3859. EBB to Mary Brotherton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 56–57.
3. Parade– West Cowes–
September 12. [1856] [1]
My dear Mrs Brotherton,
Your note is sent after me to this place, where we have been staying with an invalid friend– I am grieved that you should have a more painful solicitude of the same kind– [2] May God strengthen you,—it must be very sad to watch with one’s heart, and have no hope–
This morning I had a letter from Isa Blagden, so I can give you of her the freshest news. She has taken a villa at Florence for five years,—the villa on the hill, at Bellosguardo, [3] —do you remember it, at all. She has ten or eleven rooms furnished, and gives two hundred & twenty scudi a year [4] —which is dear for Florence, & my husband & I shake our heads over her rash bargain—but the view out of the drawing-room window attones [sic] & accounts for everything– Mr Tennyson & his family are absent, at Leghorn .. with an inclination towards Genoa– Their return seems uncertain. She gives us some Roman news .. that Dr Pantaleone is married to a Miss Dawson– [5] You may have heard it–
I wish I could do much for Arthur Brandon. [6] You may be certain that I will not neglect any opportunity of trying to do it good, but I am in no sort of ‘rapport’ with the malleable critics. Our friend Mr Forster has given up the Examiner. [7] Did you think of offering the m∙s. to Routledge? Routledge gives good prices sometimes, & he would have seen to the reviews of his own book– But I must have good hope of any work of yours, under whatever disadvantages it may be offered to the public. As to misprints, they are always more obvious to an author than to a reader. That’s a sort of comfort.
With the most sympathizing thoughts & good-wishes for you, dear Mrs Brotherton, whether in literature or in life,
believe me
your very faithful
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address.
2. Mrs. Brotherton’s mother, Harriet Anne Rees (née Stokes), died at her home in Chelsea on 12 September 1856.
3. Villa Brichieri. We have been unable to determine whether Mrs. Brotherton had visited the villa, but she knew of it through her friend Frederick Tennyson, who resided there with his family for six months from the autumn of 1855 (see his letters to Mrs. Brotherton, [early April 1856] and 4 June 1857, mss at Lilly).
4. Equivalent to about £44; the Brownings paid about £25 annually for their lease of Casa Guidi.
5. Jane Isabella Massy-Dawson (1832–1904), daughter of Francis Dennis Massy-Dawson and his wife, Susan, eldest daughter of the 13th Lord Sinclair, married Diomede Pantaleoni on 22 July 1856.
6. Mrs. Brotherton’s novel Arthur Brandon (1856) had just been published by Hurst and Blackett on 23 August.
7. John Forster had given up the editorship of The Examiner after being appointed secretary to the Lunacy Commission in December 1855. The appointment came with an annual salary of £800.
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