4640. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 257–258.
[Rome]
April 3. [1860] [1]
Ever dearest Isa, you will set me down as mad .. under the shock of repeated letters–
Dear, I have considered that a copy of the Poems should be offered to M. Fauvety, besides the one he is to offer–
So, if you have not despatched the order to Chapman I sent yesterday, use instead, the one of the two enclosed which desires him to send to Paris two copies of the Poems– If, on the other hand, you have already despatched that order, now send after it, the one enclosed which speaks of the second copy. Read the two notes, & understand.
And I think it will be better for you to enclose it directly to Chapman together with M. Fauvety’s address at Paris, when you have procured that from Dall’Ongaro. And dearest Isa, use your best writing– Because remember Chapman’s eyes—& very small wits!
How impertinent I am.
I have had letters this morning which please me—one from Edmond Ollier, the editor of the Atlas—who praises & thanks me for my politics & courage & justice [2] —one from Ros[s]etti [3] .. careless of politics & Italy, .. but exalting the art– He almost puts the volume over my other poems on that ground.
I was happy in your liking anything too–
The French leave Rome. That’s sure.
Love me Isa– I want love– I have been expecting to be kicked all these days & though ready for it, the expectation was’nt the pleasantest–
Ever your loving Ba–
in greatest haste–
Pen quite well, I thank God–
I was out yesterday, & shall be today–
Weather divine–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 323–324.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to letter 4639.
2. In a positive review of Poems Before Congress that appeared in the 24 March 1860 issue of The Atlas (pp. 231–232), Edmund Ollier (1826–86) commented on “Napoleon III in Italy”: “Mrs. Browning has the courage and the faith in eternal principles of justice to hail, as the incarnation of a majestic truth, the very man whom demagogues and Tories over all the globe have conspired to stamp with odium. She sees that Napoleon the Third is great by the double greatness of his own large nature and of the popular will” (p. 232). For the full text of this review, see pp. 359–361.
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