4658. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 301–302.
[Rome]
Wednesday, May 2. ’60.
Dearest Isa,—I did indeed forget to acknowledge your letter, or at least that part of it which contained the modest application for one book out of that house which,—books, sticks straws and all,—were & are, as you very well know, yours, with the whole heart of Ba & myself: who could fancy that on your pleasing to discontinue the use of the house, you also forfeited the use of any particular book in it you might still require? Pray have no more such extraordinary scruples but help yourself to whatever you please & welcome.
On the other hand,—how can you be so little scrupulous as to propose that I should give a farthing to I know not whom, in order to do I know not what, in a place where I do know to my grief that the precipitation (certainly) and stupidity (probably) of such animals as the women you have been lately conversant with, and their instigator, [1] whom yourself suppose to be on the spot at this minute,—I do know, I say, that this has been causing for the last fortnight every sort of conceivable horror, shootings, burnings & murderings [2] —and all absolutely to no good,—to the victim’s country, nor to Italy generally: and now that the failure is complete,—subscribe, shall I?
Let me think of something else & bid God bless you, dearest Isa.
R. Browning.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 337–338.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Mazzini.
2. A reference to the uprising in Sicily. A dispatch with a dateline of “Palermo, April 25” appeared in The Daily News of 7 May 1860: “We are in a complete revolution. Palermo has been in a state of siege ever since the 4th, and the whole country has risen. Every night there are combats between the poor peasantry and the Neapolitan soldiers, who burn and pillage wherever they go” (p. 5).
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