4145. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 61–63.
Casa Guidi.
Wednesday. [10 March 1858] [1]
My dearest Fanny, how good you are to remember us when you are unwell. Really I was quite touched by the sight of the globules, on which we had so little calculated that Robert had just returned from providing himself with two bottles and an homœopathical treatise from Vanni’s. [2] Decidedly the medecine agrees with him. His appetite is good, head clear, & nervous system generally, serene & cheerful. I am delighted, for my part. Under the benignant influence of Camamilla, [3] even the vicinity of Hume can be supported– [4]
But you are not better. I am so sorry, so sorry. Only I should fancy that the climate of Pisa was not the best for you, & that the change of weather might be trying to you everywhere. We have had no cold since you went away, in any bad sense, but a good deal of rain, off & on. Today is beautiful & brilliant– Of course Pisa is warmer than Florence—that is undeniable: but you are not to attribute the whole change observed by you, to Pisa, because we who stay behind have had the change too.
Now, to speak of your house– I am sympathetic both with you & Wilson who is in considerable trouble between her poverty & her two lodgers, &, let me add, her particular desire to meet your wishes. Still it seems to her that she cannot afford to send away Miss W. [5] unless you would engage to stay, & to pay something equivalent to her necessary loss– You in your justice & mercy will see this at once. At the same time, there is no reason why you should shackle yourself, or inconveniently increase your expenses. Miss W. is very humble, it appears, & ready to submit to any terms. Now Wilson proposes, or means to write to you to propose, that you should return on the following conditions– That you should occupy wholly, & perfectly & at all hours unintruded on, your sitting-room & two bedrooms, paying for this sixteen scudi the month: while Miss W. is to shrink up into the two back rooms, paying eight scudi the month– You might arrange if you pleased, for a common piano, placing it in the dining-room, or have one of your own, allowing her to establish another in her sitting-room. In this way, there would be no interference, .. (I mentioned the visitors especially) and it would be only as if you had a next door neighbour,—not a fellow lodger– Wilson will be quite plain with Miss W.—and I myself dont see that by accepting these terms, you are likely to expose yourself to any further annoyances—only of course you are the best judge of what may or may not be tolerable. She (Wilson) is very anxious about your return to her,—very anxious to please you in all ways– Of that, you cannot doubt.
So you waited over a week for my note! How you must have fancied that I forgot you. But no, indeed.– Write again to me and say how the head is,—& whether you have seen any more of Mr Tennyson, & how he is—& oh, tell me of Hume, how long he was in Pisa, & where he stayed, [6] & whether he helped the Crossmans or anyone else while he was there, <to s>ights or sounds from the other world. Hatty Hosmer told Mr Jerves [sic] in a letter that he had just arrived in Rome,—but I scarcely believed it till you said so.
Peni kept his ninth birthday yesterday with ineffable glory—his only regret being that you & Trautchen were away. He had an “illuminazione cera” [7] in his room, & a great feast spread, & a concert terrible to the ears–
Mrs Jameson is gone, & I shall be uneasy till I hear from her, on account of the winds. She went by ste<amer> to Naples,—then she goes to Rome, & returns here towards May–
Come back– We miss you—& we cant afford to miss you– Eugen Stillfried [8] .. (Eugen .. Eugene, mind, .. not [‘]engen’ as you said) is dreadful—professing to aspire to the emulation of the “excellent Boz” with a most German & lumbering round-about-edness– I will try another book of Hackländer’s, & then let him go. He’s a German, I fancy–
Robert goes to the post[.] I wont keep this any more[.]
Your ever most affecte
EBB
Robert’s love, Peni’s love, my love. Lytton is gone. [9] The villa Bricchieri [10] had tea here last night.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to Pen’s “ninth birthday yesterday.”
2. According to Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1858), “Vanni, Via de Tornabuoni, keeps a circulating library, on a smaller scale [than Vieusseux’s], with moderate charges” (part II, p. 519). RB bought the medicine and treatise for 8 pauls on 8 March, as recorded in his account book of this period (see Appendix IV).
3. Chamomile, a wildflower of the aster family, used in teas and oils for its anti-inflammatory and digestive properties.
4. As indicated by EBB below, Daniel Dunglas Home had recently stopped in Pisa on his way to Rome.
5. An English lady who, since the previous November, had been renting an apartment with Miss Haworth, in Wilson’s lodging house at 1905 Via Maggio (see letter 4095). We have been unable to trace any further identification of Miss W.
6. In his autobiography, Daniel Dunglas Home records that he travelled from Paris to Turin in February, but finding it too cold there he continued on to Pisa, where he joined “some friends [the Crossmans]” (Incidents in My Life, New York, 1863, p. 178). Again it was too cold, and he left Pisa for Rome.
7. “Wax (candle) illumination,” or “light by candles.”
8. Eugen Stillfried, a novel by Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer (1816–77), first appeared serially before being published at Stuttgart in 1852. The plot features low characters, crime, dissolution, and various improbabilities. It also includes a lengthy episode set at the end of the first war of Italian independence, told from an Austrian perspective. A review of the book in The Athenæum of 3 September 1853 called it “another work of the ‘Boz’ school” and complained of its “hasty composition” and numerous inconsistencies of plot and character, owing to its serial origin (no. 1349, pp. 1031–32).
9. After leaving Isa Blagden’s villa, Lytton lived with the family of Florentine banker Leone Finzi until March 8, whereupon he departed Florence for Pisa, Turin, and Paris (ms with Cobbold).
10. i.e., Isa Blagden and Annette Bracken.
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