4253. EBB to Jane Wills-Sandford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 247–248.
6– rue de Castiglione
Place Vendome.
Tuesday [Postmark: 5 October 1858]
My dearest Jane, Avec des bien faits on fait des ingrats [1] —— Have you thought it or said it by this time?
But dear, dear Jane, I have been silent being ashamed. I thought when I received your book [2] that I would read it through before I wrote [of] it, and incredible as it may sound, “she has been pinched & pulled, she said,” [3] dragged this way & that, talked to & talked at, & made to talk & walk so continuously, that if she has’nt left off saying her prayers it’s almost wonderful, every other good & healthy intellectual action being suspended so entirely, & the little, little book unfinished yet– I am quite, quite ashamed of saying SO– I have written Penini’s name in it with yours, & your wish that he should keep it till he can appreciate it, and I shall put it into my bag to read, (that is, finish reading) on the road, & carry the thought of you so– Meanwhile what I have read is very pretty .. modulated in a pleasant, poetical key, and I have been grateful to you though not seeming so.
You will like Torquay I dare say– I cannot even write the name without a sort of pain, lovely place as it is, <such unspeakable anguish have I suffered there>– [4] And where will you go, I wonder, after the winter, when Brighton has fulfilled its destiny & my prophecy? Devonshire will be far away for a set[t]led residence, even for yours, (which is never settled)—far away, to furnish a house and plant a fig-tree in. Is your father less inclined to the continent than he used to be before his illness?
We leave Paris for Italy somewhere about next tuesday, & talk of the Mont Cenis route to Turin, & of taking the sea only from Genoa to Florence. In a month after we shall turn our faces to Rome unless our minds be turned first from their present intention—and I shall enjoy the rest of my Italy, the repose, the silence of soul—yes, I shall enjoy it– For the last three months I have done nothing, thought nothing, read nothing .. I have only heard talking. Still there has been my dear dear Arabel—& she is here still, & I shall have the deep pain of seeing her go to England the day before we go to Italy– It has been comfort to me to have had her true tender hand in mine through six weeks & more.
In spite of rumours, Mdme Vitry [5] is making me a winter dress, and a casaque, [6] & much the same for Arabel. You see she had worked for me before—but Mdme Ling [7] shall serve for the white jacket for Italy– The cheapness of her is captivating. Now write, and I will behave better when I get more south. My love to your sisters & regards to your father. May he gain strength day by day– Robert’s love & Peni’s go with that of your loving
EBB.
Address: Angleterre– / Miss Wills Sandford / Hove Place / Dyke Road / Brighton.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. “With good deeds, one makes ingrates.”
2. Unidentified.
3. Cf. Milton, “L’Allegro” (1645), line 103.
4. The “anguish” of her brother Edward’s death by drowning in July 1840. The text within angle brackets has been inserted as an afterthought.
5. Parisian dressmaker, listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4): “Mdme. Vitry, 29 rue Belle Chasse, Faubourg St Germain. 8 or 9 fr. for plain dress, 10 or 12 for trimmed.”
6. A sleeved-cloak or cassock.
7. Parisian dressmaker, listed in AB-4: “Mdme. Ling, 41. rue de Chaillot, 6 francs.”
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