3958. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 207–209.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 12 January 1857]
My dearest Sarianna, the bequest expresses fully our dear friend’s kindness to us,—and, for the rest, you know I was always sure that nothing very marked would be done in our behalf. This is enough to save us from pecuniary pressure,—to compensate for the ship-money when it goes, which must be in the course of nature & ships: and meanwhile our books pay better year by year. The difference will however be great to us if the money in question should not be vested in the three per cents, & should be free for us to invest where a larger percentage is attainable & income-tax does’nt reach. Not that we would, in that case, risk anything on American railroads, but really we do feel (Robert even begins to feel) that the priviledge of having to do with the English funds, is not worth paying for. I am only afraid of the choice not being left to us,—I am afraid– The executors are allowed a year to pay in– [1] We shall have to wait therefore for whatever comes to us. Most extraordinary it is, that neither of them has communicated with us by a word even, & that we should have been allowed to hear, what so much concerned us, by accident & help of friends. Robert will probably tell you the broken statements which have reached us by those means, about the will. What really grieves me is, that my poor sister Henrietta has been altogether left out of these last benevolences—at least, I fear it is so. [2] I had hoped that the relationship might have served her a little; but, except myself, no member of our family has been considered, to the considerable annoyance of my father, I understand. Miss Bayley told me that, in her mind, “relationship was nothing at all,”—& this principle has been strictly acted on. In fact, a much better principle is substituted, and many are relieved & benefited, instead of two or three being enriched,—which I should be very inconsistent if I did not applaud from my heart. As to riches, I never coveted such a thing– When the possibility struck me, it was with a sort of horror– The moral responsibility, the uncongenial occupation, the conventional necessity of doing this & that .. I should object very much. But to have enough money & no fuss about too much.. there’s the juste milieu– Also, I should have liked my carriage in the air, which I always build instead of a castle. This for myself personally. And, after all, a fiacre does perfectly even for me. And Robert can hire a horse & ride .. which is his particular luxury. As to Peni, the world is outgrowing its rich men, & I should be sorry that he had not the need of work.
Poor Fanny Haworth has sick headache after sick headache, and I am much afraid that our Italy does not agree with her. There’s something not only in the air, but in the change of diet perhaps. For two or three weeks, comes her time of going to Rome; and she has fallen into a disgust of travelling, she says, and scarcely can make up her mind to move farther south– Then her affairs in England in a very unsatisfactory condition– She was left administratrix, [3] and she comes abroad to administer! A woman’s way of forwarding business. She has made a very graceful portrait of our Penini, in oils, small size, and sent it in to me in the most graceful of Florentine frames, on New Year’s morning, and I have hung it over my particular writing-table at the corner of the fire. A more welcome gift could not be.
Peni is very good– He does his writing, his French verb & page of phrases, & English spelling to Robert, before breakfast chiefly—& they both behave wonderfully well. Robert with a celestial patience. I had had some human fears at the beginning of this arrangement, I do humbly confess. Afterwards I take up the succession of reading lessons,—Robert always maintaining that the child is twice as good with him as with me. Certainly he takes more liberties with mama who has the misfortune of being a woman, & does’nt startle the swallows in one’s brain with too loud a voice—but even with me, he is really good .. and I do little but praise him, poor darling. He has more than half finished your fairy tales. [4] I want now to coax Robert into letting him have a music-master.
Peni who is an ‘esprit fort’ [5] told me the other day that he had come to consider “croq[ue]-mitaine [6] all nonsense”, and that now he “only believed in the Befana.” The Befana has been gracious, by the way, this year, & filled his empty stocking, hung up for the occasion, with quantities of gifts. He was happier, he said, “than even on Christmas day,”– Poor darling.
Robert bids me answer for the climate of Florence. I scarcely know what to say. The air is pure & light, the sunshine blazing; and the springs & autumns are usually superb. But the winds, the tramontana, blowing down from the mountains so often covered with snow, are fatal to invalids who are tempted into the sunshine when it blows. And there are transitions from the somewhat gloomy streets out into the hot open spaces, which cannot be too much guarded against. In fact, for anyone who will take great care, & keep in the house in certain states of the atmosphere, it’s as good as I find it,—but precautions are necessary. The kind of invalid should be specified– Mr Tennyson & others have complained of the climate telling on the nerves, and preventing sleep,—& this is a characteristic of other places in Italy .. Naples, for instance,—& we have never felt it here– The air is peculiarly vital—that is certain,—and where it does agree, it agrees very much. Penini looks like a rose here always—but then he is native to the place. There has been more miliary fever, since we came, than I ever knew before,—& Mr Powers’s family have been ill with it lately. I love Florence so much, that I am afraid of praising it, you understand. The heat is intense from the middle of June to the middle of September, but there are persons who live through it without suffering much—Isa Blagden, for instance, who delights in being boiled alive, .. and various of the Americans. Anyone from “the tropics” would take to it naturally, of course. We have some splendid days even in the winter,—and a sun that burns, to the degree that exacts precautions, even from March.
What a scrambling account– And Robert pushing & pulling me all the while. Our love to dear M. Milsand–
And to dearest Nonno, of course, of course. We talk of you & love you.
Your ever affectionate sister
Ba.
Address, in RB’s hand: À Mademoiselle / Madlle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
3. Of her mother’s estate. Euphrasia Haworth had died on 10 June 1856.
4. Unidentified.
5. “Strong-minded,” or “independent thinker.”
6. “Hobgoblin,” or “ogre.”
___________________
