4065. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 164–166.
[Bagni di Lucca]
Saturday. [3 October 1857] [1]
I am very sorry, my dearest Isa, that you should have been made anxious by the failure of that letter– As to your coming here, dear, the thought was of you, like you, & I thank you for it full of love,—but under no circumstances would I have allowed you to come & finish yourself for this world– Also we are going on excellently– Little Peni is standing by me while I write, & is to drive out at three for two hours by medical permission– Annunciata too is up & recovered– And Robert who was lost for an hour yesterday & frightened me half out of my wits, was found at last—so that we are all in prosperity, thank God. We made an excursion on the mountains from four oclock, Mrs Jameson & I in portantine, [2] & he on horseback, & we climbed the mountain (tell Annette who knows!) behind the Eckleys house, [3] —Mrs Jameson having four bearers– Well—on our return, the road was tremendous,—it was getting dark,—& our men would not wait for Robert’s horse which was slower of course,––I in a state of anguish all the way down– When we reached the high road we waited about an hour in the moonlight, & at last sent back two guides who found him as perfectly lost as a babe in the wood, & carefully leading his distracted horse down the other side of the mountain. The men said afterwards it was a most dangerous descent,—& one horse had fallen down a precipice & been killed on the spot according to their traditions– If it had’nt been for this fright this would have been a delightful excursion– Mrs Jameson was enchanted,—“never saw anything more beautiful as scenery”—& indeed it seemed to me about the finest thing at the Bagni–
Dearest Isa, we talk of being at Florence on tuesday, if no drawback occurs. Today Peni is allowed a roasted apple .. which is an epoch with him– If Lytton could see how strictly the diet has been maintained– Nothing but thin broth, broth, broth—except that morsel of turkey & chicken, yesterday & the previous day– And today, leave to eat a biscuit–! The Italian doctors are frightened of bread, .. & of the drop of milk necessary to taking tea– But I have no complaint to make– Tell Dr Trotman, if you see him, how obliged to him we are for his recommendation of Marchi. Otherwise (which you need’nt tell) we should have been sacrificed to the “Greene & Gayson party” [4] … unwilling victims– As it was Mrs Stisted wondered how we dared to trust an Italian!—! Gastric fever had begun with Annunciata but was cut down by very active measures—the mildest being “three ounces of castor oil”—a dose for Garagantua. [5] The weather is splendid. The Galignani extinct, for the season. We mean to be at Florence on tuesday, if possible.
While I think of it .. poor Wilson is anxious about the parcel from Goodban’s– Did you enquire kindly?
Mrs Jameson has just said goodbye, & leaves us for Lucca at two. There she sees pictures & sleeps, & goes on to Florence on sunday.
Oh Isa– I delay speaking of Lytton because it grieves me to think even, much less speak on that subject. That one so noble, so good,—with such high spiritual impulses, should allow his light to be blown upon, agitated, (not put out) by certain breaths .. it does grieve me—& less for his happiness now, than his usefulness & greatness hereafter. It grieves me—but I am not surprised– You know what I thought. “Manon” holds her own– [6] His very anger was love– He never ceased to love her—not for a moment–
Observe! under the circumstances, a really good woman (even if she had felt herself maligned) would have taken no step to get him back– It is conclusive to me. Give my love to dear Lytton– How do the poems go on? [7]
You dont tell me whether the Storys staid or stay at Florence? do they? did they? I should prefer Mr Story’s letter to an interview with Mrs Story– In fact I should like the letter very much, if there’s anything new & striking about the spirits to be written in it. I have heard some interesting things lately, but the witness is shy & unwilling to be named. [8]
Ah dearest dear Isa! You are too good in your thoughts of me always. If I am smoother sometimes than some are, the reason is that I am worn smoother– Just that, & no more– Leave me my threadbare smoothness!–dont hate me for it—but dont praise me for it neither. Its too much like praising Major Gillom [sic] for not dancing effeminately–
By the way, how I like that man. Think of his having the pretty forethought of bringing a toy for Peni, to amuse him when he was ill—was’nt it being full of tender consideration? I was very much touched by it–
And the matchless Ba[r]santini (dont let me forget to tell you) came one morning & washed his face with eau de Cologne (“like Mr Bulwer’s,” .. which was a satisfaction to Peni) & changed his sheets, & made him “so much more comfortable.” Was’nt it good of her? All out of her own head.
Think! I hear Peni playing on the piano. Is’nt it the best music in the world? Altogether I am very thankful– I do thank God–
My kind love with Robert’s to Annette, & neither of us know the least in the world what she means by box or basket. She left nothing here. What is it? Robert will be enchanted to resume his rides with her– His love to all of you– Dearest dear Isa, love as ever
your loving Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 134–136.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Pen’s being allowed to ride in a carriage. In letter 4064, she wrote: “Tomorrow the doctor says he may go out in the carriage.”
2. “Sedan-chairs.”
3. Casa Tommasi.
4. John Gason (d. 1896, aged 79), described in Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1854) as “an eminent Irish physician, who resides at Pisa during the winter” and who practices at the Baths of Lucca during the summer (part II, p. 398). He had since relocated to Rome but continued to return to Bagni di Lucca in the summer (see Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy, 1858, part II, p. 467). Gason married at Pisa in 1849 Henry Greene’s sister Elizabeth (d. 1882, aged 80) and served as church warden in his brother-in-law’s parish from 1851 to 1853.
5. Sic, for Gargantua, the giant title character of La Vie très horrificque du grand Gargantua, père de Pantagruel (1534), second of the five novels constituting La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel by François Rabelais (1494?–1553).
6. Unidentified. Manon refers to one of the title characters in L’Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (Amsterdam, 1731), a novel by the Abbé Prévost (1697–1763). She is a common amoral woman, who entices a young man of noble birth into a passionate, foredoomed attachment. The “certain breaths” EBB mentions may include Fleetwood Wilson, whose association with Lytton is condemned by her in a letter to Isa, dated [mid-January 1858] (ms at Fitzwilliam).
7. Presumably, the poems that would constitute The Wanderer (1859). Writing from Paris on 19 March 1858, Lytton told John Forster that he was bringing “the Poems” with him to London (ms with Cobbold).
8. Sophia Eckley.
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