4713. EBB to Anne Braun
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 82–83.
Villa Alberti, Siena
July 25 [1860] [1]
My dearest Mdme Braun, your letter touched me & made me grateful to you more than you can think. You are an “example[”] to the world of heroic cheerful patience, and for my own part, I do look humbly up & try to learn.– And then your account of yourself is encouraging—and you carry the augury in you of a strong vitality & capacity of triumph. May God bless & keep you & carry you through!
For me, I should be very well, I dare say, & enjoying this fine air & delightful silence, if it had not been for sad letters from England which keep me in great anxiety about my sister Henrietta– She is ill with an internal tumour, & suffers much I fear– My first impulse was to go to England—& this may be still, perhaps– I wait for letters– She was always very strong– It is an unexpected trial—if human lips do not foolishly say so of any trial in the world.
You accept the influences of nature with an open heart—& the visible things express the Invisible, [2] I scarcely doubt, to you as to me. Here, there is no grandeur—but an open country, with the ground all in a sort of ripple from the volcanic tide underneath, .. yet beautiful trees, & lanes almost like England—blue hills, too, to hold the sunsets– We have Mr Landor in a villino close by, & do our best (my husband does) to keep up the state of siege .. which is difficult sometimes– In Florence, one day lately, the dishes containing his dinner were thrown out of the window one by one, in vengeance for a dinner’s being six minutes too late,—but an expedition to Leghorn & other untoward events being averted, there was a successful struggle for ‘Order.’ Mr Landor however looks well & walks well, .. & is happy just now in arranging an aristocratical constitution for Sicily with Garibaldi as King!—— If Garibaldi takes annexation instead, (which infallibly he will) the disappointment will be so extreme that I dare not in the meantime hint at the probability– In a villa farther off live Professor Matteucci & his wife, an Englishwoman– He is ‘Senatore del Regno’ [3] besides his scientific distinctions– A mile off live the Storys. They send their kindest regards to you, & bid me tell you that they hope you will extend your grace to them in the matter of Beethoven concerts this year as last year. I should say much the same for us—only for this heavy stone of anxiety which I carry on my heart about letters from England, & which keeps me from dreaming in respect to concerts or any pleasures.
Penini has his abbé here—to whom he goes for Latin’ sake every morning– The abbé lives at the Storys, but must be at Rome, he says, in the middle of August. Pen rides about the country with his father, & Edith .. & Mrs Story sometimes. My friend Miss Blagden has her villino too, at a quarter of an hour’s distance,—& there opposite, among the trees, lives Mrs Crawford, the scu[l]ptor’s widow, with her family– [4] So that we are a sort of half Roman & half Florentine colony–
Public affairs are going well, but anxiety goes with them of course,—& how matters will be consolidated at Rome & whether in time for Beethoven remains unproved. The French will keep the walls, & not look beyond—let Garibaldi do what he pleases in the Roman States. Dont read German newspapers .. at least, dont believe them, upon Italy–
How dull all this is– But I am dull––& not heroic up to your mark– Arabel is with Henrietta & two of my aunts are near her. [5]
My husband bids me give you his love—— And do give mine to Mlle Von Müller [6] —who will keep faith with me, I know, & write when writing is unpleasant to you– May God bless & keep you, yes, & love you, prays your ever affectionate friend
Elizabeth B Browning
Let me tell you, what may make you smile– An Irish sentinel at Rome feeling the weather over-hot takes off his clothes at night & stands nude, & is found so at dawn by the carabineers!
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Year based on the return address; 1860 was the only year the Brownings resided at the Villa Alberti on 25 July.
2. EBB alludes to the Swedenborgian principle of “correspondence” (see letter 3195, note 10).
3. “Senator of the Kingdom.”
4. Louisa Crawford’s family consisted of three daughters and one son: Anne Crawford (afterwards Rabe, 1846–1912); Jane Campbell (“Jennie”) Crawford (1847–66); Mary Crawford (afterwards Fraser, 1851–1922); and Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909).
5. Arabella Sarah Graham-Clarke (“Bummy”) and Jane Elizabeth Hedley (née Graham-Clarke), sisters of EBB’s mother Mary Moulton-Barrett (née Graham-Clarke).
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