3243. Robert Bulwer Lytton to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 204–206.
[Florence]
Aug 4. 1853
My dear Mrs Browning
Many many thanks for your kind letter; and very many apologies for this so tardy reply. I am quite of your opinion as to the nature of the spirits, I do not see any ground for supposing them to be other than human. At the same time the secret of Heaven is just as closely kept as before. They—the human spirits themselves,—and all that one gathers from them of the after-human state—are but pale reflexions and simulacra of this bodily humanity, and tangible world … far less vivid and wholesome and thorough—than any thing one sees here. Of that inexpressible deliciousness which “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive” [1] one hears nothing. It would seem that Deity had outcreated itself and exhausted all its fertility here, so that all the other works of God were bad self-plagyrisms [sic]. This is very disheartening & unsatisfactory.
At the same time it is true that all stages in Creation seem gradual—and after all, it is possible that the after state of man, may not be so widely different from his present one, as one hopes & expects it to be. But I dont like the idea. What you say as to the inadequacy of the Communications is certainly exceedingly striking. The trunk-ladies who paint with their teeth, or their shoulder-blades, have left no fine works I believe. But then, one asks, “Why then so clumsy a machinery?” After all one can assert nothing. This may only be the crude and semi-grotesque beginning, like the hieroglyphics and picture writing, as the first splutter of a child, before he has got beyond nouns substantive. I think we must wait—which I do with great faith in the ultimate result– I am inclined, for my own part to doubt the existance [sic] of pure absolute spirit, properly so called—at any rate below Deity. Now if spirit, as we conceive it, be no more than the subtlest and sublimest modification of matter, as refined in comparison to electricity, and light, as these are to pigment and clay, what follows? that by an accurate and universal knowledge of the laws of matter, and of its highest developments, we shall at last arrive at spirit. That is why I have great hope in the material activity of the Age. Who can say where the Railways may roll us to? As electricity was, until, to a certain extent, captured and tamed by science, and made to do work for man,—an impalpable and useless element—a sort of mad demon, frisking in thunderstorms, .. so perhaps the science of spiritualism may in the end enable us to establish some satisfactory and wholesome communication, with that rarest material element which we call spirit, and engage it, also, to great human uses, holding it in control and obedience by a knowledge of its own laws.
Certainly if there was ever a time for a new Revalation [sic] and Evangel, now is the day. It seems to me that here are all the symptoms, that preceeded [sic] the Xian Era, and then, as now, the world seemed used up—for who would have thought that Philosophy could go beyond Socrates, or that Civilization shd issue from the forrests [sic] of the North?
It seems to me that Mind has had plenty of fair play—but matter not yet. Matter must be brought up to the level of spirit, as the body is to rise with the soul. Form has never been strong enough yet to contain and fit, idea; the wine has burst the bottles. That is, I think why there have been so many churches and so few Xians. I have written to my father, begging him not to desist without reaching some result. I think that a few years more will bring about wonders.
You can scarcely conceive how oppressive the heat is here; nothing but flies mosquitos and vexation of spirit. I should rejoice were I able to get away for a week, & avail myself of your most kind and delicious invitation; but my Chef is away, & I have only one colleague, [2] & cant throw every thing on his shoulders. Scarlett is at the Bagni; I am most grateful for the kind letter you have written me, and all the encouragement therein contained.
My warmest love to dear little Penny, whom I expect to look like the infant Herclules [sic] when I next see him, after his Donkey & fresh air. Pray always send me some news of him– I am much fonder of Children than I seem, because I am always painfully shy with them. I have no news & can only add an old truth, that I am your affect & faithful friend
R∙B Lytton
Pray remember me to the Storries.
Will you tell Browning, that I have recvd and am most thankful for his last kind letter, & that I am going to write to him to morrow.
R∙B∙L
Can you read this?
My pen is between a scythe & a broomstick.
The m∙s. reached me quite safely. [3] A thousand thanks for it.
Address, on integral page: Mrs Browning / Casa Tolomei / (alla Villa) / Bagni di Lucca.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 34–37.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Cf. I Corinthians 2:9.
2. Henry Philip Fenton (d. 1907, aged 86), attaché at the British Legation since 17 May 1852. He had served as private secretary to Henry Bulwer at Madrid, Washington, and Florence (see The Foreign Office List for 1857, p. 53). Lytton provides his last name at the end of letter 3255. The other attaché at Florence (other than Lytton), Henry Drummond Wolff, had been recalled to the Foreign Office in June 1853 and left for England in the latter part of July.
3. The poems requested in the penultimate paragraph of letter 3236.
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