4491. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 304–305.
[Siena]
Sunday [18 September 1859] [1]
Robert reiterates to me that it is’nt necessary to write to you dearest Isa,—& that he has answered your two letters, besides administering the equivalent of various others by the plenary inspiration of his mouth– Still I persist in not feeling comfortable without telling you that we expect you on tuesday by the middle day train, in time for dinner at three—unless it should be such weather that for you to come would do you both harm– For two days we have had burrascas [2] to a frightful extent– Frightful I say, because I was frightened–
Give my love to Kate– So glad I shall be to see her—only dont, dont let her run any real risk by coming– If, on the other hand, she does come, she shall have a hard sofa .. the best we can offer—& she shant walk or stand. It has grown much colder,—& this room, cool in the heat, is rather too sunless, or will be soon. Still I have not yet complained of the temperature–
Will you give my love to Mrs Trollope & warm thanks for her letter, which I mean to answer of course. It is plain to me that certain of our Florentines allow themselves to be acted on by intriguers over the Alps, through whom suspicions of all kinds & sizes are set floating in the air. There are intriguers Austrian & intriguers English .. the former haters of Italy, & the latter jealous of France. But the end of all things is at hand—when we shall see the meaning of the Moniteur & of the rest, [3] —and the moral, I think, will be,—‘Let no one, unprepared to be a martyr, perform any great & disinterested action!’ [4]
I rend myself from Adam Bede (thank you dearest Isa)—to sieze on the Question Romaine– How admirable, I cry, after the first chapter– [5] Like Paul Courier in cutting power, & in the brilliancy of the blade– [6]
Mind you give my message to Kate. She mustn’t hurt herself again by coming to see the beasts .. as shown at Villa Alberti.
Ever your loving Ba.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 249–250.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. In letter 4487, EBB expects Isa Blagden and Kate Field “on saturday,” the 17th. Evidently, they were delayed by something that happened to Miss Field.
2. “Storms” in Spanish; the Italian plural is “burrasche.”
4. Cf. the concluding lines of EBB’s “Summing Up in Italy” (Last Poems, 1862): “The moral of every great deed is / The virtue of slandering the doers.”
5. Entitled “La Royauté du Pape,” wherein About writes “que le pape régnant n’est pas un méchant homme, mais que le gouvernement arbitraire d’un prêtre, fût-il infallible, ne sera jamais qu’un mauvais gouvernement” (La Question Romaine, Brussels, 1859, p. 6). As translated by H.C. Coape, the passage reads, “that the reigning Pope is not an evil-disposed man, but that the arbitrary government of one man, even admitting his infallibility, can never be anything but a bad government” (The Roman Question, 1859, p. 5).
6. Paul Louis Courier (1772–1825), Greek scholar and pamphleteer, was opposed to the Bourbon Restoration in 1815 and wrote against the oppression of peasants.
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