5776. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 97–99.
[London]
June 20th ’66.
My dearest Isa,
I was telegraphed for to Paris last week, and arrived time enough to pass twenty four hours more with my Father: he died on the 14th,—quite exhausted by internal hæmorrage, which would have overcome a man of thirty. He retained all his faculties to the last—was utterly indifferent to death,—asking with surprise what it was we were affected about, since he was perfectly happy?,—and kept his old strange sweetness of soul to the end—nearly his last words to me, as I was fanning him, were “I am so afraid that I fatigue you, dear!”—this, while his sufferings were great,—for the strength of his constitution seemed impossible to be subdued. He wanted three weeks exactly to complete his 85th year. So passed away this good, unworldly, kind hearted, religious man, whose powers natural & acquired would have so easily made him a notable man, had he known what vanity or ambition or the love of money or social influence meant. As it is, he was known by half a dozen friends. He was worthy of being Ba’s father—out of the whole world, only he, so far as my experience goes. She loved him,—and he said, very recently, while gazing at her portrait, that only that picture had put into his head that there might be such a thing as the worship of the images of saints. My sister will come & live with me henceforth. You see what she loses,—all her life has been spent in caring for my mother, and, seventeen years after that, my father: you may be sure she does not rave and rend hair like people who have plenty to atone for in the past,—but she loses very much. I returned to London last night—the 19th—I could not write then. I have at once gone on with business this morning, and begun by writing to Chapman: I am profoundly discontented with him, and shall dissolve our connection, [1] —on my own account, not yours only. I think you are too desponding: the rejection of Mazzini proves that the Reds do not carry all before them, [2] —and the necessities of a war may be repaid by the advantages of a triumph, in which I believe. [3] To be sure, I have not the misfortune to hear a Red (perhaps Jessie) lay down the law. Depend on it, the fire can be kept within the stove, and not burn the whole house it warms. I will do what you want about Ferdinando. God bless you—expect a better letter next time & forgive this, & Yours ever affectionately
R Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 240–241.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. The first clear statement in the correspondence that RB intended to leave Chapman and Hall. A month later, he wrote a “decisive” letter to Frederic Chapman (see letter 5795, note 13).
2. A Reuters telegram in The Morning Post of 19 June 1866 announced that the day before at Florence “The Chamber of Deputies … annulled the re-election of Mazzini as deputy for Messina by 146 against 45 votes” (p. 5). Mazzini’s previous election for the Messina seat had also been annulled by the chamber.
3. In April 1866, a treaty was signed between Italy and Prussia pledging mutual support in a war against Austria, with Italy receiving Venice in the event of victory. Prussian troops began moving on 15 June and crossed the Austrian frontier on the 22nd. Italy declared war on Austria on the 20th of June.
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