3706. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 62–63.
3. Rue du Colysée.
Jan. 1. [1856] [1]
Dearest Isa you are the best & kindest of the good & kind. Five pages for me. Five pages for me! I have a remorse in only thinking of it! Thank you, thank you.
As to the apartment, they would have taken 150 francs, & your second letter came just in time to stop the just completed agreement. I went down to see the rooms. They did not charm me quite as much as Robert—but they are comfortable, & with a pleasant side view of the Avenue des Ch. Elysées. Still you must have had a bed for your maid in the dining-room. The closet was a dark passage—no more.
Dearest Isa, get me the little sixpenny book on the French genders. Also, Arabel (my sister) will send you a book, [2] which, be so good as to bring.
You speak coldly of Garth Wilkinson & his “hobby”. Hobby! You are falling off from Swedenborg, I see. Do you mean that you have read “man in connexion with the body,” & do not consider it a great book? [3]
Thank you for what you say of the poems. [4] We dont hear from the publisher, & get impatient. Not that I have any fears.
Dearest Isa, how I wish you a happy, happy year, and happy, happy years to come after—––for ever, & ever—amen. May God bless you, dear! And may I have you near me a good deal! that’s a wish for me–
Penini has had a merry Christmas, has seen his dear Napoleon meet his Zouaves, [5] & untied his hat for the shouting. [6] I asked if he had seen the empress—“Oh no—she is’nt beautiful, lite Napoleon.”
I am afraid if you are higher up the rue du Colysée, you wont have much sun– I hope, at any rate, you may have as warm an apartment as this is. It is delightful– Indeed the weather is, too—most wonderful weather. Thermometer at sixty five in the shade out of doors yesterday. I have left off fires in my bedroom .. cant bear them. Brilliant sun—soft air. This for a week & more–
Of course I am much better, & you will see me, I dare say, in a high state of vitality– Dearest Isa, love me alive or dead.
Your always affectionate
Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 99–100.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address.
2. Poems of Ten Years (1856).
4. Men and Women.
5. A unit of light infantry in the French army that had distinguished itself in the Algerian campaigns and the Crimean War. The Zouave uniform was notable for its red trousers and tasseled cap.
6. EBB refers to the parade of 29 December; see letter 3705, note 3.
___________________
