4031. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 122–124.
La Villa. Bagni di Lucca. Toscana.
August 24. [1857] [1]
Dearest Fanny, what thoughts have you had of me since you wrote last, or perhaps before– Isa Blagden received your letter in the midst of boxes packed & packing as she was almost in the very act of following us here from Florence. She was rather made to come than was desirous of coming—but let me take up my story farther back.
We lingered & lingered in Florence, you know—by “we” meaning Robert & me– At last on hearing of a good house at these Baths we wrote to take it for three months & prepared to set out .. when lo, down from the skies, (a god to make a knot instead of cutting it) dropped Robert Lytton [2] .. down from the skies into our purgatory of Florence where we were burning & frizzling– Burn as we might, we could’nt leave him immediately—and we tawdled on a week longer, listening at evenings on the villa terrace to the beautiful poems he brought with him, read in his melodious voice, .. & gasping for breath the rest of the time. Oh—the heat was tremendous. At last we could bear it no longer & left them all– Observe, Lytton was staying at the villa.
A week afterwards the villa people followed us– Lytton feeling himself affected by the heat (to which so perfectly unacclimated he exposed himself imprudently) urged Isa, and Annette urged Isa,—& so they all came together, & deposited themselves—for a month in the hotel close to us– Lytton was to study Italian & prepare his poems for the press, & there were to be riding parties & driving parties and picnics in all the chesnut-woods—so we dreamed. But from the first day, came the misfortune– Poor Lytton was struck down by the fever he had had in him since Florence, & we have been in the greatest grief & anxiety about him ever since. Else I should have answered long ago the note which came inside the letter to Isa. Dear, we had great fears for him. Robert sate up eight nights,—and Isa, who has been utterly devoted, sate up eight nights by herself, & all the other nights & days in effect, till the wonder to me is how she is alive, & not only a little worn & thin. At last, a hired nurse was called—but the nurse does’nt exclude the friend, as you may suppose. The fever was never very high,—but there seemed so little resisting force in the constitution that the physician prepared us for the worst—the patient seemed sinking– I thank God, things have changed since then. He is confined to his bed still, & very weak & much changed—but the danger is passed, and he is able to take wine & chicken, every day making him stronger.
So this is my history, this my reason for not having written before. Otherwise you should have heard me sigh that I should have “made you feel” ..... It was my fault, not yours. I am horribly morbid—unnaturally morbid people think sometimes. If you had understood without being told, it would have been strange. As for you, who have always been kind & affectionate to me, you may be sure that I have never ceased to know it & feel it– And so, enough–
Go on to tell me (apart from that subject) what you hear & observe in respects to the spirits.
Hume was five nights out of the seven every week with the emperor– Lytton heard it from Lord Cowley, & at his table from General Fleury [3] Louis Napoleon’s aid-de camp. Miss Crossman [4] had a letter from Hume lately– He had rooms at St Cloud—was suffering in the chest, .. from cough .. had not quarrelled with the Braniskis, [5] & talked of coming with them to Italy this winter on account of his health, if they came. The manifestations became more extraordinary, but “his tongue was tied in relation to what happened in the emperor’s presence.” (From Hume’s letter.) The spiritual forms are actually seen now. It seems to me that these physical manifestations are infinitely the more conclusive; & that the Geneva movement should be deficient in them, leaves me less interested in it. [6]
Take care, dearest Fanny– I am afraid for you. It is playing with fire. If I were you I would leave that house at least, on every account: if it were only on account of your tranquillity of mind, I would avoid the relation with that particular medium whom you hold in some evident suspicion.
I would be better here if I had been calmer. As it is, the mountains & the forests are jarred in doing their best for me. Mrs Jameson was at Sienna when I heard from her last—and she too talked of coming to Lucca. Isa hopes to get away in ten days with her train—but I doubt Lytton’s being able to move in that short time–
Peni at least has rejoiced in being here– He is very happy riding donkies, bathing in the river, playing in the garden, & gossipping with the whole population–
Now do write, & tell me all about yourself– I am anxious to hear. May God bless you–
Your ever affectionate Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Robert Lytton’s illness.
2. EBB alludes to “deus ex machina,” a theatrical device of the ancient Greeks, effected by the appearance of a god lowered by a machine, as if from the sky.
3. Comte Émile Félix Fleury (1815–84), aide-de-camp and first equerry to Napoleon III, was made brigadier general in 1856. Fleury later served as envoy extraordinary to Florence (1866) and ambassador to Russia (1869); see Souvenirs du Général Cte Fleury (2nd ed., 1897), I, 422.
4. Anne Crossman; see letter 3711, note 4.
5. Sic, for Branickis; see letter 3744, note 12.
6. The phenomenon of “spiritual forms” as visible evidence differed from spiritualism currently in vogue among believers in Geneva and elsewhere; that is, a rapping and table-turning spiritualism. The “Geneva movement” was debunked by Home in Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism (1877, pp. 204–216). As Home explains it, in 1853–56, séances of “table tipping” were conducted in several places, but especially in the “staid city of Calvin.” In cases of extreme “delusion,” the “dupes” insisted that the “Messiah Himself” was present in the table and giving explicit instructions on whom to marry, where to invest money, etc.
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