4096. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 214.
[Florence]
[mid-November 1857] [1]
My dearest Isa you are a naughty person to disappoint me so. I groaned in the spirit [2] to think how it would be with poor Mr Trollope. [3] The gods & Robert however interposed, & we had a miraculously agreeable evening, last night.
I am very sorry not to be able to send you the Professor, which Mrs Jameson has at this moment. [4] When it is done with, you shall have it, dear, and, in the meantime, dont be over-anxious. I could scarcely get through it, for my part. As a work of art it is miserable, & yet worse in its narrow prejudiced vein. Perhaps you may have more patience than I can, with the class of opinions according to which all virtue is confined to England. For me, ‘cela me fait enrager.’ Or as Peni says, “Mene viene la furia.” [5]
I wish you had said how you were– And not a word of Lytton? My love to all of you.
Robert is in a state of grave doubt about the weather & the horses.
Your ever loving Ba
The chief thing goes to the post[s]cript in a womanly way. Yes, yes, yes—do come on saturday– And Peni will be delighted to go to you.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 137–138.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to “poor Mr. Trollope” (see note 3 below).
2. Cf. John 11:33.
3. Joseph Garrow (1789–1857), Thomas Adolphus Trollope’s father-in-law, died in Florence on 10 November of “paralysis of the heart” (ICS). He was buried in the English Cemetery at Florence on 12 November.
4. The Professor, Charlotte Brontë’s fourth published novel, had been completed in 1846. It was issued on 6 June 1857 (more than two years after the author’s death) by her publisher, Smith, Elder & Co., who had originally rejected it, as had many other firms.
5. Both EBB and Pen are saying, “That makes me furious.”
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