4083. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 194–196.
[Florence]
Thursday– [Postmark: 22 October 1857]
My poor dearest Fanny! alas for you, if we are the only helps to decision you attain to in this uncertain world! Your compliment wrings me to a melancholy smile. Dear, what shall I say? Your rooms here are occupied by Mrs Jameson: she occupies & hates them .. & pays more for them than you did. Wilson has not let her apartment yet, but is hoping to let it– It is too large for you & would be unnecessarily expensive. For the rest, here is Florence to choose from. My precious Peni is well again, I thank God, & you would think him looking well. Not a curl of his head nor a gesture of his naughtiness is lost by the adversity behind—and I am well too .. though I have not been quite so since my return. I and Robert (& others) shall be delighted to have you back—only consider what is best. We still mean to go to Rome at the extreme end of November. At the end of this month Hatty Hosmer promises to arrive here & as she goes to Rome to sweep us all up into her apron– (Nota bene– The figure is mine & too effeminate for the sculptress.)
So sorry I am that you are not well; that you have suffered more than usual. Do you fancy that Switzerland agrees better with you than Italy? It seems to me from your account of yourself that you were better on the other side of the Alps. Consider it well. It is impossible for me to advise you .. even the way I wish.
Robert envies you the interview with Pasta– [1] It is very touching– The artist dying out of the woman, .. the survivance of the natural to the artistic life .. always seemed to me the deepest of tragedies. Singers & players suffer it—and painters & poets can imagine it– The great singer with the quenched voice, .. how impatient should I be, if I were such a one, of attaining to that new development in the spiritual world to which we all look & hasten. By the way, Major Gregory has invited Hume the medium to pay him a visit this winter– [2] Whether he will come or not I dont know.
I like my new Italian maid very much. She is wonderfully active, .. and amuses Peni besides like a real playfellow.
Of course you will get to Naples with less expense if you go from Genoa– I cant advise .. do you understand?
We have given up Ægypt for this year, but hold on still by Rome–
Having just received your letter I answer it directly—though it is’nt worth the postage, this poor line.
Write if you dont come, & tell me all about yourself, & how you got away from Geneva so clearly. To think of Mr Spicer’s going to India! In what capacity, pray? As a fighter? or in search of a sensation simply? aspiring to having both ears cut off by a sepoy.?
I am reading German, .. doing a novel of Mdme Hahn Hahn’s—Zwei frauen. [3] Did you ever see it?– Robert’s love—& Peni’s–
Your most affectionate
EBB–
Peni’s love to Trautchen.
Address: À Mademoiselle / Mademoiselle Fanny Haworth / Posta Restante / Genoa. Redirected: Venice.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Giuditta Pasta (née Negri, 1797–1865), for whom Bellini wrote Norma.
2. At Villa Colombaia, the residence that Major Charles Gregorie shared with Anne Crossman and her daughters (see letter 3711, note 4).
3. Zwei Frauen (2 vols., Berlin, 1845), a novel by Ida, Countess von Hahn-Hahn (1805–80), in which twin sisters fail to find fulfillment in marriage and domestic life.
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