4025. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 112–113.
La Villa. Bagni di Lucca–
August 10– [1857] [1]
My ever dear friend,
I was about to write to you when you wrote, not being able to hold out longer without writing. And now you tell me you are not as well as when we parted? How is that?—how can it be? how ought it to be? Has the heat affected you, do you think?– Even here it was extreme for several days from eleven to five, but the mornings & the evenings have made Eden-days for us notwithstanding, & the nights have had a pure coolness. I feel stronger already, & shall be increasingly so I dare say. Indeed the great heat has probably passed with us; as during yesterday & today, the thunder has brought absolute coolness by day as well as night, and we find ourselves, (Robert & I), putting on thicker waistcoats & shutting the windows– The place refreshes the eyes & the soul with its green mountain-beauty. We have taken various romantic drives by moonlight & other kinds of light. Robert bathes in the river every morning, and I hope soon to be braced up to the point of donkey-rides on the hills– Moreover we have our friends at our elbow, Isa Blagden & Annette having established themselves at the hotel close by, & Robert Lytton being with them. The blot upon all, however, is, that he, probably from exposure at Florence, has been unwell .. suffering from a kind of sun stroke, & forced to have a physician & to keep to his bed for several days. Isa Blagden was very uneasy about him, & he himself talked of “never leaving Italy” in the bad sense,—but there was nothing alarming really, and today he is going out to drive—so that I hope we may count on the passing of this cloud– The Bellosguardo party [2] remains here for a month, & then their plans seem uncertain– We have rather a pretty house, with terraces & a beautiful garden, but too much in the village quite to please me. Little Peni is enchanted with everything—bathes in the river, rides on the donkies, & gossips with the contadini, .. ending all by dreaming frightfully of the serpents .. who infest the garden & penetrate frequently into the rooms. Four have been killed in the house already, in spite of Robert’s intercessions. On the other hand, we have no mosquitos, & I am content with the exchange– I have done no sort of work since coming here except in Peni’s lessons– I sit & dream & read Heine—and after five or six we go out to drive for three hours– A little I have heard of the spirits– Some one told me two days ago that her sleep here was disturbed by the patting & stroking of spiritual hands on her head [3] —and another [4] who had been four months in the house with Hume, told me of having repeatedly seen shadowy presences, vague outlines .. like a mist–
You will believe as much of this as I do of “conjugal felicity”– Nay, it is not that! for I do unfortunately believe in conjugal felicity .. which makes it all the worse to my mind to have to disbelieve what I disbelieve. Do not think me hard when I am only sorry. Sorry for human nature.
Write to me & say how you are, & what your plans are. Do you ever think of Lucca? Robert’s love & Peni’s–
And mine to dearest Moña Nina–
whose I am in true affection ever,
Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by EBB’s mentioning that Isa Blagden, Annette Bracken, and Robert Lytton are staying “at the hotel close by.”
2. i.e., Isa, Annette, and Lytton.
3. Perhaps a reference to Sophia Eckley (see letter 4040, note 2).
4. Either Major Charles Gregorie, Anne Crossman (née Oakes) or one of her daughters (see letter 3711, note 4). Gregorie and Mrs. Crossman are listed for this period in the subscription book of the English church at Bagni di Lucca. Daniel Dunglas Home stayed with them at their residence, Villa Colombaia, Bellosguardo, for two months from mid-December 1855 to mid-February 1856. In a letter to Arabella, EBB refers again to Home’s stay of “four months” with the Crossmans, whom she mentions by name ([24 March 1858], ms at Berg).
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