SD2157. Sarianna Browning to Joseph Milsand
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 347 (in part).
151, rue de Grenelle St Gn
Monday Mg [10 May 1858] [1]
My dear Mr Milsand,
I hope you said to yourself, as soon as you saw the handwriting of this letter, something excessively complimentary to me for thus writing out of my turn, because I humbly think I deserve it. You will like to know that I have just heard from Italy,—that Ba’s health is better, and best of all, they still hope to be able to spend a couple of months in Paris this summer. I give you their exact words: Robert says “I begin with my best news,—that Ba is better, decidedly, I venture to believe: her eye was much inflamed when I wrote last—none the less, that she had tried three or four infallible remedies of people’s suggesting: at last, a lotion with opium did it good, & now it is all right, though not absolutely well. Her general health was very unsatisfactory indeed—the weakness was excessive: then, when the fine weather, & time for recovery in the open air, came—the inflamed eye threw her back for ten days & more. Dr Harding happened to look in, & was struck by her evident weakness– I got her to consult him (having tried in vain to let him be called in earlier) & he said she had been very foolish to go on so long without advice, & she has been taking his remedies & going out daily. I can only say, nothing has been decided yet but one thing—that we still go to Paris, if we can, for a couple of months,—not to London. We talked it over two days ago, and Ba expressed far more anxiety to go and see you than I did. Just now, it would be impossible to set out; when we called at a friend’s door yesterday, Ba could not descend from the carriage: but if she gains strength we will do our utmost to go.” Ba writes a very long letter in very good spirits: scolds Robert for having written to frighten me: says it all comes of letting him “go alone,” & write letters by himself—that he is always in extremes; if she doesn’t complain, he fancies she is capable of riding on a camel to Jerusalem through fifteen days’ journey of desert; and if she does complain, thinks it is all over, and that there’s not a chance of getting to Paris even by railroad. She confesses, though, that she have [sic] been very unwell, the whole nervous system prostrated, and the inflamed eye confined her to a dark room for ten days, unable to look in a book. Dr Harding gives her quinine & steel, and she has every hope of getting stronger. May God grant it! She tells me Penini’s concert went off magnificently: the report was that he had been ‘molto bravo’ and ‘the people clapped’: she adds “little Pen went to his triumph with no more fear than Thalberg would have done [sic, for gone] to his; but the fuss he made about his white gloves, was another sort of thing.”
Now as I don’t intend to take up another sheet of paper (there is something else that I ought to be doing) I must shorten this gossip. Robert is not in very good health; nervous & bilious: says he has not yet been able to see your article, but shall soon: hopes to hear you are going on writing, and sends his truest love to you: tells me there is a good article on Ba just out in the Rivista di Firenze, which he shall try & send me.
Good bye for the present. I am in a great hurry. How bitterly cold the weather has been, and still continues! I think of your vines. I have not seen Miss Blackwell since I wrote. My father would have sent his remembrance had he been here; but he started after breakfast to discover where some road, beyond the barrière de Fontainebleau, leads to, and no doubt, at this moment is miles off.
Ever yours most truly,
Sarianna Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.
1. Dating based on the receipt of EBB & RB’s letter to Sarianna, postmarked 6 May 1858. 10 May 1858 was the following Monday.
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