4132. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 40.
[Florence]
[mid-February 1858] [1]
My dearest Isa, I want to talk to you very much. I received Lytton on the point of the bayonet,—&, as soon as Robert returned from Annette, (what was the insult to her?) I retired into my own room– From thence I should not have come till he was gone,—but Frederick Tennyson arrived! think of that—so I had to come back. Lytton sate down on the hearth, rather than take my chair.
Well—in time, we went in to dinner, & he went away, unasked to meet Frederick Tennyson again.
Dear, wont you come to us this evening? You will be safe, [2] .. & I shall be grateful. Mr Tennyson talks of leaving Florence tomorrow–
Do come, dear, dear Isa– You are very good to Emilia, [3] and I love you the better for what is really Christian mercy on your part. You would have been justified if you had been ever so severe– Mrs Jameson is here,—dined here .. her servant being ill—& Frederick Tennyson is smoking with Robert in the dining-room.
Do be good & come–
Your ever loving Ba–
Address, on integral page: Miss Blagden.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 144–145.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dating suggested by EBB’s remarks about Lytton, which seem to indicate that he is not living with Isa Blagden but is still in Florence, and by reference to a letter from him to his father, dated 9 February 1858, in which he writes of his health: “It is now more than three weeks since I have been able to leave the house” (ms with Cobbold).
2. Underscored three times.
3. Isa’s servant.
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