4307. EBB to Sophia Page

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 7.

[Rome]

Tuesday morning– [?4] [January 1859] [1]

My dear Mrs Page, my husband would not wait for me to write my thanks to you the other morning for your too kind words & thoughts. It is very pleasant to me on many accounts that you & our dear & admired friend Mr Page should feel towards me so kindly–

Need I say what I earnestly wish for you & yours? May God love & bless you & make the precious new baby [2] a means of blessing to you both. After all, no mother wishes her first born son, a daughter– Our very dreams forbid it!– The world wants a man to help the women, & you can afford to wait a little for your Zenobia.

Meantime I am hoping to get out to you to see you & the baby & Venus, [3] when the loosening of my prison-doors will let me. I have not been out since he came into the world,—not at least since Christmas morning. But the Venus!——

Dear Mr Page will see in ‘Aurora Leigh’ that his Swedenborg has taught the writer something, though it may be feebly expressed, & imperfectly. [4]

Let me be to both of you

always affectionately yours

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I shall leave this for my husband to carry whenever he next goes to you–

Address: Mrs Page.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Joyce Sechler.

1. Conjectural date suggested by EBB’s reference to the birth of the Pages’ son, which occurred on 25 December 1858. 4 January 1859 was the second Tuesday after the event.

2. William Stevens Page (1858–99), born on Christmas Day.

3. i.e., the painting by William Page, “Venus Guiding Aeneas and the Trojans to the Latin Shore” (see letter 4291, note 9).

4. In letter 3935, EBB admitted that she had “used” Emanuel Swedenborg’s “sublime truths” in Aurora Leigh without naming their originator.

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