4444. EBB to Sophia Eckley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 216–217.
[Florence]
Saturday. [9 July 1859] [1]
Ever dearest Sophie, I put in a little word to follow my words written yesterday & to go with the fan. Which last, that it may take with it all sweet “airs from Heaven” [2] (besides a Memory of me) I wish while I send it to you, dear– I have been very glad to see Christina [3] & to know that you are well– Take care of yourself—& may God bless you, & take care of you in His best sense & love you in His tenderest.
You dont give us a motive from the thermometer to leave Florence for your mountains—though here we have been & are dissolving– Christina does not find us much hotter she says, than she left you—only of course you must have the cooler nights & mornings.
The picture cannot be dry enough, Robert assures me, for a removal to Lucca– It is much approved of. He took Isa Blagden & Miss Field to see it a few days since & they both liked it greatly—thinking however the lower part of the face less happy than the upper, & the general pose–
As for me, I cant be an authority on such a subject– Also, I shall live & die a Talfourdian, I think– You see he had the wit to flatter me—and flatter a woman … even on canvass .. you know what the men say.
Still, my opinion is that Gordigiani[’]s portrait is undeniably like and a pleasant likeness, & moreover very clever as a picture– [4] The scale seems to me rather larger than mine—but that is Gordigiani’s way, it strikes me, and, on that account among others, he is happier with his male portraits than his female.
Now are you satisfied? have I been unreserved enough?
Little Pen is better, but the heat makes him flag a little. He is good however at his lesson, poor darling. Tell Doady he goes off at eight every morning to his music-lesson at M. del Bene’s. We have moved the piano into the dining-room, the entrance room, I mean, & find the tone better & the convenience greater altogether.
I must go now– Not a moment– In true love
& close sympathy your
Ba.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to letter 4443, written the day before.
2. Hamlet, I, 4, 41.
3. Presumably Sophia’s maid.
4. Michele Gordigiani’s portrait of EBB is reproduced facing p. 209.
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