4499. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 320–324.
[Siena]
[ca. 3 October 1859] [1]
My dearest Sarianna we are on the verge of returning to Florence for a short time—only to pack up I believe and go farther south .. to “meet the revolution” tell the dearest nonno with my love. The case is that though I am really convalescent and look well, (Robert has even let me take to Penini a little, which is conclusive) it is considered dangerous for me to run the risk of even a Florence winter– You see I have been very ill– The physician thought there was pressure of the lungs on the heart, and, under those circumstances, that I must avoid irritation of the lungs by any cold. Say nothing which can reach my sisters & frighten them—& after all I care very little about doctors—except that I do know myself how hard, renewals of the late attack would go with me. But, I mean to take care & use God’s opportunities of getting strong again– Also, it seems to me that I have taken a leap within these ten days & that the strength comes back in a fuller tide. After all it is not a cruel punishment to us to have to go to Rome again this winter, though it will be an undesireable expense, and though we did wish to keep quiet this winter, .. the taste for constant wanderings having passed away as much for me as for Robert. We begin to see that by no possible means can one spend as much money to so small an end—and then we dont work so well, dont live to as much use, either, for ourselves or others. Isa Blagden bids us observe that we pretend to live at Florence, & are not there much above two months in the year, what with going away for the summer & going away for the winter. It’s too true– It[’]s the drawback of Italy. To live in one place here is impossible for us, .. almost just as to live out of Italy at all, is impossible for us– It is’nt caprice, that’s all I mean to say, on our part.
Siena pleases us very much. The silence & repose have been heavenly things to me—and the country is very pretty—though no more than pretty—nothing marked or romantic—no mountains, (did you fancy us on the mountains?) except so far off as to be like a cloud only, on clear days—and no water. Pretty, dimpled ground, covered with low vineyards—purple hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them. But I like the place, & feel loth to return to Florence from this half furnished villa & stone floors. The weather is still very hot, but no longer past bearing—and we are enjoying it, paying on from day to day. Robert proposed Palermo instead of Rome,—but I shrink a little from the prospect of our being cut up into mince meat by patriotic Sicilians .. though the English fleet (which he reminds me of) might obtain for you and for England the most “satisfactory compensation” of the pecuniary kind. At Rome I shall not be frightened .. knowing my Italians. Then there will be more comfort—&, besides, no horrible sea-voyage! Some Americans have told us that the Mediterranean is twice as bad as the Atlantic– I always thought it twice as bad as anything—as people say elegantly. We shall not leave Florence till November. Robert must see Mr Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartment, with Wilson for a Duenna. It’s an excellent plan for him—& not a bad one for Wilson. He will pay a pound (English) a week for his three rooms, and she is to receive twenty two pounds a year for the care she is to take of him, besides what is left of his rations. Forgive me if Robert has told you this already. Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his “gentleness & sweetness.” A most courteous & refined gentleman he is of course, & very affectionate to Robert (as he ought to be)—but of self-restraint, he has not a grain, & of suspiciousness, many. Wilson will run certain risks & I, for one, would rather not run them. What do you say to dashing down a plate on the floor, when you dont like what’s on it? And, the contadini, at whose house he is lodging now, have been already accused of opening desks. Still, upon that occasion, (though there was talk of the probability of Landor’s throat being “cut in his sleep”!) as on other occasions, Robert succeeded in soothing him—and the poor old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring softly, to beguile the time, in Latin Alcaics against his wife & Louis Napoleon. He laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one of these days he will have to write an ode in honor of the Emperor, to please me.
Little Pen has been in the utmost excitement lately about his poney, which Robert is actually going to buy for him. I am said to be the spoiler—but mark! I will confess to you that considering how we run to & fro, it never would have entered into the extravagance of my love, to set up a poney for Penini! When I heard of it first, I opened my eyes wide—only no amount of discretion on my part could enable me to take part against both Pen & Robert in a matter which pleases Pen. I hope they wont combine to give me an Austrian daughter in law when Peni is sixteen. So I say ‘yes’ ‘yes’—‘certainly’—& the poney is to be bought, and carried to Rome .. (fancy that!) & we are to hunt up some small Italian princes & princesses to ride with him at Rome– (I object to Hatty Hosmer, who has been thrown thirty times.)
