4905. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 143–144.
[Florence]
[6 June 1861] [1]
I cant let Robert’s disagreeable letter go alone dearest Sarianna [2] —though my word will be as heavy as a stone at the bottom of it. I am deeply sorry you should have had the vain hope of seeing Robert & Pen– As for me, I know my place. I am only good for a drag chain.
But dear, dont fancy it has been the fault of my will. In fact, I said almost too much at Rome to Robert—till he fancied I had set my self-will on tossing myself up as a halfpenny & coming down on the wrong side. Now, in fact, it was not at all (nearly) for Arabel,—that I wished to go—only I did really wish & do my best to go. He on the other hand, before we left Rome, had made up his mind (helped by a stray physician of mine, [3] whom he met in the street) that it would be a great risk to carry me north. He (Robert) always a little exaggerates the difficulties of traveling—& there’s no denying that I have less strength than is usual even to me at the present time– I touched the line of vexing him, with my resistance to the decision—but he is so convinced that repose is necessary for me, & that the lions in the path [4] will be all asleep by this time next year—that I yielded. Certainly he has a right to command me away from giving him unnecessary anxieties– What does vex me is that the dearest Nonno should not see his Peni this year, & that you, dear, should be disappointed, on my account again!– That’s hard on us all–
We come home into a cloud here– I can scarcely command voice or hand to name Cavour– [5] That great soul which meditated & made Italy has gone to the diviner country– If tears or blood could have saved him to us, he should have had mine– I feel yet as if I could scarcely comprehend the greatness of the vacancy——
A hundred Garibaldis for such a man!
There is a hope that certain solutions had been prepared between him & the emperor—& that events will slide into their grooves.
May God save Italy–
Dear M. Milsand had pleased me so by his appreciation—but there are great difficulties. The French press, tell him, has on the whole, done great service .. except that part of it under the influence of the ultramontane & dynastic-opposition parties. And as to exaggerated statements it is hard even here to get at the truth (with regard to the state of the south) & many Italian liberals have had hours of anxiety & even of dispondency. English friends of ours very candid & liberal have gone to Naples full of hope & returned hoping nothing—yet they are wrong——unless this bitter loss makes them right.
Your loving Ba—
Robert tears me away–
Publication: LEBB, II, 448–450 (in part).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Dated by reference to the following letter and its opening sentence.
2. RB’s “disagreeable letter” is not extant. However, a paraphrase of part of its contents occurs in memoranda regarding EBB’s death made by Jane Wills-Sandford: “Mr Browning wrote to his sister abt June 6th that if they did get her [EBB] to Paris she wd only be able to lie every day on the sofa & look at them till it was time to go away & that she had owned it exhausted her to walk from one room to another if only one” (ms at ABL).
3. Gryzanowski (see the following letter).
4. In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I (1678), Christian encounters two lions in his path as he approaches the Palace Beautiful. Having been warned of the lions by Mistrust and Timorous, he has already feared this encounter. But Porter, keeper of the Palace, assures him: “Fear not the lions, for they are Chained: and are placed there for trial of faith where it is; and for discovery of those that have none: keep in the midst of the Path, and no hurt shall come unto thee” (pp. 49–50).
5. Camillo di Cavour (1810–61) died at Turin in the early morning of June 6th. He was 50 years old. The cause of death appears to have been complications from an attack of malarial fever (see Denis Mack Smith, Cavour, New York, 1985, pp. 270–272).
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