from Leghorn.

2. Bradshaw’s Continental Railway, Steam Navigation, & Conveyance Guide for January 1853 carries an advertisement placed by the French steamer firm Compagnie Valery, Frères for “Regular Service between Marseilles & Leghorn” (p. 270). The Leghorn steamer sailed on Wednesday evening and called at Bastia on Thursday morning.

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