65
" The country about here, though not romantic like Lucca, is very pretty, and our windows command sunsets and night winds. I have not stirred out yet after three weeks of it; you may suppose how reduced I must be. I could scarcely stand at one time. The active evil, however, is ended, and strength comes somehow or other. Robert has had the perfect goodness not only to nurse me, but to teach Peni, who is good too, and rides a pony just the colour of his curls, to his pure delight. Then we have books and newspapers, English and Italian — the books from Florence — so we do beautifully. "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
68
" Yet two evenings ago we hazarded going to a ‘reception’ at Lady Elgin’s, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and saw some French, but nobody of distinction. It is a good house, I believe, and she has an earnest face which must mean something. We were invited, and are invited to go every Monday, and that Monday in particular, between eight and twelve. You go in a morning dress, and there is tea. Nothing can be more sans façon, and my tremors (for, do you know, I was quite nervous on the occasion, and charged Robert to keep close to me) were perfectly unjustified by the event. You see it was an untried form of society — like trying a Turkish bath. I expected to see Balzac’s duchesses and hommes de lettres on all sides of me, but there was nothing very noticeable, I think, though we found it agreeable enough. "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
70
" But even in keeping the resolution there are necessary fatigues; and, do you know, I have not been well since our arrival in England. My first step ashore was into a puddle and a fog, and I began to cough before we reached London. The quality of the air does not agree with me, that’s evident. For nearly five years I have had no such cough nor difficulty of breathing, and my friends, who at first sight thought me looking well, must forbear all compliments for the future, I think, I get so much paler every day. "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
74
" Sorry I am at Mrs. —— falling short of your warm-hearted ideas about her! Can you understand a woman’s hating a girl because it is not a boy — her first child too? I understand it so little that scarcely I can believe it. Some women have, however, undeniably an indifference to children, just as many men have, though it must be unnatural and morbid in both sexes. Men often affect it — very foolishly, if they count upon the scenic effects; affectation never succeeds well, and this sort of affectation is peculiarly unbecoming, except in old bachelors, for there is a pathetic side to the question so viewed. For my part and my husband’s, we may be frank and say that we have caught up our parental pleasures "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
77
" My Peni has conquered his cold, and when the weather gets milder I shall let him out. Meanwhile he has taken to — what do you suppose? I go into his room at night and find him with a candle regularly settled on the table by him, and he reading, deeply rapt, an Italian translation of ‘Monte Cristo.’ Pretty well for a lion-cub, isn’t it? He is enchanted with this book, lent to him by our padrona; and exclaims every now and then, ‘Oh, magnificent, magnificent!’ And this morning, at breakfast, he gravely delivered himself to the following effect: ‘Dear mama, for the future I mean to read novels. I shall read all Dumas’s, to begin. And then I shall like to read papa’s favourite book, “Madame Bovary.”’ Heavens, what a lion-cub! Robert and I could only answer by a burst of laughter. It was so funny. That little dot of nine and a half full of such hereditary tendencies. And ‘Madame Bovary’ in a course of education!... "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
79
" Meanwhile, we have at last sent our letter (Mazzini’s) to George Sand, accompanied with a little note signed by both of us, though written by me, as seemed right, being the woman. We half despaired in doing this, for it is most difficult, it appears, to get at her, she having taken vows against seeing strangers in consequence of various annoyances and persecutions in and out of print, which it’s the mere instinct of a woman to avoid. I can understand it perfectly. Also, she is in Paris for only a few days, and under a new name, to escape from the plague of her notoriety. "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning