4126. EBB to Mary Ann Bruen
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 29.
Casa Guidi.
Wednesday– [ca. February 1858] [1]
My dear Mrs Bruen, [2] will you forgivingly lend me that book on Homœopathy which once I was rash enough to reject on the part of my husband? It will be very kind in you, as well as magnanimous–
With best regards to all of you,
Most truly yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Address: à Madame / Madame Bruen / Villa Lustrini.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Approximate dating suggested by the style of mourning stationery that EBB was using at this time and by her reference to a “book on Homœopathy.” In letter 4137, she tells Arabella that “Peni & Robert have both been ministered to homœopathically.”
2. Mary Ann Bruen, (née Davenport, 1793–1892), daughter of Connecticut congressman James Davenport (1758–97), was the widow of Matthias Bruen (1793–1829), pastor of the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church in New York City. Mrs. Bruen had travelled to Europe the year before in the company of her two daughters, Frances Davenport Perkins (née Bruen, 1825–1909) and Mary Lundie Bruen (1828–86), and her son-in-law, Charles Callahan Perkins (1823–86), writer on Italian art. They were in Florence as of 28 October 1857, the date of Perkins’s entry in the subscription list of Vieusseux’s reading rooms. The Brownings probably met Perkins in Paris during the winter of 1851–52. He is listed in their address book of that period (AB-3) at 20 Rue de Grenelle. In their current address book (AB-4), he is listed at Villa Lustrini in Florence.
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