SD2150. Sarianna Browning to Joseph Milsand
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 345–346 (in part).
151, rue de Grenelle
April 23 [1858] [1]
My dear Mr Milsand,
Your letter this morning is the first thing that has given me the least bit of pleasure since your departure– I am happy to hear good accounts of yourself and your mother, and hope you will thoroughly enjoy your visit home—she must be delighted to have you with her; of course she spoils you, it is a fault incidental to women, and I only wonder you ever have courage to leave your nest.
I had a long unsatisfactory letter from Robert the day before yesterday; his wife’s health continues extremely weak; she had been out once or twice, caught cold, got an inflamed eye by sitting at a window (which prevented her from writing to me herself) and had been very poorly for some time past; not a cough, but great weakness, general debility, which is worse. One thing Robert has resolved upon, and regrets that he did not do it last year, to go to Egypt for the winter, and so escape it altogether– He does not say that they will not come to Paris this summer, but merely that at present she is utterly unable to travel across the street. This being the case, I really think it would be unwise for her to attempt the journey northward, and I have written to tell him so, and to say I accept the disappointment– Don’t be angry with me—you know whether I wish to see them or no—but I was struck by her changed appearance when she last passed through Paris,—since then the rapid deaths of her three nearest friends crushed her,—she never recovered her usual tone in the summer, and I can easily believe she finds herself exhausted.
I know Robert’s impetuous disposition so well that I am convinced if I were only to write in a certain tone,—to complain, for example, of his indifference, or neglect, or any other untrue accusation, he would set off at all hasards,—but I would much rather spare him the pain which I see it gives him to decline coming, and I myself have suggested it. He says he is longing to see me, with a thousand things to tell me, and I feel it is true. I mean one of these days to go to Italy. Papa wishes it, and I’ll try to manage it—but you must come too, remember. For the rest, I don’t think the globules have had the mollifying effect upon Robert’s temper which his wife anticipated, for he writes the most ferocious descriptions of the various weaknesses of his various friends, which made me laugh very heartily– I tell him I trace biliousness in the whole letter. Even his favourite sister-in-law Arabel comes in for a little of it—he says Arabel takes a ‘healthy’ house on the banks of a canal—her servant catches the typhus fever and dies,—that’s the first proof of it– The second is that a little cousin is attacked by another sort of fever a few weeks after, & is now very ill—all which proves the healthiness Arabel thinks.
I must not forget to tell you that Penini was going to make a grand display at a festa given by his music master to show off his pupils—he was to play all sorts of pieces, among others, a fantasia written by the master and dedicated to his own small self.
You are more indulgent to my country than I am—I am disgusted and indignant at Bernard’s acquittal—it must be mortifying to our ministers who tried hard for a conviction—as far as I could judge by the extracts, our newspapers in general have spoken of it with deserved blame. <***>
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.
1. Year provided by reference to the acquittal of Simon François Bernard on 17 April 1858.
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