4304. EBB to Charlotte Cushman

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 1–2.

[Rome]

[ca. January 1859] [1]

You are too, too good. Your flowers are miracles of beauty– Can you come on wednesday, & will you?—and if in the meanwhile you will accept us tonight as we are, with nobody to help to make the fire burn, .. then will you come tonight too.

I spoke for my friends & for you, rather than for Robert and me when I said, ‘Choose tuesday instead.’

So let it be tonight .. and Wednesday.

Most truly yours dear Miss Cushman

EBB–

Address, on integral page: Miss Cushman.

Docket, in unidentified hand: 1859.

Publication: Joseph Leach, Bright Particular Star (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1970), p. 258 (in part, as Spring 1853).

Manuscript: Library of Congress.

1. Approximate dating suggested by the docket, EBB’s mention of a fire, and her remarks concerning Charlotte Cushman in letter 4315, indicating that there had been recent conversation between the two.

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