Correspondence

3232.  EBB to Isa Blagden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 185–187.

Casa Tolomei, Alla Villa, Bagni di Lucca–

July 23. [1853] [1]

I deserve another scold for this other silence, dearest Isa– Scold as softly as you can! We have been in uncertainty about leaving Florence .. where to go for the summer .. and I did not like to write till I could tell you where to write to me. Now we are “fixed,” as our American friends would say. We have taken this house for three months .. a larger house than we need .. we have a row of plane trees before the door in which the cicale sing all day, & the beautiful mountains stand close around keeping us fresh with shadows. Penini thinks he is in Eden—at least he does’nt think otherwise. We have a garden & an arbour, and the fireflies light us up at nights. With all this, I am sorry for Florence– Florence was horribly hot, & pleasant notwithstanding. We hated cutting the knot of friends we had there .. bachelor friends, Isa, who came to us for coffee & smoking! I was gracious & permitted the cigar, (as you were not present)—and there were quantities of talk, controversy & confidences evening after evening. One of our very favourite friends, Frederick Tennyson is gone to England, or was to have gone, for three months. Mr Lytton had a reception on the terrace of his villa at Bellosguardo the evening before our last in Florence, and we were all bachelors together there, & I made tea, & we ate strawberries & cream & talked spiritualism through one of the pleasantest two hours that I remember. Such a view! Florence dissolving in the purple of the hills,—& the stars looking on. Mr Tennyson was there, Mr Powers, & M. Villeri, [2] an accomplished Sicilian, besides our young host & ourselves. How we ‘set down’ Faraday for his “arrogant and insolent letter,” and what stories we told, and what miracles we swore to! Oh—we are believers here, Isa .. except Robert, who persists in wearing a coat of respectable scepticism .. so considered .. though it is much out of elbows, & ragged about the skirts. If I am right, you will none of you be able to disbelieve much longer—a new law, or a new development of law, is making way everywhere. We have heard much—more than I can tell you in a letter. Imposture is absolutely out of the question, to speak generally—and unless you explain the phenomena by “a personality unconsciously projected” (which requires explanation of itself), you must admit the spirit-theory. As to the simpler forms of the manifestation, (it is all one manifestation) the “turning-tables,” I was convinced long before Faraday’s letter, that many of the amateur performances were from involuntary muscular action—but what then? These are only imitations of actual phenomena. Faraday’s letter does not meet the common fact of tables being moved & lifted, without the touch of a finger. It is a most arrogant letter & singularly inconclusive. Tell me any facts you may hear. Mr Kinney, the American Minister at the court of Turin, had arrived at Florence a few days before we quitted it, & he & his wife helped us to spend our last evening at Casa Guidi. He is cultivated & high minded– I like him much; & none the less that he brings hopeful accounts of the state of Piedmont .. of the progress of the people & good persistency of the King. It makes one’s heart beat with the sense that all is not over with our poor Italy.

I am glad you like Frederick Tennyson’s poems– [3] They are full of atmospherical poetry .. & very melodious. The poet is still better than the poems—so truthful, so direct, such a reliable Christian man. Robert & I quite love him– We very much appreciate, too, young Lytton your old friend– He is noble in many ways, I think, and affectionate– Moreover he has an incontestable faculty in poetry, and I expect great things from him as he ripens into life & experience– Meanwhile he has just privately printed a drama called ‘Clytemnestra,’ [4] too ambitious, because after Æschylus, but full of promise indeed. We are hoping that he will come down & see us in the course of our rustication at the Baths, & occupy our spare bedroom–

Madame Tassinari has vanished into thin air, Isa! The place that knew her knows her no more. She is never seen anywhere– The festas of San Giovanni [5] could not evoke her even as a phantom.– As to Mr Turner .. his Hebrew was Chinese to you, do you say?– But, dear, he is strong in veritable Chinese besides! And one evening he nearly assassinated me with the analysis, chapter by chapter, of a Japanese novel. Mr Lytton, who happened to be a witness, swore that I grew paler & paler, & not with sympathy for the heroine. He is a miraculously vain man .. which rather amused me .. &, for the rest, is full of information, yes, & of kindness, I think– He gave me a little black profile of you which gives the air of your head, & is so far valuable to me. As to myself, indeed, he has rather flattered me than otherwise, .. I don’t complain, I assure you. How could I complain of a man who compares me to Isaiah—under any circumstances?

How good you are, dear Isa! but your little charge [6] (give her my love) will recompense you, I do trust. Dont stay at Rome till you are ill, that’s all. Presently we shall ask you to see about rooms for us as near you as you can, for we must (if alive) be in Rome this winter. God bless you! Robert’s love with that of your ever affectionate & faithful Ba–

EBB—

Think of our surprise when Mr & Mrs Story ran into the room for our first visitors here! How charmed you wd have been! [7] No, indeed, I never charged you with illnature by a thought even! I may be mistaken. I have seen very little, you know. Certainly my impressions were different. That’s all I can say.

Miss Cushman passed through Florence running to our vexation. We saw her only a quarter of an hour. I hope to know Mrs Brotherton.

Address, on integral page: Mademoiselle Blagden / Via Gregoriana. 13. / Roma. / sedo piano.

Publication: B-IB, pp. 35–38.

Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.

1. Year provided by postmark.

2. Sic, for Villari.

3. See letter 3207, note 13.

4. The poem was heavily revised and published in Clytemnestra, The Earl’s Return, The Artist, and Other Poems (1855) under Lytton’s pseudonym Owen Meredith.

5. The feast of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence, is commemorated on 24 June in a number of traditional celebrations.

6. Louisa Alexander; see letter 3076, note 4.

7. EBB’s use of the word “charmed” is ironic, as Isa disliked Mrs. Story.

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