3714. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 78–79.
[Paris]
[mid-January 1856] [1]
Dearest Isa, we are dry of books,—the tide having receded, till we subscribe in this neighbourhood, which we hope to do tomorrow– This ‘Octave’ [2] is lent to us .. so you must send it back when read .. and the Athenæum we must have tomorrow, being borrowed also.
Dearest Isa, you have done unmercifully ill for yourself– You pay twice as much as you need have done, if you had but have taken patience & gone on from day to day, till tuesday came & was past. As to the furniture, you need not have feared. The concierge’s wife assured me the new furniture would be much superior to the old.
I am vexed with Robert for not having held your hands & prevented you from deciding so– But he swore that you would—would.! Wicked Isa.
How they will make you pay, & avenge me.
Your ever affectionate
Ba–
Do come on sunday—if it cant be before ..
See what Robert has been writing! renouncing somebody. [3]
Address, on integral page: à Mademoiselle / Madlle Blagden.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 101–102.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s continued criticism of Isa Blagden’s apartment; see the preceding letter.
2. i.e., a work by Octave Feuillet (1821–90), French novelist and dramatist, whose most recent publication was Péril en la demeure (1855), a two-act comedy. Miss Mitford had recommended his Scènes et proverbes (1851) in letter 3461.
3. The opening words of a letter that RB began, along with EBB’s comment, are written on the page with Isa’s address. It is difficult to determine what RB wrote because it has been fairly obliterated by EBB. The following is a speculative reconstruction: “Madame, / En reniant.”
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