4786. RB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 233–234.
Rome, Via Felice, 126.
Dec. 3. ’60.
My dear George,
I give you the first moment I can take from Ba to tell you the few words that you must be anxiously waiting for. Your last letter, of the 24th came this morning. Ba has been suffering for the last fortnight just as much as she could bear, so that the last news [1] finds her in a fitter state to receive it than she might have been had the calamity befallen her without notice. You will have been apprehensive or alarmed, perhaps, at receiving (if you did receive) a telegram I sent last week. On getting yours a fortnight ago, Ba’s distress was so acute that I thought of no better resource than to hurry our journey at once. We were to have taken advantage of a break in the cold weather & started on Monday—but I prevailed on her to let me get her off the very next morning—& she suffered it to be so: [2] I believe the step was the best we could take—for it secured to her six days respite at least from the sad announcement of which I knew your letter was the immediate herald—besides which, the change of scene and necessity for exertion would do good, and the reaching Rome and receiving the shock in a milder climate than at Florence was most important. So we got off, and after a wretched journey arrived at Rome on Friday the 17th [3] I had prepared everything, arranged for receiving the letters which must have preceded us—none were waiting! Then followed four or five days of suspense till it became unbearable, and I sent telegrams to Florence & Taunton on the Wednesday: from Florence came the result of your last note thither—and, afterward, the five notes that had been kept back thro’ the infamous negligence of the officials: the notes to Rome reached me duly, I believe. Of course I had all along to do my utmost in breaking the contents of your letters to Ba—indeed that has been my business since the beginning: even at Siena I was forced to get & inspect all letters before they got to Ba—she had the firmness to desire me to do so. Let me say, however unnecessary, my dear George, that I, for my part, cannot express to you my grateful sense of all your considerateness, and affection,—out of which it arose: I understood what you would imply thro’ all the kind keeping back—and yet was able to use it so as to give hope enough to help her to bear up. She has borne it, on the whole, as well as I should have thought possible—but the wounds in that heart never heal altogether, tho’ they may film over. God bless her.
I will write again—do not alarm yourself—the worst is over—the suspense having been as hard to bear as the ending of it. I just write this in utmost haste to save the post—wishing, if possible to write a word to Arabel—but I am well spared any attempt to speak to all of you, or to poor Surtees. Ever affectionately yours, my dear George,
Robert Browning
Publication: B-GB, pp. 251–252.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Of Henrietta’s death on 23 November 1860.
2. Cf. Matthew 3:15.
3. Sic, for 23rd.
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