4386. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 123–126.
43. Bocca di Leone.
Tuesday. [19 April 1859] [1]
My dearest dear Isa, I am alone in the house, Robert & Pen having gone to Tivoli for the day, at eight this morning, when I was alive & dressed for the priviledge of breakfasting with them. They are gone with Mrs Cartwright– He is in England for the sake of trying to get into the new parliament, [2] & she remains behind with the children, [3] to stay while political affairs will let them. Now I solace myself for my solitude, by writing to you. I promised to tell you of Una Hawthorne—& great is my satisfaction in being able to tell you that she appears to be out of all imminent danger– Franco must have been wrong anyhow; but everybody is too glad at the event, to be in a mood for reproaching him bitterly for their fright– I [4] cant, at least–
Isa! I felt a little aggrieved two days since, on hearing from Miss Heaton that she had sent you (by a favorite admiral) [5] my photograph. You should have had it from me rather than from her, indeed. Never mind– I will give you Robert’s,—the companion photograph which is to be—and Talfourd’s success in his portrait has been considered extraordinary by everyone who has yet seen it. Then you will have a ‘poetical Robert’ as well as that literal antagonistical Robert, which you took with you to Madrid, & which is so terribly like him– [6]
I want very much to be at Casa Guidi windows to see the end of time & the Austrian, & the beginning of our Italian millen[n]ium, if God grants it to us after all– Few have longed for peace as I long for war– Such a dread I have of that snake Austria twisting back safe into her hole at the last moment– A congress, yes [7] —but after a battle or two, say I– Otherwise England & Prussia will choke the cause by fragments of those iniquitous old parchments, bearing date, 1815. [8] Not a statesman in England would do otherwise, observe—not one–
Now would I give much to hear a gun—& not the mere rumour of guns, such as has reached us again & again within these ten days, lifting us up & casting us down–
Is Mr Trollope yet at Florence?
Peni has grown, & not grown paler—& he looks a darling still, and the French soldiers say ‘Quel joli enfant’ [9] as they pass him. He is reading in German “Robinson der jünger,” by Campe [10] —after finishing the two novelettes by Franz Hoffman, [11] which I brought uncut from Brecker’s. I too have read Paul Heyse [12] here in Rome—& like him much as far as he goes .. I mean, as a writer of short tales. But I fell on a novel of Corvinus, “Die Kinder der Finkenrode,” [13] —gave eight pauls for it at the library (because I was desperate about books,) & might as well have tied a stone round my neck, as some desperate people have done before now. So heavy, so heavy! Yet there are good touches. Only one cant read such things, during an Italian question– Peni reads ‘Paul & Virginie’ [14] in French—& ‘Mie Prigioni’ in Italian. [15]
Has ‘Adam Bede’ [16] shown itself at Brecker’s. He seems to have made a sensation.
Madame Rio called here two days since, & I spoke to her of Mdlle de Fauveau—but she had heard exactly nothing on the subject.
Lady William Russell has taken to Robert, & carries him about en tête à tête in an alarming way. Better she, than certain others!– She is clever, &, though a Russell, reasonable about the war–
Bessie Parkes looked better the second time I saw her—I told you that—but she has’nt sent me the note I was to enclose to you upon matters of business, so I hope she has written to you directly. Fanny Haworth is in a crisis of indecision, whether to go to Naples & when—whether to leave Rome & whither,—& whether to go to Florence & how– The ‘union’ is on the point of dissolution however, by the nature of things. [17] Dearest Isa–
ever loving
Ba.
For a month past we have been playing here at the old game of .. “The King of .. Naples is dead!” Is he indeed? Dont call me unfeeling. I have no sort of desire that he shd die for my part. [18]
Publication: B-IB, pp. 208–211.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Una Hawthorne’s being “out of all imminent danger.” In letter 4383 she had slightly improved, and by letter 4396 she was “out of all danger.”
3. At this time, the Cartwrights had three children: Wanda (1849–1907), Thomas (1856–96), and Fairfax (1857–1928).
4. Underscored twice.
5. John Elphinstone Erskine (see letter 4329, note 3).
8. In 1814, after the allied defeat of Napoleon I, the Congress of Vienna was convened in order to dispose of the various territories that had been under France’s control. In Italy, Lombardy and Venetia reverted to Austria, while the ducal thrones of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma were reoccupied by Austrian nobles. The King of Sardinia, of the House of Savoy, received Genoa, Piedmont, Savoy, and Nice. The congress concluded in June 1815.
9. “What a pretty child.”
10. Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746–1818), German educator and author, had translated and adapted Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe for children in 1779. His adaptation has in turn been translated into many languages and is still being reprinted at the present time. A copy of Robinson der Jüngere (Braunschweig, 1856), inscribed by EBB: “Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning 1858,” sold as lot 542 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A567).
11. Pen had begun reading Hoffman the previous year (see letter 4290, note 8).
12. i.e., his Novellen; see the last part of letter 4315, note 16.
13. Die Kinder von Finkenrode (Berlin, 1859) by Jakob Corvinus, pseudonym of Wilhelm Raabe (1831–1910).
14. A romance by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre (1737–1814), published in 1787.
15. Le Mie Prigioni (Turin, 1832), by Silvio Pellico (1789–1854); see letter 3236, note 5.
16. Adam Bede by George Eliot, pseudonym of Marian Evans (1819–80), was published at Edinburgh and London on 1 February 1859 to enthusiastic reviews.
17. An allusion to the “matrimonial alliance” of Fanny Haworth and Ellen Heaton, mentioned in letter 4332, which ended the following month when the latter returned to England.
18. Ferdinand II (see letter 3003, note 29) was gravely ill and died the following month.
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