3950. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 187.
[Florence]
[ca. January 1857] [1]
I cant wait till tonight to thank you my dearest Isa for this exquisite little ring– [2] Shall I not keep it for ever, as a memorial of what must last as long,—my true love for you, dear?
Oh—I like it so much better than any “Aurora” in the world. Auroras end by twelve oclock, & are often as cold as just now. And it wont be so with my feeling for you, I who am
Your loving
Ba
αει. [3]
Publication: B-IB, pp. 117–118.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Dating suggested by reference to EBB’s closing, “Your loving Ba.” For the remainder of her correspondence with Isa Blagden, EBB generally closes with this phrase or a variation of it, the first occasion of which appears to be the gift of the “aei” ring. The mention of the cold weather and the allusion to Aurora Leigh indicates the winter of 1856–57.
2. Described as a gold signet ring engraved with the Greek word “aei” (“always,” or “eternally”), it sold as part of lot 1365 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H472). A.N. Kincaid discusses the ring and the one Isa gave RB—engraved “vis mea” (see Reconstruction, H462), associating the rings with those mentioned in The Ring and the Book and Isa Blagden’s Agnes Tremorne. See “The Ring and the Scholars,” Browning Institute Studies, 8 (1980), 151–159; see also Mairi Calcraft-Rennie, “Wordcraft and the Goldsmiths: Browning and the Castellani,” Browning Society Notes, 23 (1996), 54–66. The two rings are illustrated facing p. 208.
3. “Always,” or “eternally.”
___________________
