5448. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 127.
Biarritz, Maison Gastonbide,
September 19, [1864] [1]
<***> I stayed a month at green pleasant little Cambo, and then came here from pure inability to go elsewhere—St.-Jean de Luz, on which I had reckoned, being still fuller of Spaniards who profit by the new railway. This place is crammed with gay people of whom I see nothing but their outsides. The sea, sands, and view of the Spanish coast and mountains are superb, and this house is on the town’s outskirts. I stay till the end of the month, then go to Paris, and then get my neck back into the old collar again. Pen has managed to get more enjoyment out of his holiday than seemed at first likely—there was a nice French family at Cambo with whom he fraternised, riding with the son and escorting the daughter in her walks. His red cheeks look as they should. For me, I have got on by having a great read at Euripides—the one book I brought with me, [2] besides attending to my own matters, my new poem that is about to be; [3] and of which the whole is pretty well in my head,—the Roman murder story you know.
<…> How I yearn, yearn for Italy at the close of my life! <***>
Text: Orr, p. 250 (as 1862).
1. Year provided by reference to RB’s address; 1864 was the only year he spent September at Biarritz.
2. However, see the first paragraph in letter 5442.
3. The Ring and the Book (1868–69).
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