4693. EBB to William Allingham
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 48–50.
Casa Guidi, Florence
June 17. [1860] [1]
My dear Mr Allingham, Such a Barmecide-feast [2] I invited you to from Rome—to an empty letter, without Robert’s photograph–
To make up for it, I send you Penini’s, .. and my own thrown in—besides what I promised. [3] Mr Frederick Chapman being in Florence, he will take all three of us in this letter, & consign us to an English postoffice– Pray like us all .. love us all, shall I say,—as you always seemed to do, with kindness & indulgence as of old.
Did you observe that the official declaration of the Prussian minister, stating that the Prussian army waited for the passing of the Minico to attack, & was arrested only by the unexpected peace, [4] justifies Napoleon at Villafranca to the uttermost. Now we think chiefly of our Garibaldi, who is making a beginning of the end–
We had an agreeable journey from Rome through exquisite scenery, taking an almost untrodden road through Orvieto & Chiusi, where the people at the inns, were content with smiling, & took three hours in boiling a tea-kettle & bringing up a loaf. I was more tired than I ought to have been, and so was Penini’s little poney, who was fastened on behind the carriage & kept up with the horses, four or six, before– The poney had to be bled on its arrival here, and I had to lay up for a week– Now we are both pretty well, thank you.
Early in next month we go to our last year’s villa in Siena, to remain there till the heat shall pass. Florence is a furnace three times heated you know, during the summer– So there we shall watch the ultimate solution in Italy– We must have fighting, it is supposed– Meanwhile Lamoricière is giving at Rome military dinners, at which the toast of “Henri cinq” is offered & accepted.
Write to us, dear Mr Allingham, my husband says, sending you his best love– Dont fancy I look quite as black as in my portrait, in spite of the knocks I have had from English critics– All the photographs were taken this month, before we left Rome—so they give the last news of us. Peni is not altered, is he?–
affectely yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Publication: Letters to William Allingham, ed. H. Allingham and E. Baumer Williams (London, 1911), pp. 108–109.
Manuscript: Scripps College.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Orvieto and Chiusi; 1860 was the only year the Brownings visited those towns.
3. EBB enclosed the photograph of RB, “promised” in letter 4675, and the photographs of herself and Pen (Variant B) and of Pen alone (see letter 4680, note 5).
4. See 4683, note 14.
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