3919. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 120–121.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 31 October 1856]
My dearest Sarianna, Arrived you see!– I was so vexed about the loss of the Cornice & so more disinclined than usual to the sea, that I expected nothing but miseries,—& what actually happened fell far short of them. There was a smell of paint (the vessel being newly decorated like the captain) & we were ten hours longer than is ordinary in getting to Genoa (being twenty six hours) but from Genoa to Leghorn about ten hours did it,—& the sea was exceptionally smooth the whole way– We were all a very little sick .. except Robert—who is triumphant, and, was very indignant because I could’nt eat as much as did himself. I think the smell of paint affected me a good deal. Robert is prouder far of his prowess during those days, than of anything else he ever did .. ‘men & women’ included.
A most prosperous & beautiful journey we had altogether. France has never been praised enough for beauty. Then some hours of Genoa gave us back our Italy. We took a carriage & drove round the public gardens. I found the sky again, & the sun. Not one sky have I seen all this summer in England—&, even, when it was at hottest in London, there was a dull cloud everywhere, & no ray of sun.
Think of our meeting M. Milsand! It was a joy that vibrated through all our journey. He enquired after “everybody in Paris” .. of course meaning the emperor & empress––after just a touch of hesitation.
Since we came, Isa Blagden has been here. We found a note from her, & one from Fanny Haworth– Robert ran up the hill to see Isa the very night of our arrival, & went this morning to see Fanny, who is to be in Florence for two months, & hankered after an apartment in this house—but they are dear, & she will go, Robert advises, rather to the Pitti close by– [1] Robert swears he wont let me write. I should have begun to write before, but he had taken the key of my desk with him––
Oh Robert–
May God bless you both–
With true love from
Ba
Frederick Tennyson gone to Pisa!–
Peni climbing about with the sailors–
—Robert fast friends with the French on board,—I heard them all talking from my sofa—how France & England were to be as one nation with one banner in some twenty or thirty years– No more nationalities?
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Mademoiselle Browning / 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St Gn / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. In the end, Fanny Haworth took an apartment in Palazzo Guidi the next month and stayed until March 1857. In a letter to Arabella, dated [ca. 19–] 21 March [1857], EBB writes: “Miss Haworth who has been living in this house since November, has gone to Rome today” (ms at Berg).
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