4163. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 92.
[Florence]
[?11] [April 1858] [1]
My dearest Fanny, Robert has’nt the least idea of Mrs Hay’s address, [2] except that it is somewhere near Santa Catarina. [3] Well—it is vexatious certainly– But the truth is, we cant have everything our own way in this world, nor would it be good for us if we could. This temporary vexation must be borne, & so let us put a cheerful face to it, & thus appropriate to ourselves the good which lies in every evil. A drawing-room life, in which the lights were never out nor the faces darkened, might be pleasant, but would be the worse for us, Fanny—the worse for us– Ah, you say– I talk at my ease, who have not caught the meazles, .. (nor mean to do so, if I can help it.) But I could make a long account of broken bottles in my own experience—even without meazles. See how for months I have been shut up, .. & with plenty of trying thoughts I can tell you– But one must have courage, courage!– And here is not the end.
I thought your casts had gone to you. Robert said he would send them– Now they go– He is drawing a hand beautifully– He goes twice a week to M. Mignaty, to see him draw from a nude model,—a man,—& the advantage is great, Robert says–
I am very sorry you are not comfortable,—but for noise, the streets are noisy throughout Florence, you would find. It’s my drawback here. May God bless you. They hurry me away–
Your loving Ba
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Conjectural date based on EBB’s reference to the casts’ being sent; see the end of letter 4162.
2. Doubtless, Jane Eleanor Hay (née Benham, b. 1829), Pre-Raphaelite influenced painter, daughter of Ebenezer Benham (1795–1857), prosperous merchant, of Uxbridge, then London, and his wife, Mary Ann (née Essex, b. 1799). In 1851 she married William Milton Hay, also a painter, by whom she had a son, William Ernest Gabriel (1852–89). By 1856 Mrs. Hay had separated from her husband and was living with her son in the Val d’Arno outside Florence. She evidently had another child, as indicated in a letter from Bessie Parkes to her mother: “Little Ernest grows well and is a nice little boy, the baby is at nurse, out of Florence; you may remember it was born after her arrival here, at first” (16 May 1857, ms at Girton). Not long afterwards she formed a union with Francesco Saverio Altamura (1822–97), an Italian painter. Her “England and Italy” was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1859 (see Annabel Robinson et al., A Florentine Procession, Cambridge, 1997).
3. Presumably, one of two convents in Florence: Santa Caterina di Siena in the Piazza San Marco or Santa Caterina al Monte, just outside the Porta Romana.
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