4814. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 285–286.
Via Felice, 126.
Jan. 21. ’61.
Dearest Isa,
In the first place, I am truly sorry that you are unwell & earnestly hope to hear better things very soon.
Next, to answer a question which Ba refers to me,—I should rather think the Duchess of Sermoneta is the “invalid Sister”– [1] I met her the evening before the marriage of the other, and hear she has been very ill ever since, with the exertion: she is always carried upstairs, and has all the usual forms of invalidity:– Kanitz [2] is learned, cold, pompous, not stupid, but abundantly dull & uninteresting—precious old, besides,—has killed some two or three men in duels, & is goodnatured enough. Miss Knight was rich, mark you!
Thirdly– I suppose I may not indulge in a “sfogo” [3] about the projected subscription, [4] as I am resolved Ba shall not contribute a farthing thereto,—and, as the black man said to his master, “If you preach, preach—if you flog, flog—but don’t flog & preach too.” My “flogging” in this case is limited to refusing to give a farthing, as I say, to the interesting relatives who worried our friend to death, as I very well know. All her life long, they sucked her dry of all superfluous & necessary oil of gladness & (occasionally) milk of human kindness: [5] and now there is an end of the supply from her, I don’t feel inclined to offer the least squeeze from my nipples. If there is any surplus—now that a pension is secured to them [6] —I advise the administrators of the fund to expend it in a votive tablet to Lady Byron whose share in the worrying quite deserves one. Of course Ba would give, and give again, tho’ she knows all this as well as I—but this time I mean to have my way. I write this to you of course—you will simply tell Miss Hays that you have forwarded her application to us.
Good bye,—in greatest haste—but ever affectionately yours
RB–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 392–393.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Margaret Caetani, Duchess of Sermoneta (née Knight, 1810–72), the daughter of John Knight (1767–1850), a wealthy ironmonger, and his second wife, Jane Elizabeth (née Winn, 1783–1841), daughter of 1st Lord Headley, married Michelangelo Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta, on 11 December 1854.
2. Baron Karl Friedrich von Canitz und Dallwitz (1812–94), the Prussian minister at Rome, and Helen Georgiana Knight (1826–93), sister of the Duchess of Sermoneta, were married on 30 December 1860 at the Prussian Legation.
3. “Outburst,” or “unburdening.”
5. Macbeth, I, 5, 17.
6. In 1851 Mrs. Jameson was granted a government pension, which, after her death, “was continued to her two unmarried sisters” (DNB), Eliza Murphy (d. 1874, aged 78) and Charlotte Alice Murphy (1805–76).
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