4059. EBB to Sophia Eckley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 150–151.
[Bagni di Lucca]
[28 September 1857] [1]
I shall be delighted to go with you dearest Sophie, and here is the sun coming out on purpose! Also, there is shining for me what is better than the sun! My precious child is steadily better, slept tranquilly till six oclock this morning, when he woke up “con un fame terribile,” [2] and is pronounced to be in a satisfactory state of convalescence. The medical authority adds too, that we may go to Florence in six days, if nothing interferes with the progress—only, in order to this, we are to resist all temptation in diet or otherwise: he is to keep in bed & to take nothing for the present except the broth. Your proposition about the Bordeaux, was much appreciated by the patient, & I dare say in time he will be allowed to use the prescription. Mr Lytton too, I remember, had Bordeaux ordered for him. Peni seems to be recovering his strength even as it is. He had the flowergirl in by his bedside yesterday, & was so very funny & characteristically Italian in his talk to her, that we could not help laughing.
So we talk (Robert & I) of following you to Florence on monday. [3] That may be– But we will run no risk, through too much haste.
I am very, very thankful.
And I am thankful to you too– I never shall forget, dearest Sophie, your touching goodness to me– In true affection
Your EBB
Oh the rain, the rain!– There seems little hope of my seeing you today–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Dated by EBB’s mention of the “flowergirl” at Pen’s bedside “yesterday”—the 27th. She mentions the same thing at the end of the first paragraph in letter 4060.
2. “Terribly hungry.”
3. The Eckleys returned to Florence sometime between 28 September and 2 October. Mrs. Eckley is listed for the latter date in the subscription records of Vieusseux’s reading rooms and circulating library. The Brownings followed on 7 October, a Wednesday.
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