4812. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 279–281.
[Rome]
[Postmark: 19 January 1861]
Dearest Sarianna I must bring my heavy heart up to the effort of writing at last & thank you for the sympathy & affectionate pity you have given me. But of what has happened since I wrote to you before, I will not try to speak—& you will let the silence pass for the word’s worth. Robert has been very good & tender to me, & not least so in saving me from faces & voices which I shrank from. The quiet & calm did whatever good could be done. Now I am beginning to “get over” it all, as people say—to take up my occupations, & to get out violently of the poor personal life into which we are imprisoned by our poor personal interests whether of anguish or joy– I have learnt long that to get past the personal into the universal is the law still more of happiness than it is of charity or philosophy.
My poor Arabel, exhausted with all for which I should envy her if I could grudge her anything, returned to London as you probably heard, but is still unable to get to her work on account of the bitter weather. The cold seems to be more intense in England than is remembered,—which was not expected after the cold summer. You are cold too in France. And in Florence even they suffer much– Here we have felt our advantage of climate. Our rooms are warm & I have often had to send away the “braziero” from my bedroom.
Penini, whose radiant face has a touch of sadness to me when I think of some other child-faces, is very well & rosy, thank God, & bids me give you his “very best love and to dear Nonno”—his own words. He is going to write to Nonno about “prisons” when he has seen for himself. Everyday he rides, & he has a pair of spurs (after teazing Robert ever so long) and a very pretty small silver watch which makes his glory. I heard him talking to himself when he thought nobody listened .. “Really I am growing quite a man” … (putting on his spurs.)
He is very amusing in some things & uses some peculiar expressions when speaking English– He told me last night that he had had “a severe discussion on politics” with the ‘padrona di casa.’ [1] She is a Sicilian & devout, & much opposed to the new ideas. “But Peni,” said I, “what is the use of teazing her? You ought not.” “Indeed, mama, I spoke quite politely, & she began first about Victor Emmanuel. So I spoke politely & just said that if the Holy Father did not take care, I [2] thought he would be sent to Jerusalem. Then she said that if I spoke so in the streets, I should get put in carcere [3] —and I answered that no one would put me into prison– I knew too many ambassadors & generals for that.” In spite of Peni’s magnificent acquaintances, Annunziata was of opinion that he should not let his “passione per la patria” [4] carry him into imprudent expressions—and it ended in high words between her & him & one of the too customary quarrels. For Peni has not yet grown to be partial or even just to poor Annunziata, I am sorry to add,—& I had to interfere to prevent an explosion of Tuscan wrath against women who could’nt understand anything & then objected to it. Peni is in fractions, tell the dearest nonno, & has finished the Latin epitomes of both old & new Testament,—which he has translated into Italian. Now he is reading in abstract or rather compendium from Latin authors on “Illustrious Men”—not Cornelius Nepos. [5] In French he has finished ‘Esther’ & is reading ‘Athalie’. He fraternizes with the French out of doors, & brought in a long story the other day of how a French officer wanted to know in what part of France he was born, & how when he said he was born in Italy they wondered how a foreigner could speak French so well. Which sounded very fine .. but I distrust it rather, I confess to you.
Dearest Sarianna, why do you let Robert teaze you about Squires? [6] He did it for me more than for himself of course—and as for me, with all my esteem & love for you, you must pardon me for saying that your testimony would not at all be decisive to me. Nobody’s would, who did not give time & thought, persistent thought & repeated séances to this subject,—& even then, the temperament should always count for something, & yours is against the sort of evidence. A thoughtful man was here last winter who did not make up his mind till after above twenty séances. [7] I think very gravely on this subject– If the facts are facts, the bearings are wide & high. If the mediums “get the tables up somehow,” & if it is’nt by cheating, causes & ends must be most important. I have read nearly everything written on the subject, & have received all sorts of testimony–
As to “evil spirits”, I believe it is our narrow theological education which makes such opinions possible– But in Swedenborgians I shall tell FH. [8] it seems to me the purest inconsistency– Give her my love & tender thanks for her sympathetic letter. I will write very soon to her– I keep of the same mind from what she writes to me that her pied à terreshd be in England. Unmarried women, without special necessities or special characteristics, are better, happier, safer in England—I see that in so many cases– I would not for the world that my own Arabel settled on the continent—for instance.
Robert is going to be photographed again, for your benefit & mine & others, to show how his new fashion of wearing his beard & hair becomes him,—& when done you shall have it. He is very well–
Rome has few English, & is quiet for Rome at this season. I have seen some three or four people in all—& have heard enough to satisfy me on Italian affaires.
May God bless & keep you both. But distance did not keep you from the Corkrans before,—& the court regulations in Paris [illegible words] spaces– I am quite [sorry] to hear of poor Mrs Brackens great loss [9] —& dear poor Willie’s. How very sad. Love to dear M. Milsand always. Dearest Sarianna’s
ever affectionate sister
Ba.
Address, in RB’s hand: France. / Miss Browning / 151. Rue de Grenelle / Faubg St Germain / Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. “Landlady.”
2. Underscored twice.
3. “In prison.”
4. “Passion for the country”; i.e., “patriotism.”
5. Cornelius Nepos (ca. 110–24 B.C.), prolific Roman author, known for his De Viris Illustribus, a work containing hundreds of short biographies in at least 16 books, of which only one book (on foreign generals, mostly Greek), two biographies (Cato and Atticus), and a few fragments survive. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, ed. E.J. Kenney (Cambridge, 1982), compares him unfavorably with his Roman contemporaries: “Nepos is an intellectual pygmy whom we find associating uneasily with the literary giants of his generation” (II, 290).
7. Probably Thomas Robinson Hazard (1797–86), who called on the Brownings at Rome in February 1859 (see for example letter 4603).
8. Fanny Haworth.
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