3245. Robert Bulwer Lytton to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 209–210.
[Florence]
Aug. 9. 1853.
My dear B.
I owe you countless apologies for not having sooner answered your last letter. I have been very hard at work, and this is the first spare moment I have had.
Yes, I understand what you say as to the spirits. Yet were I to ask the closest observer to tell me the secret closest to my heart, I doubt if any quiver of the lip, or motion of the eye, would greatly help him to the truth, and it is [to] be observed that such sign of emotion could only take place, after the question had been rightly answered, as before that, there is no apparent reason why the questioner, should be startled into any demonstration. What to me is so unsatisfactory in all these communications, is that they shd so deal with the trifles of this world, and leave us as much in the dark, as to the next, but I cannot conceive it possible that the ideas and sensations of the spiritual state may adapt themselves to no known, word-symbols, which we now possess, as—if I were born deaf, how could any one make me conceive of music, and the sensations produced by it, and as we have some thoughts so intangible that when we have put them into words, we find, that the words, however carefully chosen, dont express them, but something else quite different; It is just possible that from these “low beginnings” we may at last draw up our minds to a new capability of receiving ideas, and that, then, the Revelation will be completed. As when one is first acquainted with some great poet, or thinker, one does not at once begin to talk poetry, or philosophy, but after long habit of intercourse, we begin to see things with his eyes, and hear them with his ears, and then the poetry & philosophy, flow naturally from him to us; he has imperceptably raised us up to his own height; till then, there can be no true communication between us, for our lower point of sight would mislead our judgment.
This is only guess work.
The cool weather has come at last, but I hope the summer is not all over. I look forward to a great pleasure, in coming to see you at the Baths, sooner or later, as you are so very kind as to take me in that way. I trust that you are getting on grandly with the work you have in hand. [1] I am waiting anxiously for its publication. I am rejoiced, too, that we shall have some “lyrics[.”] For longer works, rest on the mind with a general effect, & we can only retain fragments, but these beautify our daily thoughts. I hear we are to have peace and that the Empr has accepted the proposition of the Powers. [2] peace—but for how long–? Qui lo sa? [3]
Ever your very faithful and sincere,
R B∙L
Forgive my paper–
No paper—& no sealingwax!
Love to Penny–
Address: Franco distino / Monsr / Monsr Browning / Casa Tolomejo / Bagni (alla Villa) / Bagni di Lucca.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 37–39.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. The poems that would constitute Men and Women.
2. The “Powers”—England, France, Prussia, and Austria—had been negotiating with Russia over her occupation of the Danubian Principalities, a violation of Turkish territory. The lead editorial in The Times of 8 August 1853 confirmed Lytton’s statement but with reservations: “We understand that a telegraphic despatch has been received by Her Majesty’s Government from Vienna, from which it appears that the Emperor of Russia has accepted the propositions of the Four Powers. … At the same time, after the repeated alternations and disappointments which have occurred in the course of this question, we cannot place entire confidence in any declaration of the Russian Government until it has been followed by positive and immediate compliance with the terms proposed. As long as the Russian armies continue to occupy any portion of the Turkish territory, a flagrant infraction of the public law of Europe has been committed, and the arrangement to which Russia is now understood to accede must, of course, include an entire and immediate cessation of a state of things which is utterly inconsistent with the independence of the East and the peace of Europe” (p. 6).
3. “Who knows?”
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