4825. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 316.
[Rome]
[?7] [February 1861] [1]
Dearest Isa,
First—truest return of all the good kind things sent to me thro’ Ba. Next—& abruptly because I have only a minute to write in—will you do me a favor at your leisure & opportunity? It is this: Mr Landor wants “two photographs, & only two,” for a couple of friends– Somebody has told him, quite erroneously, that I had ordered a dozen for as many of his admirers,—whereas they were for myself only: I bade Brini, order, pay for, & transmit them, as best he could, to me—but, as I conjecture, on Mr Landor sending to the Artist [2] for the aforesaid two copies, the man must have mistaken Brini’s order for Mr Landor’s own—and told him accordingly that a whole dozen were just getting ready for his service—whereupon Mr Landor writes to me that he has not half a dozen friends in the world &c. [3] Now I want you to take the dozen from Brini when he gets them, give two to Mr L, take of course one for yourself, and send the remainder to me, at your discretion, or keep them safe. Mr L. would soon find friends enough to take the whole. If, by chance, they have been already delivered to him—let them remain & never mind; of course. Good bye, dearest Isa. Ba is really better and likely to go out soon–
Yours affy ever
RB.
I have just had two or three photographs made of my desirable self [4] —do you want them—say “yes.”!
Publication: B-IB, pp. 403–404.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to the “dozen” copies of Landor’s photograph. In the accounts that RB kept of Landor’s expenditures and receipts, the entry for 4 February 1861 reads: “Twelve Photographs … 10 [lire]” (see vol. 26, p. 386). The copy that EBB placed in her carte-de-visite album is reproduced on p. 400.
2. Landor’s photograph was taken by the Fratelli Alinari at Piazza San Gaetano in Florence.
3. See letter 4817, where Landor writes: “I have not a dozen friends surviving upon earth.”
4. By the Alessandri brothers (see letter 4571, note 6). These three photographs are reproduced facing p. 304.
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