4122. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 22–25.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 31 January 1858]
My dearest Sarianna Robert is going to write to dear M. Milsand, whose goodness is ‘passing that of men’, [1] .. of all common friends certainly. Robert’s thanks are worth more than mine, & so I shall leave it to Robert to thank him.
Let me say first how sorry I am that the dear nonno should have suffered from rheumatism. The ‘grippe’ has griped us here most universally, & no wonder considering our most exceptional weather,—& better the grippe than the fever which preceded it. Such cold has not been known here for years, .. & it has extended throughout the south, it seems, to Rome & Naples where people are snowed & frozen up– So strange. The Arno, for the first time since .. 47, [2] has had a slice or two of ice on it–. Robert has suffered from the prevailing malady, .. which did not however, through the precautions we took, touch his throat or chest, amounting only to a bad cold in the head: Peni was afflicted in the same way but in a much slighter degree—and both are now quite well. As for me I have caught no cold—only losing my breath & my soul in the usual way .. the cough not being much– So that we have no claim, any of us, on your compassion, you see.
Let me tell you of Peni. Dont fatigue your imagination about him. He is not altered, though grown, & rosier & fatter than when he left England– As for his dress, he is wearing the very same blouses which you saw him in as he passed through Paris, .. the very same, let down from the hem in proportion to his growth .. the same black velvet blouse, new in England– He was well provided there, & after his eight months of mourning, [3] we found everything as good as new. Then, because I am extravagant for him, I bought one new blouse, .. & a new coat for the winter .. which is very pretty .. made of grey cloth & black velvet. His dress is very becoming, & except that in a year or two he will have to sacrifice his short embroidered trowsers & wear them long & plain, it will all do perfectly till he is twelve or thirteen– Oh—of course it would not do to keep him now in low-necked frocks. His infancy, darling child, has gone by fairly. More’s the pity .. for me!
Meantime he is keeping the carnival—& think of his being at the theatre last night and the night before! This was through the kindness of Fanny Haworth who, having had presented to her a box or part of a box, took him with her. Through her kindness, & our foolishness, you will be inclined to add. Indeed it was too much, the two nights together. Even I wonder a little at the melting of Robert’s heart to such an overflow beyond the bounds of prudence,—though I helped myself to melt it. Poor little Pen—I could not bear his beseeching eyes. And this morning, in spite of the dissipation he looks like a rose, .. only tolerably naughty at his lessons of course, having his wits astray. But the child is really good in general, much better than he used to be when you knew him– We dont spoil him for nothing, Sarianna! Not we!–
Fanny Haworth is as decided about Paris as she can ever be about anything. I advise her to settle herself there, .. to take her house & buy her furniture .. before she goes to England,—so that people should’nt dissuade her. If she goes to England otherwise, she’ll be torn to rags by her affectionate family—that’s plain to see.
I think, I think, Miss Blackwell [4] has succeeded in frightening you a little. In the case of chaos, she will fly to England, I suppose,—& even there she may fall on a refugee plot,—for I have seen a letter of Mazzini’s in which it was written that people stood on ruins in England, & that at any moment there might be a crash! Certainly, confusion in Paris would be followed by confusion in Italy & everywhere on the continent at least—so I should never think of running away, let what might happen. In 52 & 53 when we were in Paris, [5] there was more danger than could arise now, under a successful plot even,—for, even if the Emperor fell, the people & the army seem prepared to stand by the dynasty. Also, public order has attained to some of the force of an habitual thing–
As to the crime, [6] it has no more sympathy here than in France—be sure of that. That unscrupulous bad party is repudiated by this majority—by this people as a mass– I hear nothing but lamentations that Italians shd be dishonored so by their own hands. Father Prout says that the Emperor’s speech is “the most heroic document of this century” [7] —and in my mind, the praise is merited– So indignant I feel with Mazzini & all who name his name & walk in his steps, that I could’nt find it in my heart to write (as I was going to do) to that poor bewitched Jessie on her marriage– [8] Really, when I looked at the pen, I could’nt move it.
My brother Charles John is going to Jamaica for some months again, & wants to take two of my brothers with him. [9] Henry is about to be married, to my great pleasure, & wrote me an enchantingly absurd letter, proving him to be most healthily in love. The lady is supernaturally endowed in body & mind,—is a widow .. but the first marriage was scarcely a marriage at all, for they separated after a fortnight,—& Henry was attached to her before it took place. If she had not a sou I should be pleased, as you know,—and it does not spoil anything that she has a thousand a year instead. Arabel thinks of adopting a little distant cousin. [10] They are all in Wales now.
Best of love,
Ba.
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Mademoiselle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: LEBB, II, 275–277 (in part, as [February 1858]).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Cf. II Samuel 1:26: “… thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”
2. Sic, for 49 (see the first paragraph in letter 2828).
3. For the death of EBB’s father on 17 April 1857.
4. Anna Blackwell (1816–1900); see letter 3569, note 2.
5. The period following Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état of 2 December 1851 and including the plebiscite held in November 1852 that proclaimed him “Emperor of the French.”
6. The attempted assassination of Napoleon III (see letter 4121, note 5).
8. On 19 December 1857 at Portsmouth, Jessie Meriton White married Italian nationalist and political writer Alberto Mario (1825–83). They met through Mazzini at Genoa in early to mid-June 1857 and became engaged not long afterwards. For their involvement in the uprising at Genoa on 29 June (see letter 4017, note 6), Mario and Miss White were arrested within twenty-four hours of each other and incarcerated in the same prison, St. Andrea (see Elizabeth Adams Daniels, Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary, Athens, Ohio, 1972, pp. 57 and 60–61).
9. Charles John sailed for Jamaica on 9 February, accompanied by Septimus and Octavius.
10. Emma Barrett (see letter 4100, note 2).
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