4328. EBB to Sophia Eckley

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 47.

[Rome]

[?3] [February 1859] [1]

Yes, the rain has abolished everything today– Thank you, dearest Sophie for these words that float across the flood. And when I say that the rain has abolished everything, I should except also Miss Heaton, who came here at the hour of Talfourd .. and found .. “a blank, my lord.” [2]

She told me, though, of Sophie, & how she looked last night.

I am well today, & hopeful for tomorrow– May God bless you, dear, now & till then & over then, & always

says your loving Ba

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Berg Collection.

1. Conjectural date based on two factors: EBB’s mention of “the hour of Talfourd,” referring to sitting for Field Talfourd’s portrait of her, which was begun on 24 January and completed sometime in late February; and her implication of heavy rain. In a letter from Christopher Pearse Cranch to his wife, dated 3 February 1859, he writes: “The rain is pouring down in pails full” (see SD2237).

2. Twelfth Night, II, 4, 110. In this and subsequent quotations from Shakespeare’s works, the line numbers correspond to those in The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston, 1974).

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