3775. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 203.
[Paris]
[May 1856] [1]
Tomorrow then, dearest Isa! I am so sorry that you are not well– But, dear, .. do you mean that you take blue pill [2] & morphine synchronically? (I hate hard words!)– If you do, there must be war in you, & no sleep,—the calomel hindering the operation of the anodyne, & vice versâ. After you had done with blue pill (in the largest sense) then you might go to morphine for consolation, but certainly not before.
This in the way of medical information. —As for the rest, it’s you, Dear, & not Barnaby Rudge’s raven, who are “wearing,” [3] with your talk about ‘messageries’ [4] & Sardinian boats! Never was such a raven as you, since Poe’s– [5] It really is too hard upon me, & too unkind of you. I thought you would have left me for a fortnight at least without hearing a word more about it– And Miss Cushman here too! [6]
Robert says he will go to you tonight if he can get away in time. That’s his message–
And as you dont come, I shall console myself by going to bed early—feeling indeed little inclined for anything else. The storm today has shaken me, & I feel “pale all over” as Penini did once. [7] No wonder indeed– Hearing of Sardinian boats may well send one to bed in a pet & a fret & a fainting fit like Mrs Varden– [8]
Ever your affectionate Ba–
Peni should’nt have stayed when you were not well– How vexed I am he went at all–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 106–107.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. Dating provided by EBB’s reference to Charlotte Cushman (see note 6) and to “messageries,” an allusion to Isa’s forthcoming departure for Italy.
3. Grip, Barnaby Rudge’s constant companion, picked up words and expressions but often garbled them. Dickens’s own pet raven named Grip served as the model.
4. “Shipping services,” or “passenger services,” by land or sea.
5. The Raven (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49).
6. Charlotte Cushman, who was living in London at this time, had come to Paris in May to shop (Joseph Leach, Bright Particular Star, New Haven, Conn., 1970, p. 269). She returned to London by the middle of June; see the fourth paragraph in letter 3800.
7. See the first paragraph in letter 3757.
8. A character in Barnaby Rudge described as “a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper,” who often required bed rest to recover herself (chap. 7).
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