4113. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 3–5.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 7 January 1858]
My dearest Sarianna, a great many happy years to you, and also to the dear nonno! I am glad, for my part, to be out of the last, which has been gloomy & almost embittering to me personally-but we must throw our burdens behind our backs as far as possible, & be cheerful for the rest of the road. If Robert alone wrote about ‘Aurora’, I wont leave it to him to be alone grateful to dear M. Milsand for his extraordinary kindness. [1] Do tell him with my love, that I could not have expected it even from himself,-which is saying much. Most thankfully I leave everything to his direction & judgement. On this subject, I have been, from the beginning, divided between my strong desire of being translated & my strong fear of being ill-translated. Harrison Ainsworth’s novels are quite one thing, [2] and a poem of mine quite another-- Oh yes!-and yet, so great is my faith in Milsand, that the touch of his hand & the overseer-ship of his eyes must tranquillize me. I am simply grateful.
Peni has been overwhelmed with gifts this year. I gave him on Christmas Day (by his own secret inspiration) “a sword with a blade to dazzle the eyes”; Robert, a box of tools & carpenter’s bench,-& we united in a Robinson Crusoe [3] who was well-received. Then, from others, he had sleeve-studs, a silver pencil-case, books &c- [4] According to his own magniloquent phrase, he was “exceptionally happy.” He has taken to long words- I heard him talking of ‘evidences’ the other day. Poor little Pen! it’s the more funny, that he has by no means yet left off certain of his babyisms of articulation, & the combined effects are curious. You asked of Ferdinando. Peni’s attachment for Ferdinando is undiminished. Ferdinando cant be found fault with, even in gentleness, without a burst of tears on Peni’s part. Lately I ventured to ask not to be left quite alone in the house on certain occasions,-& though I spoke quite kindly, there was Peni in tears, assuring me that we ought to have another servant to open the door, for that “poor Ferdinando had a great deal too much work”-! When I ventured to demur to that, the next charge was, .. “plainly I did not love Ferdinando as much as I loved Penini” .. which I could not deny; and then, with passionate sobs said Peni that “I was very unjust indeed”- “Indeed, indeed, dear mama, you are unjust! Ferdinando does everything for you, and I do nothing, except teaze you, .. and even” (sobbing) “I am sometimes a very naughty boy.” I had to mop up his tears with my pocket handkerchief, & excuse myself as well as I could from the moral imputation of loving Peni better than Ferdinando.
We have been very glad in a visit from Frederick Tennyson- Fanny Haworth has been, as usual, kindly goodnatured in standing as godmother to Wilson’s new baby, .. christened at the English church, Pylades (or Pilade) Francesco- [5] The Tuscan authorities have grown tolerant of late to these protestant baptisms, & Ferdinando has no reason to fear, it seems. Poor Mr Hanna is a great loss. [6] You may see perhaps (for it is in all the journals) that Robert was chief-mourner at the funeral. [7] Mrs Bayne’s son & daughter have recovered from the fever,-both having been given up. [8] God bless you! Robert wont wait.
Your ever attached Ba.
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Mademoiselle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle / Faubourg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: LEBB, II, 250-251 (in part, as [January 1857]).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Milsand had agreed to supervise a translation of Aurora Leigh, which had been proposed by Édouard Riou (see letter 4104, notes 1 and 2).
2. The previous month, a French translation by M.A. Rolet of William Harrison Ainsworth’s Crichton was published in Bibliothèque des Meilleurs Romans Étrangers, a series issued in Paris by L. Hachette & Co.
4. The “sleeve-studs” were from Isa Blagden; the “pencil-case,” from Annette Bracken (see letter 4108).
5. On 3 January 1858 (see letter 4109, note 11).
6. Robert Maxwell Hanna (1821-57) died on 19 December. He was buried in the English Cemetery, Florence.
7. The Morning Post of 29 December 1857 carried a brief obituary of Hanna (reprinted in several other periodicals) in an article headed “Florence Gossip.” A description of Hanna’s burial in the English Cemetery on 22 December included a reference to RB: “… the office of chief mourner being performed (in the absence of his own relatives) by one of the members of his congregation, his attached friend, Robert Browning” (p. 2). The article was filed by the newspaper’s Florence correspondent, James Montgomery Stuart (see letter 4187).
8. William Thirlwall Bayne (1838-1917) and Isabella Bayne (1842-1910), only children of William Joseph Bayne (1796-1844) and his wife, Alicia (née Pryme, 1814-83), second cousin of William Makepeace Thackeray. According to a letter from a Bayne family descendant, after calling on young Bayne and finding him delirious with fever, RB asked the Brownings’ physician (presumably James Harding) to intervene, and the patient recovered. Ever after, he felt grateful to RB for having saved his life.
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