Correspondence

4416.  EBB to Isa Blagden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 162–163.

[Florence]

[June 1859] [1]

Scarcely were you gone yesterday, my dearest Isa, when I began to tear myself up like the savage I was, for having forgotten to thank you for the vinegar. How kind you were—& how ungrateful I! There’s a blank verse like those which Robert is always finding in Fuller—or unlike! [2]

As to the Gibson, [3] —why it is like Robert I say, with certain drawbacks & exceptions. Next to Gibson it is like Robert. Still I wont take it from you– You give me too much, & I have’nt got over the vinegar yet.

Robert stands by, while I write this, so patiently & unobtrusively that I cant find it in my heart to keep him waiting any more.

Your ever affectionate Ba

Address, on integral page: Miss Blagden.

Publication: B-IB, p. 218.

Manuscript: Eton College Library.

1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Talfourd’s portraits of John Gibson and RB, which were completed before the Brownings returned to Florence from Rome in late May of 1859. This letter could have also been written up to the time of EBB’s severe illness which began about 20 July.

2. Thomas Fuller (1608–61), English author and divine.

3. Presumably a photograph of the Talfourd portrait; see letter 4332, note 6.

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