4317. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 25–26.
[Rome]
[Postmark: 8 January 1859]
My dearest Sarianna, Robert comes to me late with his letter which must go he says today because of Mr Page. Yet there is not above a minute for me. Peni has had a bad cold & cough for some days but is convalescent, though I am afraid of letting him out in this tramontana. He caught it by the sun & shade together, & by staying out till half past four—too late for Rome. Its difficult to preserve one’s regulations intact. Robert observes his own rules about walking in the morning, let the weather be what it will,—& his appetite & general health flourish to an extraordinary degree. If he did any work just now however, he would require more sleep—for he comes home late & has been engaged (sometimes two or three parties a night deep) for the last fortnight & for a week to come I think! Peni & I go to bed & I read by a candle prudently placed on a table, till he returns. But then, I dont get up in the morning at six. We breakfast at nine as usual.
The American papers announce that Jessie White has arrived in order to lecture on ‘Napoleon & Orsini’ & the “Political state of Italy” &c, with recommendations from the Brownings & other named. We have been forced to contradict this in a specific statement signed by both of us, to the same newspapers. [1] It was necessary.
If M. Milsand gives “no moral sympathy” to his government, he must have changed his mind considerably since we talked at Havre—& Robert is under a like impression– At any rate wherever Montalembert gets sympathy he gets it under the falsest of pretences—& the English journals are as false as he unhappily– Not that I did not regret the persecution for some reasons.
Give my love & Pen’s to dear M. Milsand. Tell him that M. Ampere [2] (who is anti-Napoleonistic to the last degree) told me the other day that the Pope’s government was “au plus mal” [3] with the French, .. & not merely on the Mortara case. [4]
Pen & I dined together alone on Christmas Day, & neither turkey nor official pudding, had we .. since you ask. You seem to have exercised more hospitality.
May God bless both of you. The dearest nonno is not forgotten tell him, nor his instructions—& Pen was talking of despatching a water-colour drawing—for which there wont be room perhaps in this letter.
Pen will write to you both some day. He practises about two hours & a half a day, & we have a good piano. Robert means to make a performer of him.
See what haste I write in
But your ever affectionate
Ba–
We have heard nothing of the bust yet– The marriage is announced, & Miss MacIntosh is staying with them at Bryngwyn to the contentment of everybody. Arabel too has arrived there for Christmas–
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Mademoiselle Browning. / 151. Rue de Grenelle, / Faubourg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
2. Jean-Jacques Ampère (1800–64), French historian.
3. “At odds.”
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