Correspondence

4201.  EBB & RB to Isa Blagden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 146-147.

Saty July 3. [1858] [1]

Dearest Isa,

Peni insists on my telling you that he “rememdered me to write”—but I wanted none of his help, you may believe. You got my word in reply to your kind dear letter– I would have sent more had I known Ansano was not waiting to carry it. We got off propitiously, found the French boat crammed with passengers, & the Cabin so insufferable that we all passed the night on deck, stretched on the bare boards—no mattresses being allowed to people who could have been stifled in a berth below had they preferred: fancy Ba, the luxurious chair-lover, “pricking for a soft plank”, [2] as the sailors call it. We none of us were sick except Annunziata whose agonies were a moral lesson indeed! From Genoa to Marseilles, we had two sofa’s in the cabin, bare & cool enough, thro’ the emptying of the boat at Genoa—but we were all more or less ruined by the sea which was rougher than we expected. None of us tasted anything for four & twenty hours or more. Ba is pretty well, Peni himself again with something over, Annunziata a little above dead already, and I—as you see! We stay to-night and go on gently to Paris, whence Ba will write. The weather is very cool—there will be rain, indeed—we shall be anxious to hear from you.

God bless you, dearest Isa—take care of yourself & be happy. Ba’s truest love goes with mine—& Peni again asks “if I have remembered that he remembered to remember me &c”—and after being reassured on that point expresses his great gratitude for the talismans which he will keep safe whether or no they do as much for him– Dont forget the Athenæum, whereof a number arrived on Thursday, of course. Say to the Hawthorne’s the exact truth of our sorrow at seeing nothing of them in our hurry of departure—& say so to the many friends we have apparently neglected.

Ever yours affectionately

Robert Browning.

[Continued by EBB]

One word from Ba, lest Isa should think what she has taken to think under her new misanthropical & sceptical phase. We are alive, dear .. which is much to say after our horrible sea-voyage, spent in groans one to another. Even Peni was ill—& Annunziata was almost worse than Wilson. From Leghorn however to Genoa when the sea was smooth, I liked the night on deck between Robert & Peni, & under the starry sky—only my bones protested sorely against the boards. Peni walked down stairs from Casa Guidi mopping his poor eyes,—also after he had parted from Ferdinando at the station his very shoulders sobbed and he continued in dreadful spirits the whole journey till just now when he revived over the “dejeuner à la fourchette,” [3] which is the “first in his life,” he says– What an epoch– As for me, I could be very sentimental too, but I wont. I hated & hate going away. Love us ever a little, dearest Isa—I dearly love you–

Your Ba–

Best love to dear Annette– How good of you, I could say of many things! Of course your “charms”, which Peni keeps in his pocketbook (& thanks you for gratefully) availed us over the “cuvettes” [4] —Else I should’nt be up to writing this–

Publication: B-IB, pp. 152–154.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Year provided by the Brownings’ references to Annunziata; 1858 was the only year she accompanied them to France.

2. A nautical expression that means: “Selecting a place on the deck for sleeping upon” (Admiral W.H. Smyth, The Sailor’s Word-Book, 1867, p. 543).

3. “Light lunch.”

4. “Basins,” or “bowls.”

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