4914. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 160.
[Florence]
[23 June 1861] [1]
Dearest Isa,
We had a bad night of it indeed– Ba became so ill with obstruction at the chest about nine oclock that we applied a blister, & took other measures—to no use: later, she suffered so alarmingly that I brought Dr Wilson [2] who stayed with us till five in the morning nearly—he was very kind and tried many methods of help, which were successful at last. For five hours, or six, she seemed actually strangling and I had real apprehensions. She is now infinitely better,*—quite relieved from the suffocating symptoms, and very pleasant to see. The attack was spasmodic (not inflammatory, he would have given brodo [3] could we have got some) and the result of great weakness– Don’t be alarmed now,—I have told you the truth, as you deserve—above all, don’t come here, dearest Isa, for she must not speak. I can’t leave the house, you understand, but Pen will go to tea, I suppose.
Ever yours affectionately
RB
*Dr W. has called this mg & says so
Publication: B-IB, pp. 471–472.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This letter and the next several are dated by reference to letter 4921, in which RB describes EBB’s final illness and death.
2. William Wilson (1815–96), born in Edinburgh, was “Physician to the British Embassy … licentiate of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Surgeons of London and Gottingen, late physician to a metropolitan hospital,” residing in Florence “at No. 4190, Via Tornabuoni” (Francis Coghlan, Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy, 1856, p. 169).
3. “Broth.”
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