4436. EBB to Sophia Eckley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 200–202.
Casa Guidi–
Saturday [sic, for Sunday]. [26 June 1859] [1]
Dearest dear Sophie,
First, I miss you, I miss you– Second, I love you dearly always– Third, I thank you, dear, for your letter.
Yet first, it should be, about the poor Perkins’s, escaped with just their lives out of that agony of Perugia. [2] How terrible it must have been & is. Mrs Charles Perkins has left me, five minutes since, when I was on the point of going myself to see if there would be help or solace in the matter of stockings & petticoats & a sympathizing word or two. But plainly they are not in a condition to receive visitors, & their first necessities seem already supplied. That poor delicate Mrs Cleveland—and her mother [3] with the load of grief on her heart, unable to bear in addition, the ecstasy of fear. It is all very terrible.
Then, to look away from the private griefs .. the pregnant women, killed in the streets, & the small children bayonetted for the sake of an inch of tricolor ribbon, .. I am wounded by this for the cause’s sake,—for Italy .. & for the complication of difficulties it will present. God has so clearly guided her, however, that I hope even such evils will issue in good– I hope so– They say here that Cardinal Antonelli has been arrested by the French General .. caught in act of making his escape to London. [4]
Now will Sophie frown & wonder if she is to read politics to the end of my letter. No indeed—by the Viva l’Italia on my dear ring, ‘no.’ Such a precious ring that is. I keep it on always. And the word inside, which ought to express ‘Ba’ rather than EBB, but has no fault otherwise. How good & tender you are Sophie, & how your goodness & tenderness thrill through me.
And in a burst of gratitude I went to your Gordigiani & gave him a sitting of two hours on two successive days, & am to go again next week– Well—and if you liked the picture in question the least bit in the world, I am sorry for you, Sophie .. for it has all gone away, is utterly destroyed & changed—yes, indeed– When the artist got me into his studio & looked at the picture .. “Why,” said he, [‘]‘there’s not a line nor a shade of your face in this portrait. The colour’s different, the features are different–” “Sono rimasto,” [5] he repeated afterwards,—& “it must have been the sun which dazzled him”! So, he rubbed out, he rubbed in—and the end is, that you would’nt know your own picture, Sophie– Even the costume is changed—size diminished, colour altered, hair lightened: & at last (I am afraid to quote Robert’s admiration this time) but at last even I seem to see a likeness. Who knows but you will have the “best picture” after all, just as you ought to have? [6]
We went to see Torquato Tasso [7] from the posti distinti– [8] I missed you,—not the box, observe. We went to see ‘Abimelech’ [9] from the posti distinti– Neither play was good as a play, but Salvini was powerful in each, & looked exactly like Tasso. Last night we were at the Pagliano & heard Marino Faliero– [10] All these dissipations undertaken alone, .. Robert & I alone .. except for Penini, twice—and we talk of ‘Amleto’ (Hamlet) on monday, [11] Salvini going away in the course of the week.
The weather is hot, hotter than when you were here, but not yet unbearably hot. It is delightful to hear of your world of green leaves—your bird’s nest in a privit [sic] hedge,—& to think of the song of the cool river all day—& all night. Enjoy everything, be very, very happy—& may the best good spirits be with you visibly & audibly, proving the blessing of God. Not a word do you say of them, dear—& remember how much I want to know everything—remember.
I have been once to the villa Bricchieri, & was shown a Madonna, said (& truly) to have your eyes. We are going again on tuesday evening to meet a party, when it will be harder to speak of Madonnas, or of you.
Fanny Haworth leaves Italy next week & perhaps will not return– She goes to Germany, & then, she thinks, to England.
Penini is more satisfactory, I am grateful to be able to say. For two days we have had attention at lessons, & I have felt less like the tortoise carrying the world on my back. His love to his dear Do, & his dear aunt Sophie, whom he talks of tenderly– On his accession to unlimited fortune, (by her generosity), [12] he begins his career by the purchase of an enormous drum, which hangs at the head of his bed, to prevent one’s putting too much trust in the silence of night. Così sia. [13]
Best love to Fanny & dear Mr Eckley, who is kinder in some things than Sophie! (Che miracolo!) [14] Robert is out, or he threatened to write in this letter about the portrait—but it must be for another day. Dear, write straight to me, as I will to you, disdaining your Fenzi [15] as a carrier-pigeon. I am in most true love, your Ba.
Landor has come again—enquired about you .. ‘liked you both,’ has some cypress seeds for you– Countenance fell when he heard of your being at Lucca.
Oh—another great victory, [16] Thank God.
Have you heard of your possessions between Rome & Florence? Tell me.
Address: Madame Eckley / Alla Villa / Bagni di Lucca.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. This letter is postmarked 26 June 1859, a Sunday, and logically follows letter 4435, in view of the references to “Mrs. Charles Perkins.”
3. Elizabeth Doane (see letter 4388, note 2).
4. A false rumor.
5. “I was astonished.”
6. EBB’s portrait in oil by Michele Gordigiani is reproduced facing p. 209.
7. By Paolo Giacometti (1816–82). It premiered on 20 June at the Cocomero theatre with Tommaso Salvini in the title role (see Monitore Toscano, 18 June 1859, p. 4).
8. “Reserved seats.”
9. Abimelech (1859) by Ippolito d’Aste (1809–66), with Salvini again in the title role, was performed at the Cocomero on 22 June (see Monitore Toscano, 19 June 1859, p. 4).
10. An opera by Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848), first performed in 1835. It is based on Casimer Delavigne’s 1829 play of the same name, which is based on Byron’s verse tragedy Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (1821). The Teatro Pagliano, now Teatro Verdi, is in Via Ghibellina, near the Piazza di Santa Croce.
11. Salvini played the title role in Hamlet on 27 June at the Cocomero (see Monitore Toscano, 25 June 1859, p. 4).
12. A gift of “two scudi” (see the fourth to last paragraph in letter 4438).
13. “So be it.”
14. “What a miracle.”
15. EBB refers to the Florence banking firm, “Messrs. E. Fenzi and Co., Pal. Uguccione, in the Piazza Gran Duca” (Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy, 1858, part II, p. 519).
16. On 24 June 1859 at Solferino, a small village on the Lombardian side of the Mincio river, Italian and French forces won a decisive victory over the Austrians. Involving over 250,000 men, the Battle of Solferino was the largest land engagement in Europe since the Napoleonic wars. Losses were correspondingly heavy and numbered in the tens of thousands on both sides.
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