3270. Robert Bulwer Lytton to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 301–302.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 28 September 1853]
Dear Mrs Browning,
I have really been so continually busy since my return to Florence, that I have not had a moment my own. I have not however been idle about my commission. [1] I have been all over the Via Maggio & Piazza Sta Maria Antonio, [2] & other places, but without success as yet. To day I hope to hear something positive: there are appartments to be had near ye Via Maggio, wh I think wd do, with a Garden—all very nice; but the people make great difficulties & the Padrone, not being at Florence, I can only negociate by correspondence. I hope to hear definitely abt it to day. It is almost impossible to get anything for 3 weeks or even a month; at this season. I think, failing the House near the Via Maggio that I cd get a good appartement in the Piazza Sta Maria Antonio very cheap, but it has the disadvantage of distance. Pray ask the Stories whether faut[e] de mieu[x] [3] they wd be inclined to take it. By to morrows post I will send all particulars; I have been so pressed for time that I thought it better not to write till I cd send some satisfactory news. I assure you I am neither dead nor sleeping[.] [4] I red B’s kindest of notes: for wh pray give him all cordial thanks from me, & many apologies for silence. I have numberless things to say & no time to say them all. Miss Cuninghame, who, Scarlett, says, is “assuming European proportions” keeps us all hard at work. I am so glad that you have fairly got over the fatigue of our great Hegiura [5] —for it has weighed on my mind to think our pleasure was your suffering. I have no words to say the void wh the absence from all of you makes in my heart or the affection with which I look back to those happy days spent at Casa Tolommeo– I hope that you will understand all wh the choicest chosen language must leave untold. Florence is yet warm, but I dread the approach of Winter, not even to be sweent [6] by your presence here– I hope you will come soon & add to my abode new associations of happiness by frequent comings there, before “blood is nipt & ways all foul & nightly sings the starring owl”. [7] I think it right to say that Scarlett has done every thing wh man cd do in this affair of Miss C. & conducted the whole exceedingly well. By the way, the Normanby’s whom I saw t’other day, seemed to be very desirous of making your acquaintance[.] They sd they knew your father well in Jamaica, [8] & My Lady [9] was loud in Eulogiums of your genius to wh I was able to sing chorrus, for she sd that you were the greatest English Poetess; and I sd the only one since Sappho. Good bye dear Mrs Browning, & pray believe in the warm & faithful affection of your sincerest RBL.
Pray assure the Stories of my alacrity in their cause. & thank B again & again, & say all kind things, also my best love to Peny, and How d’ye do to the Rabbits.–
Address: Mrs Browning– / Casa Tolommeo / Bagni alla Villa / Bagni di Lucca.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 50–52.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. To find temporary lodgings for the Storys.
2. The Piazza Maria Antonia, now Piazza dell’Indipendenza (see letter 2731, note 8).
3. “For want of better.”
4. Cf. Cymbeline, IV, 2, 356.
5. Sic, for Hegira. Lytton playfully refers to the excursion to Prato Fiorito.
6. Sic, apparently for “sweetened.”
7. Cf. Love’s Labor’s Lost, V, 2, 916–917.
8. The Normanbys would have known EBB’s uncle Samuel Moulton-Barrett rather than her father. Normanby, then the 2nd Earl of Mulgrave, served as governor of Jamaica from 1832 to 1834. Upon his arrival he appointed EBB’s uncle custos of St. Ann’s Parish (see R.A. Barrett, The Barretts of Jamaica, Winfield, Kansas, 2000, p. 85).
9. Maria (1798–1882), eldest daughter of Thomas Henry Liddell (1775–1855), first Baron Ravensworth, and his wife Maria Susannah (née Simpson, d. 1845), had married Constantine Henry Phipps, later 1st Marquess of Normanby, in 1818.
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