In fact Pen has been very coaxing about the poney– He has beset Robert in private—and then as privately, entreated me, “if papa spoke to me about the poney, not to discourage him.” So I discouraged nobody .. but am rather triumphantly glad, upon the whole, that we have done such a very foolish, extravagant thing.
Robert will have told you, I am sure, what a lovely picture, Mr Wilde the American artist [2] (staying with the Storys) has made of Penini on horseback,—and presented to me– [3] It is to be exhibited in the spring in London—but before then, either at Rome or Florence, we will have a photograph made from it to send you. By the way, Mr Monroe [4] failed us about the photograph from the bust– He said he had tried in vain once, but would try again.
The child is no less pretty and graceful than he was,—and he rides, as he does everything, with a grace which is striking– He gallops like the wind, & with an absolute fearlessness .. he who is timid about sleeping in a room by himself, poor darling– He has had a very happy time here (besides the poney—) having made friends with all the contadini, who adore him, and helped them to keep the sheep, catch the stray cows, drive the oxen in the grape-carts, & to bring in the vintage generally, besides reading & expounding revolutionary poems to them at evening. The worst of it was, while it lasted, that he ate so many grapes, he could eat nothing else whatever– Still he looks rosy & well, & there’s nothing to regret.
I wrote to Fanny Haworth twice at Cologne [5] in answer to letters of hers. I suppose she has left Paris, if she went there at all,—but if you see her, give her my affecte love. She is very amiable, & I have a true regard for her—so much so that I should like her to settle quietly anywhere where she can take root– Perhaps England might be best. People have been very ill-natured
<…> [6]
I dont think Italy agreed with her. In fact I am sure it did not.
Robert has let his moustache & beard grow together, & looks very picturesque. I thought I should not like the moustache, but I do. He is in very good looks altogether, though, in spite of remonstrances, he has given up walking before breakfast, & does’nt walk at any time half enough. I [7] was in fault chiefly,—because he both sate up at night with me, & kept by me when I was generally ill in the mornings. So I ought’nt to grumble, but I do. He generally spends his evenings with
<…>
to Rome before long. Love to dear M. Milsand. We are in increasing spirits on Italian affairs.
Your very affectionate Ba–
See what a long letter. Its in return for your good news of nonno & you.
Publication: LEBB, II, 341–345 (in part, as [September-October 1859]).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Approximate dating suggested by EBB’s mention of staying on at Siena “day to day.” In letter 4498, she told Isa Blagden: “We take on the villa by the day.”
2. Hamilton Gibbs Wild (1827–84), often spelled “Wilde,” American painter, son of James C. Wild (1800–85), a Boston banker, and his wife, Hannah (née Gibbs, 1803–82), had lived in Europe for the last five years. He returned to Boston in the summer of 1860 (see letter from W.W. Story to C.P. Cranch, 17 September 1860, transcript at MHS). In addition to the portrait of Pen mentioned below, two other works by Wild relate to the Brownings: a watercolor of a wall of their villa at Siena (reproduced facing p. 304) and a “sketch … of the Storys and Brownings and old Savage Landor reading and serving al fresco at Siena, with the little Browning boy with his long curls driving, in the background, the two little Story boys as his ponies” (Mrs. Longfellow: Selected Letters and Journals, ed. Edward Wagenknecht, New York, 1956, p. 235). This sketch was presumably destroyed along with Wild’s studio in the Great Boston Fire of 1872.
3. Wild’s portrait of Pen on his pony sold as lot 68 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, H32). It is reproduced facing p. 305. We have been unable to trace a public exhibition of this work.
4. Sic, for Munro.
5. Letters 4471 and 4474.
6. Part of the sheet has been excised, affecting text here and below.
7. Underscored twice.
___________________
