3676. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 347–350.
102 Rue de Grenelle. Fbg St Germain. Paris
November 14 [–15]– [1855] [1]
My dearest Isa I listen for you all in vain. Not a word comes to me– The letter I wrote to you, literally went for nothing,—& you wont vouchsafe me any answer—and it is’nt enough that you mean to cut me in going to Florence instead of staying at Paris, you begin at once by leaving off sending me any letter. Now what have I done, dear Isa? I have’nt even lost that volume of “Charles Auchester”– Here it is, found! It had been snatched up & packed up as I supposed, by Wilson in her moments of tribulation, & I shall send it to London by the earliest opportunity.
Seriously I am quite uneasy about you, lest you should be ill, or unhappy in some strange sudden way, this silence is so very unlike you. Did you receive my letter with its account of the two Lyttons, [2] & of how I had seen Sir Edward at last? If you did, why no sign in answer?
At least I hope you received Robert’s book which he directed to be sent to you immediately on its publication. [3] Though it has been out only since saturday, we have heard things indicative of a success—in respect, I mean, to the amount of subscription by the trade– Translations are in preparation for the ‘Revue des deux mondes’, of “In a Balcony,” “Cleon,” ‘Lazarus,’ [4] ‘Saul’ &c &c– [5] M. Milsand told me simply that he considered the poems “superhuman”—only superhuman!
You were very wrong not to come to Paris—which I say not for my sake but yours– The rents for apartments are still factitiously high, though by no means out of reach,—but prices generally are quite moderate. Ask Ferdinando what he thinks of them as compared with London’s. We live upon poultry—and Robert gets port wine good at two francs a bottle– Chickens at four francs the couple—fine geese at from three to four francs– Coffee, butter, bread, milk most excellent. You may live here very moderately. I am sure I am good to praise Paris, for I have been living most wretchedly in these horrible rooms .. our boxes still unpacked—& there’s still another month to live here– Also, I have not been well– I had not been in Paris quite a fortnight when the cough came & a worse symptom, & Robert was turning his thoughts to Nice or Pau for the winter, when the thing turned, & now I am right again, though by no means at my stoutest. We had exquisite weather after arriving in Paris—but, you see, my chest had been in an irritable state for these two months,—and a little cold, the imprudence of going out on a damp day, precipitated me. Now I am shut up for the winter of course; but that is a winter necessity with me everywhere, and I am pretty well for me.
I received a letter from Sophia Cottrell the other day. Miss Ellen Tulk, [6] the invalid, was carried off by cholerine in the summer—being too weak to resist– So ends the agony of years! The Florentines behaved nobly in the face of the epidemic, and even the young nobles devoted themselves to the dying & dead .. inscribing themselves by crowds on the lists of the Misericordia [7] & performing all those onerous & dangerous duties with an unshrinking courage– Let it be remembered in their praise! Sophia describes the epidemic as most awful. Dead mothers, fathers, & children heaped together & borne past their windows! Now there are no cases. Sophia does not speak of the “manifestations,” of course through discretion.
Mrs Sartoris is in Paris—& so is Mrs Norton [8] who talks, I understand, of finding us out & calling on us– We lie here perdue for the present, not choosing to “shine out, appear, be found” like a “lovely Zara,” [9] until we are in more comfortable circumstances.
I cant help fancying, dear Isa, that you never received my letter which I directed to 43 instead of 46 Grosvenor Place, [10] .. (Mr Jerves having told me the wrong number & corrected it too late), though I flattered myself that the mistake could not be fatal. Indeed it was your own mistake chiefly, in that you never vouchsafe to date your letters & give an address. At this moment I have a horrible doubt as to whether you are in Grosvenor Place or Lower Grosvenor Place. Which?
Penini has had a cold but is nearly out of it I hope– He looks rosier than in London. Just now he has gone to see the emperor’s carriage & the outside show connected with the closing of the Exhibition & giving of prizes within.
How unlucky Miss Cushman is in her selection of plays! but I hear that her acting was very fine in that unhappy “Beginning & End” [11] which ended as soon as begun. Do write, & do say how you are, & do believe that I love & miss you faithfully. Robert’s best love–
Your ever most affectionate
Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 86–88.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address. The final date is supplied by EBB’s reference to the closing of the Exposition, which occurred on 15 November 1855.
2. See the third paragraph in letter 3666.
4. i.e., “An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician.”
5. The translator was Joseph Milsand. He told William Darley in a 23 September letter that he was “trying (although without much success so far) to translate some extracts from” Men and Women (see SD1861). The French translations were to be incorporated in Milsand’s review of Men and Women, which was intended for the Revue des Deux Mondes. It did not appear there, however, but in Revue Contemporaine, September 1856 (pp. 511–546). Although no verse translations of any of the poems in Men and Women were included, there were significant prose translations from “An Epistle … of Karshish,” “Saul,” and “Any Wife to Any Husband.”
6. Eleanor “Ellen” Augusta Tulk (1802–55), an invalid (see letter 2731, note 17), was one of Sophia Cottrell’s nine paternal aunts, who, with her sister Caroline Augusta Tulk had lived not far from the Cottrells in Florence since 1848. Eleanor died on 4 August and was buried two days later in the English Cemetery. Sophia Cottrell’s letter is not extant.
7. According to Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1856), “The Compagnia della Misericordia, whose establishment is on the south side of the Piazza del Duomo … was instituted about 1244 … for the purpose of giving assistance in cases of accidents, of aiding the wounded sick, and, in case of sudden death, to ensure for the corpse a Christian burial. This religious society includes persons of all ranks, from the Grand Duke downwards” (part II, p. 603).
8. Caroline Norton.
9. Aaron Hill, The Tragedy of Zara (2nd ed., 1736), III, 1, 203. Zara is an English adaptation of Voltaire’s play Zaïre.
10. 43 Grosvenor Place is correct.
11. The Beginning and the End by Maria Anne Lovell (1803–77) opened at the Haymarket on 27 October 1855 and closed on 31 October after four performances. Charlotte Cushman played the lead role of Hester Lambert, the servant of a miserly merchant who incites her husband to forge the merchant’s will.
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