4008. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 89–81.
[Florence]
[mid-June 1857] [1]
My dearest Sarianna I shall be too ungrateful to delay any longer thanking you from my heart for your kindest sympathy– To write, to speak, to live, lately, has been all effort & weariness—only there should be an end to this silence–
Of the past however, I cannot speak– Let it pass .. All this bitterness is good for me, I suppose .. wholesome, necessary to life—and I am passing too–
No– Arabel would not come to Italy, though a few months’ of extreme heat would have been specifically good for her health, I think– But she wishes to be settled, & she has taken a house in London (where, I dont know .. though she mentioned one in Westbourne Terrace) [2] & is engaged in furnishing it. She wanted us to go very much—but that was really more than I could bear, & more too than it was necessary to try to bear. If we had gone north, I should have stayed with you in Paris– Only, dear .. you see yourself, & Robert is of a decided opinion, that we had better wait for that till the spring—& yet it pains me to think of your being disappointed. What we shall do remains quite uncertain– We have had it already very hot—not this morning though,—there is wind—& the insufferable heats wont begin till the beginning of July– Then we shall go somewhere—wherever Robert likes– He is inclined just now to like Elba—but there’s a report of an intermittent fever in Elba, & it cant certainly be cool. We may go for a week or two, & then go to the mountains anywhere in Tuscany. Then Robert talks of spending next winter between Rome & Naples, or of going perhaps to Egypt. I agree to everything– I dont feel to care much—as long as it is not England– Only he is very changeable, as you know, & these are thoughts rather than plans.
Dearest Sarianna, I am sorry about the books– [3] Their value will be soon paid out if you leave them where they are, the expences being enormous there– It would be much cheaper for you to take the room opposite (of which you spoke once I think) & turn it into a book-room. But of this you can judge of course– Do you not know the contents of the five boxes– If you could leave one or two, Mr Reuben Browning might take charge of those, together with the one containing our bust which Robert is about to make him a present of. [4] There are some books of ours, mixed up with yours Robert thinks—but those cant be many. It is so very vexatious. And it would be still more so, to have to pay five or ten pounds because, for a few months longer still, we dont make up our minds.
I do hope dearest Sarianna, you will make some pleasant excursion this summer, doing honour to the blue skies– Give my love to dear M. Milsand. The vintage in France & elsewhere is going well this time. May he have all sorts of prosperities– I do wish it.
Robert does himself good by long rides of hours together, by dawnlight & moonlight to escape the heat. He is very well & so is Peni. Did he tell you of Peni having lessons in music from an excellent master .. one of the best in Florence? The child goes for half an hour every morning (in this street) & makes remarkable progress .. & we pay only about ninepence English a lesson.
Fanny Haworth has just arrived from Rome—looking very much better. She finds us much hotter than Rome, she says– After a week or fortnight at the hotel here, she goes on to Switzerland—to Geneva—talking of returning to Rome for the winter. Her maid [5] was ill there all the time, but she herself looks certainly better for Rome, though complaining of her usual headaches.
I have seen nobody of the Florentines except Isa Blagden who has been very very kind, very much herself to me. She says I have taken a dislike to the whole human race—but this is’nt true I hope, of me yet.
Little Peni has been such a darling to me—& Robert so good & tender—yes, & Peni such a darling. He plays a duet of three pages with Robert, really well—& he has not learnt above two months. Of course he had forgotten every note of what was learnt previously– And he never had learnt the base notes. Robert hears him do his practising–
Dearest Sarianna & Nonno, may God bless & keep you.
Your ever very affectionate Ba.
What of the Corkran’s? My love to them. May it be all arranged as they wish. [6]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dating suggested by EBB’s not knowing the exact location of Arabella’s house. By letter 4009 she knows where it is.
2. Arabella’s house was at 7 Delamere Terrace, near Upper Westbourne Terrace.
3. Books and chairs belonging to Sarianna and her father had been stored at 39 Devonshire Place (John Kenyon’s residence). Evidently, they were now in some commercial storage facility.
4. Possibly the bust of a thirteenth-century Italian judge that the Brownings had given to John Kenyon (see letter 3160, note 10).
5. Trautchen Birgel.
6. John Frazer Corkran had lost his job as Paris correspondent of The Morning Herald (see letter 3978, note 10).
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