4925. RB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 173–175.
Florence,
Friday July 5. ’61.
My dearest, I rather supposed a letter would come to day—but remember you had made some arrangement for going to Compiègne, I think—for a week—if you are gone, all these things will come on you at once at your return. [1] I wrote two letters to you, no more [2] —and am intending to write nothing more now to anyone, except anything plainly necessary. I am very well—of course I have suffered a little in my health (of course I am only speaking of that) but I went up two days ago to Isa’s Villa for the night & have done so since, returning in the morning—& that has stopped further progress of some unpleasant symptoms, inevitable as they were. Pen was taken up from the first,—I must be here in order to do the necessary work. The funeral took place on the 1st July at 7. p.m. There were extraordinary demonstrations of sorrow: everybody understood. They shut up shops in our street. The coffin was carried with great two crowns, of laurel & white flowers, thro’ the streets. I send newspapers with short notices. [3] The service was the C of Ed Everybody was there, I am told. I went straight from the Cemetery to the Villa—and presently in the evening came the astonishing sight of the comet, which totally invisible before, it now appears had reached its nearest point to the earth on the 29th [4] —was first seen, next day, and on the third was over half the sky: it is rapidly going off, and on the 12th, a week hence will be 36 millions of miles away. [5]
Dr Wilson assures me that she could never have recovered—to her old state of comparative health: she would have become confined to the room, then the bed. No travelling, no visitors possible. There was no pain—the little wandering was caused by the morphine, in an increased dose as was necessary: nothing could have helped, all I did was right, nothing omitted. The death was caused most probably by the breaking of a second abscess with [sic, for which] pierced the trachea—the first night’s attack was the breaking one in an attack of asthma: he knew it was a grave case from the first, but never expected the end would be so near,—that is, he thought there would have been more lingering & pain.
I shall leave here in a few days for Paris: I stay necessarily to attend to business—not very difficult,—but I must get done with it. I then go to you directly, stay in Paris only a day or two, then go at once to Arabel for a few days,—a week at farthest. I then return to Paris, & take a lodging near you for the winter—or rather, propose first to go with you whereever you please, to the seaside or anywhere you like, to be quiet for the summer or autumn, and on returning I will take a lodging as I say—and devote myself to seeing what education is best for Pen & what forms it should take. I shall never again “keep house,” nor live but in the simplest manner, but always with reference to Pen. Pen, the golden curls & fantastic dress, is gone just as Ba is gone: he has short hair, worn boy-wise, long trowsers, is a common boy all at once: otherwise, I could not have lived without a maid. I can now attend to him completely myself,—so all pins, worked collars and so on, are gone & forgotten. He behaves perfectly—has grown a dear, considerate boy of a sudden, will come to nothing but good, I am convinced. Isa Blagden’s services have been inestimable: she is going to leave Florence too & go to England directly; if I can arrange it we will travel together, but I don’t know. I am going to retain a few old articles that we were used to at Casa Guidi, & leave the rest to be sold: there shall be made a photograph of the room before I move anything. I have a perfect Photograph of Ba taken a week before we left Rome, & hope to be able to secure the plate.
I do not speak of you & Papa—you have been shocked, and alarmed for me—this must have been,—I could not spare you, that I know. So poor Arabel will have suffered. But they are they & I am I, and you must forget your own loss when you think of mine. Dearest Papa, however, who was not well, may have been unduly grieved: I hope it is not so. Dear Milsand will be the person on whose help I shall count most presently: he will advise with me about Pen.
God bless you, dearest. I will write in a few days & tell you my ultimate arrangements. Do not answer this—I hope to be gone.
Ever yours affectionately
RB
Address: Mademoiselle Browning, / 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: NL, pp. 131–134.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. RB, Sr. and Sarianna made a brief visit to Chevreuse, staying at the Hotel St. Jacques. On 20 May [1865], Sarianna wrote Laura Mack Stillman: “While there [Versailles] I shall try to get over to Chevreuse for the sake of old recollections—how well I remember it—and the day you brought me the letter containing the tidings of my dear sister’s death” (ms at Union).
2. Letters 4920 and 4921.
3. See letter 4923, notes 3 and 4.
4. Underscored three times.
5. The Times of 4 July 1861 printed a report from Bishop’s Observatory concerning the comet: “Its distance from the earth on Sunday evening [June 30] was rather over 13,000,000 miles, and a little less than 15,000,000 at 11 o’clock last evening [July 2]. It is therefore receding slowly from us” (p. 12). Later named the Great Comet of 1861, its closest approach to earth occurred on 30 June 1861, but it was first visible in the northern hemisphere on the 29th.
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