4951. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 208–210.
Chez M. Chauvin, St Enogat près Dinard,
Ile et Vilaine, France
Aug: 22. ’61.
Dearest Isa,
Your handwriting never rejoiced me so much as now,—after this absence of days that have seemed intolerably long: I was very anxious about you, knowing well in [the] state in which you were; & am not at all free from anxiety yet, altho’ you say not one word about yourself:—but at least you are at home, unforced to travel if unfit for it, and with people about you to take turn & minister a little to you—tho’ never so kindly, & dearly, I am sure—without offence to whomever it may concern. I will hope, dearest friend, that you are attending to yourself if only in order to be able to meet the next demands upon yourself. I am very glad that in some measure you have “got into the step” of your circle of friends,—henceforward their motions will coincide with yours. You must never leave me uninformed as to how you are, what you do—nor will you, if I know your affectionate wish to give pleasure where you know that you can give great, the greatest pleasure. I will not however try to write about myself: you know how I could talk—but there seems a cold wind to blow, & all my soul shuts up when the business is to write. I am better of course than just when we arrived in Paris, or than when we left. I go round in the same order of ideas, & arrive always at the same conclusion, but I don’t feel the miserable contrast between then & now, as when first coming on the old Paris sights, peculiarities, nothings that only grew to be somethings from their first association. This is the best place I could have gone to—wilder than I could have thought possible: the weather is beautiful: I tire myself thoroughly in the day & go to bed & sleep, thank God. I don’t think we shall stay so long as was predetermined: already the mornings & evenings are fresh not to say chilly—tho’ the sun is sufficiently powerful in the middle of the day: the solitude of the bays—any one of many—the sands & the rocky islets—& the quiet, pastoral character of the inland with its few inhabitants—are very grateful. Pen is as well as he can well be—he bathes daily,—swims indeed, with a master,—rides, sketches & otherwise amuses himself: I must let this month go to idleness & the getting in a stock of health—he will work all the better for it eventually, I hope. My plans you know: I have written to Forster, Procter, & others—for help & advice about all the points we discussed, the apartment, the Tutor & room. I shall be in London by October I dare say—for I am feverish to begin in earnest. My father is perfectly well, & my sister much better.
Here is a letter for you which Lytton sent two or three days ago [1] —in so enormous a form that I ventured––you’ll forgive me––to take it out of the huge envelope which I could hardly have sent. In the letter to myself, he told me the utterly amazing result of his <visit> to Camaldoli: I am in a strait, however, for he added that he made the communication “in confidence”—so, till you inform me whether he have also taken you into his confidence, my mouth is necessarily sealed—though, after all, he must have told you something: I wish I could make the shortest work of it by sending his note—written “with such feelings of inexpressible horror & disgust that he feels powerless to give me any detailed account of the circumstances which have caused them”—yet he does give some, and those simply, as I say, amazing. Tell me if he has told you. I had a note from Cottrell the other day with deep regret that you should be unwell, & affectionate wishes for your recovery from his wife: & one from Made Peruzzi to the same effect, adding that she now blamed herself for wishing (selfishly) that England might be disagreeable to you. I also had a note from Made Matteucci, about a project on foot of writing a letter to the “Times,” & getting English names as an “appoggio” [2] to the Santa Croce scheme: [3] I answered immediately that such a project was wholly repugnant to my feelings—that the only value of the testimonial would be in its essentially Italian character, & that if the Italians needed to be dunned by the English into remembering their friend the remembrance would not be worth much. It is not the question, what the English or Americans think about it—they have their own distinct organs of conveying kind feeling, & have not been slow to make use of them,—but what the Italians may please to do in their peculiar way: I quite understand the general ignorance about a foreign writer, but some few are not ignorant, and these, & a few more they may be able to enlighten, ought to do the rest by themselves. God bless you, my dearest friend: say the kind things I really feel for Mrs Brice, [4] Miss Cobbe & all friends. All here send their true love—and mine is with you & not to be sent.
Ever your
R Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 82–84.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Lytton’s letter to Isa Blagden was enclosed in letter 4946, as indicated in letter 4950.
2. “Support.”
3. The project was the placing of a commemorative tablet, honoring EBB, “on the walls of Sta. Croce”; see SD2462, where Miss Blagden also writes: “The idea of this tablet is wholly mine—Mr Browning would not stir an inch for such a thing.”
4. Charlotte Brice (née Agassiz, 1822–1900). Miss Blagden had been staying with her, since the second week of August at 20 Blessington Road in Lee, Kent, which is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4).
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