4211. EBB to Frances Davenport Perkins
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 168–169.
Hotêl de Londres
Rue Hyacinthe– St Honoré.
Sunday— [11 July 1858] [1]
My dear Mrs Perkins, [2]
We have waited to thank you both, because we wanted to answer your kind questioning about how we did the journey & bore the fatigue, .. one of us, at least– In fact I was considerably better (through steel) before I left Florence, & the change of air seems to have completed me into convalescence, so that my friends here must have a secret thought of “humbug” I think, when, after such lamentable prefaces, I present myself in such excellent type of the main volume–
We are resting now in a convenient & not too expensive hotel near the Tuileries, where we found a pretty salon & five or six luxurious arm-chairs, sofa &c (things which you impotently dream of at Lucca perhaps, if you love such indolences as I do) and a piano! … which is an overflowing of the cup of Fortune–
And how grateful we are for Mr Perkins’s valuable gift to Penini’s music-album. He is very good, & too generous—say so to him, I beg you my dear Mrs Perkins, from me with my best regards–
And the babies! The one I have knowledge of, with the blue eyes & seraphic ringlets, must be happy I think, in the chesnut-woods & with the donkies– May I send her a kiss—& then take an equal liberty with the unknown more awful younger creature, whose face I hope to see in the autumn—?
Meantime, dear Mrs Perkins,
I remain
most truly & faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Browning.
When you write to dear Mrs Bruen, mind to give her my love & remembrance–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This letter was enclosed with letter 4210, which RB dated 11 July 1858.
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