SD1570. Anna Brownell Jameson to Johanna Murphy, Charlotte Murphy & Eliza Murphy
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 364 (in part).
Avenue Paris des Champs Elysées, 130.
Saturday. [24 April 1852]
Dearest Mother and Sisters,—
For your tranquility and not because I have as yet anything to tell you, do I write. My journey was altogether prosperous; we had what is called a splendid passage and so far from being at all ill—I felt well and hungry (for the first time in my life in such a situation) and eat my sandwiches on board—at Boulogne I got well thro’ the Custom House—commissionaire, porters and duties costing altogether about 5/– got a cup of coffee at Amiens and arrived at Paris at a quarter before 11. Browning was at the station to meet me—tea and supper waiting for me and all affectionate and delightful—I have already arranged my little room for working and went yesterday for two hours to the Louvre, where I find an entirely new and certainly improved arrangement—and on the whole I am very well satisfied with the first appearances of things. To crown my contentment it rained last night in torrents; much as we wanted rain in England it seems to have been more wanted here and the Champs Elysées looks charming and verdant this morning in comparison to what they did yesterday.
Madame de Triqueti—Madame Mohl—Mrs. Erskine, Miss Stirling, Lady Eastlake have called already—and I hear all round of people who are, (in polite phrase) “dying to make my acquaintance”—so I shall probably have more society and amusements than I care for.
Text: Anna Jameson: Letters and Friendships, ed. Mrs. Steuart Erskine (London, 1915), pp. 262–263.
___________________
