SD2793. Isa Blagden to Kate Field
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 342 (in part).
Villa Giglioni
Oct 27th [1865] [1]
My dear Kate
How long it is since I have written to you. Your last came when I was getting very anxious about poor Mrs Trollope which anxiety was justified by the event. Not many weeks afterwards I went to stay with her and never left her till her death. She died in my arms, I might say, though not actually but mine was the last voice she heard and the last hand she pressed in this world– When I saw that she was passing away I gave up my place to Mr Trollope—& stood a little behind him. I sat up with him that night and took Beatrice home with me the next morning and she remained with me till Anthony Trollope fetched her himself. She has been with him six months and has now returned to Florence looking so much better and stronger. Mr Trollope has taken a villa a very pretty one and he has engaged an excellent governess for her and I think and hope poor little girl that the best will be done by her & for her. Mr Trollope has got over his loss wonderfully as far as outward cheerfulness is considered but I should think that he must every day feel the blank in his life—his home is broken up for Beatrice cannot by any means for years to come make a home for him and by the time she is capable of doing so she will be carried off I suppose to a home of her own. Meanwhile he goes out a great deal dines out everywhere & in fact is the most répandu man in Florence.
After my nursing poor Mrs Trollope I was very much shaken and as soon as Beatrice had departed I went to Venice for a month. I enjoyed it thoroughly & entirely– No place has so completely enchanted me. If you see the Cornhills in the one for Octr, you will read a slight sketch of mine called A Holiday in Venice which will give you a faint faint idea of my rapture.
I never got the book you so kindly sent me dear Kate it was sent to the Cushmans to read first and they have never let me have it. It is still in Rome but I thank you all the same. Miss Cushman & Miss Stebbins have been staying with me the last ten days on their way back. Miss C looks much older & thinner. She has not been well & is altogether not in a satisfactory state but she is just as intense and as busy and as forcible as ever. I do not think she is happy. Mrs Cushman came with them but I could not house her & her baby & her two maids so she went to the Hotel de la Ville. She looked well—& I daresay will mellow into a clever woman some day but at present she is rather crude and a little pretentious I think.—
We have got quite a colony of Americans & English at Bellosguardo now & we are honoured by a post so that we are more civilised than we used to be. Mr Browning liked what he saw of Mrs Jarves very much. He says they are coming here. I hope he [Jarves] may not for people do not speak kindly of him & besides he ought not to be here under the same sky as Galle after all that has passed. Have you seen Mr Boott & Lizzie.
Give my fond remembrances to your Aunt & Mother & with love to yourself Believe me
Yours affly
Isa B.
Publication: Edward C. McAleer, “Isa Blagden to Kate Field,” Boston Public Library Quarterly, 3 (July 1951), pp. 215–216.
Manuscript: Boston Public Library.
1. Year provided by reference to the death of Theodosia Trollope (née Garrow), which occurred on 13 April 1865.
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