3832. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 25–27.
[London]
Wednesday. [Postmark: 13 August 1856]
My dearest Sarianna, if you are not vexed with me, it is that you know by clairvoyance I suppose, how it has been about my not writing. Really it quite surprised me that you should send me your love & treat me as if I was’nt a monster– Too bad it was in Robert to take every opportunity of my going out of the house for a moment, to write his letters & post them, when he knew how I wanted to write to you!. I was quite vexed—& the subject scarcely missed being second to the spirit-question as a suggester of Christian frames of mind. Now, I conclude, that that wicked Robert, who had it all to himself, has told you everything about persons seen & dinners eaten & how at one particular dinner I sate bolt upright for four successive hours, & did not die afterwards. So glad I am that London is thinner—the suffocating heat we have had (with a stopper of yellow fog bottling us up at the end of every street) being enough to make anybody thin. Little Penini however is not,—though he has lost all his colours .. began to lose them in the cold even .. for we had such cold during the greater part of July that my fingers used to be numb past writing—everybody with fires, except ourselves who simply shivered & wished for them. We have been giving Peni some slight medecine, (having sent him to the chymist’s to be examined) and there’s nothing really the matter with him after all,—and a good blow of country-wind would bring the colour to his cheeks again, dear darling. Meanwhile he is drawing together the whole host of Italian boys in a general assembly under our windows—(Mr Kenyon will be grateful for the advantage of it ..) and there he harangues them from the balcony, enquires from what part of Italy they come, compliments the organ, or the white mouse, & gives them halfpence from a bag kept for the occasion. Everyday I hear that he is going to write to you—& some day I’m sure he’ll do it really. He comes in while I speak, and bids me say .. ‘I will write a letter by myself soon, and I send my love.’ He talks of you & his dear nonno [1] very often, and was very sorry about the sprain—of which, I do hope, there is no longer any sign. What will he have thought of all this delay about the books? It really has vexed me to think of it– Robert has been a good deal trammelled by things & people in this overwhelming London, besides the difficulty of seeing his way through the dust & the boxes– I think it infinitely better that we should send off the books which are found and of which there is an immediate want, without waiting longer to hunt for the papers. As to your books, if they were mine, I should have them examined & a catalogue made, & then select any books out of them you might have reasons for caring for, & have them over by small quantities– The rest, I myself would part with to a bookseller– Robert says the books are of no value, & would be bought cheaper at Paris, than the cost of the carriage would come to.
And did you not say you would like to have the chairs? [2] I always think that life is short, and there’s no use in putting things by & waiting for a use to them. If you leave them here long enough, they will lose in value. If you have them sent, the expense cannot be much—and if you dont have them sent, the wise way, I think, would be to sell them at once, & get the advantage out of the money. Think it over, dearest Sarianna, & write your specific wishes– Dont hesitate about it, so as to leave the judgement to Robert, who will never decide, I tell you before-hand. He goes round & round a subject to see it on all sides, till he gets giddy & cant take a step. Which being my true conjugal opinion, I give it for your sake–
Fanny Haworth has gone to Germany with her brother, [3] on her way to Italy by herself .. but she means to catch at the arm of some friend by the roadside. She is to live alone—which I think wise—though she takes up the thought of her independence very sadly. [4]
I am glad to be at the end of my long work, in spite of which, I am in a state of unnatural nervousness about results. Even Robert’s praise & hope do not make the subject one on which I can think quietly—so I throw it behind me like an unpleasant one, & think of it as little as possible.
I have been uneasy about my father– He is very unwell—but it is nothing dangerous, though distressing to me, to think of his suffering so and I not able to see or help– Penini says .. “Mama, does your papa think you are dead?”
May God bless you dearest Sarianna & the dearest nonno!
I am so glad you have the piano.
Your ever most affectionate
Ba–
Mr Chorley spends this evening with us. My love to dear M. Milsand– In spite of poetry & people I am much stronger, quickening with the summer.
Arabel sits here, & sends her love. Mr Rossetti on the other side! How I can write, she says, is wonderful–
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / À Mademoiselle / Madlle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle, Fg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. “Grandfather.”
2. Sarianna’s chairs and books had been stored at 39 Devonshire Place, probably since August or September 1852, when she disposed of her father’s house in Bayswater, following her and her father’s removal to Paris in July.
3. One of the three surviving sons of Thomas Haworth (d. 1830, aged 58) and his wife, Euphrasia (née Cartwright, 1780–1856): Thomas Hyde (1809–91), Martin Edward (1810–86), and Frederick (1812–93). Fanny and her brother may have been visiting relatives in Germany. Their late aunt Rebecca Pinnock (née Cartwright, 1778–1842) had resided for many years in Koblenz. A first cousin, Edward Pinnock (1820–1906), was living in Munich at this time.
4. As a result of her mother’s recent death (see letter 3813, note 2).
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