4076. EBB to Sophia Eckley

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 189.

[Florence]

[mid-October 1857] [1]

Dear dearest Sophie, no indeed—no indeed– I shake my head & disavow all—except that .............

But first & most, dear, your proposition not to come tonight– How can you think such a thing? threaten such a thing? imagine that I could choose it?

And, in fact, I was going to write to you to tell you .. & to beg you not to mind it .. that we shall be forced tonight (through Mr Tennyson’s arrival) to have two or three friends beside yourselves, & our privacy so wrenched from us. Well—we shall have plenty of evenings for the privacies– Bear with us, this time, dear– We are so fond of dear Mr Tennyson, who came from Pisa on purpose to see us & only for a day and a half–

So come, & never dream, but that it must be pure pleasure & ‘repose’ to me—to your ever loving & grateful

EBB

See how I write distractedly on this fragment of paper!

Address: Madame Eckley.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Berg Collection.

1. Approximate dating based on EBB’s use of her initials in her signature and on the absence of a reference to her health or Pen’s.

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