SD2952. Sarianna Browning to Joseph Milsand
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 379 (in part).
19. Warwick Crescent.
Monday– [Postmark: 20 January 1868]
My dear Friend,
Your letters are always a great delight to me—always most interesting—and you are the only person to whom I willingly write. I grow a worse correspondent every day. When your letter came my first impulse was to answer it immediately, and I was obliged to impose on myself that I should not do so till I had written a letter which I ought to have despatched long ago—(to Mme Dumangin, to whom I am forced to write intensely stupid letters in very indifferent French)[.] Now my task is performed, I am ready for a gossip with you. The weather is warm and wet, and I like you, have caught a bad cold which has kept me in the house for a few days. Robert is bilious, and unwell. I begin to think his rising at five o’clk in the morning, and taking a shower bath, is too much for him—he does not get sleep enough. He is correcting the proof-sheets of his new edition—Smith has paid him the money– This is a sort of interruption to the new poem. Pen flourishes—is out rowing in every kind of weather—yesterday in a tremendous rain-storm—yet seems none the worse for it. He goes back to Oxford in a day or two. The time for your visit will then be drawing near. You know how we look forward to it. London appears to me uglier day by day. I am not reconciled to it. I long for the summer when I shall escape from its wearyfulness. Mrs Archer Gurney is to me utterly incomprehensible—how a woman with a mother, husband, three babies, plenty of friends and a beautiful apartment, can ever complain, or even find the time sufficiently long, seems more than I can understand. I should think the only danger would be that Life would be too dear and too engrossing with so many springs of happiness. Thanks for paying my debt: the price is so small that it is a wonder what the jeweller can have done for the money—the setting was of curious workmanship. I suppose he has not been such a goose as to change it: but it is of no consequence, as I do not attach any particular value to the ring. I am glad dear Mme Louis is well. This morning I heard from Miss Ryan—she has seen this summer more of her old friends than usual—she describes the cold as intense in Paris—it was far from that in London—no water froze indoors, nor any cistern-pipes.
I have no doubt but that Claire acquits herself very well, and does credit to your teaching—but I do believe, as you suggest, (though I am sure it is not so with you) that very often much egotism and personal vanity mix themselves with parental feelings. Poor human nature!
We are obliged to change the house of our Refuge, and the matron is going to be married—which is a great loss to us. The owl is well, but grows occasionally vicious. How is your little bird? We shall have so much to say when we see each other! Dear friend, what a delight it will be to me!
All at home send their best love. This is a hasty letter, but you are always indulgent. My kind love to Claire.
Always your affectionate
S.B.
Address: France / Monsieur Milsand, / 31, rue Perronet. / Neuilly. / près Paris.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Joseph Milsand Archive.
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