SD2504. Isa Blagden to Margherita Albana-Mignaty
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 308 (in part).
[Lee, Kent]
[ca. 25 August 1861] [1]
My dear Maga,
I hope this letter will find you better than you were when I left Florence. I sent your parcel by the Parcels Delivery for I only passed through London and came straight to my friend Mrs Brice who has only just been confined. [2] She has been married and has three babies since I last saw her. I say three babies for they are all in prams though the eldest is two years and a half. I have done nothing but rest since my arrival a fortnight today—for I was quite knocked up and ill. I have seen very few people yet for this place is out of the way and many of my friends are absent but next week I go to town for a few days and then I shall see them. A lady (Miss Adelaide Procter) asked me if I knew any gentleman artist who would allow a lady to study painting in his studio—I told her that Madame Du Quaire (her mother’s intimate friend) had had the privilege of painting in your husband’s studio but I did not know whether he would permit a stranger to do so. At all events I recommended her applying to Madme Du Quaire. The lady’s name is Miss Leigh Smith. If Mons. Villari is still in Florence will you tell him I am expecting his letter of criticism. Will you ask him where John Stuart Mill is and if he could give me a letter of introduction to him. He could say I was an intimate friend of Mr Browning, and of that angel who is gone. I hope I shall see Mr Mignaty’s sketch of Casa Guidi in the Illustrated News–
Remember me to the Duchess Cesarini when you write to her. I was so sorry not to have seen her again but when I return to Florence which if I live will be next year I hope to improve my acquaintance with her. Do you know if Mdme Peruzzi has got some more names to the petition for the tablet in Ste Croce—the Governor Pauli wrote a very kind note to Mdme Matteucci about it. When you write address for the present care of Miss Ellen Alexander Stone House nr Broadstairs Kent as I am quite unsettled & change my address every week but I hope that in Sept I shall be settled. Excuse this shabby letter but I could not send to Florence without a line to you. Love to Aspa[sia] & kind regards to Mr Mignaty. Yours affly Isa
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
1. Dated by Isa’s reference to having been in England two weeks; she left Paris on the 10th and presumably arrived in London on the 11th.
2. Henry Tremeine Brice, born 6 August 1861 (d. 1931). Older children were Alice Louisa (1858–1915) and Arthur Harrison (1860–1906). A fourth child was Maud Laurence Isa (1862–1954).
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