Correspondence

4066.  Robert Bulwer Lytton & Isa Blagden to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 166–169.

[Postmark: 3 October 1857]

My dear Mrs Browning.

Your last letter to Isa made us all very sad & anxious by its distressing news: and every day since then, dear Isa has been on the point of starting for the Baths, till yesterday when Major Gillum arrived with good tidings & the assurance that little Penini is better—& going on well. This is a great comfort to us to know, and I do trust that you may not be detained much longer at the baths .. at least by any cause so sad as that wh made our absence from you, all the more vexatious to think of.

Who do you think appeared here at tea last night? Who but the Storeys who were passing that one night in Florence, to return this morning to Sienna.

I made Storey tell me all about the Spirits in America, & kept him talking in a corner all the Evg—much to the disgust of Isa—who was obliged to be Civil to Mrs S– in the meanwhile–

Story told me that he had written you an acct of his experiences till up to almost the last few seances; [1] so I suppose that there is nothing wh he told me, which you will not have already heard in full detail from him. But Isa says that there are some parts of Storey’s acct of last night, wh she is sure you do not know, & begs me to report them. I am rather puzzled as to what is likely to prove new to you, but as I suppose it will be the last of his experiences wh you have not heard, I give this at the risk of recapitulating stale news:——

The Seance being in a dark room, an iron-bound table weighing 93 lbs was lifted up in the air, turned topsy-turvy—& then whirled round & round its own axis as it were, as tho’ on a pivot,—this in the air so that the wind made by the win[n]owing movement of the table, fanned the faces of the Company sitting round it, and who had first been directed by the Medium [2] to draw back their chairs from the table, that in descendg it might not hurt any one.

S. says that it descended with great violence.

The next manifestation that I remember, is exceedingly striking, because the darkened room has so often been adduced both by sceptics & disbelievers as an aid to producing the phenomena by ordinary escamotage. [3]

Whereas, in this case, the fact of the room being completely dark, doubles the difficulties wh must have surrounded any human agencies in the production of the manifestations wh Storey relates.

He says that a large hickory stick, several inches in girth, with a heavy bludgeon head to it, was taken from a corner of the room & struck with such violence agst the table, as wd, in his opinion have broken any ordinary table.

The spirit then, speaking thro’ the throat of the Medium, but with a voice, say Story, indescribably horrible, & wh it is impossible to imitate, addressed one of the party thus:–

Sp. I say, Eldridge! [4]

E. Yes.

Sp. Can you tell me where your violin is?

E. Yes it’s lying on the bed at the other end of the room.

Sp. G_____d d_____n your eyes, you lie you b_____y Vil[l]ain it’s under your own nose. (Here, a sound of the violin being thrown upon the table– And Mr E putting out his hand perceives that it is lying on the table before him.)

Spirit. Now Eldridge, are you quite sure where the violin is?

E. Yes it is here.

Sp You lie, you infernal scoundrel, it is on the bed!

(Violin instantaneously disappears & is found on the bed).

Sp. Well, do you think you can tell where it is now?

E. No. On the bed I suppose.

S. Why, you d_____d fool its about your ears.

(Spirit knocks Mr E about the ears with the violin).

After this the whole of the persons present were told to put their hands on the table, spreading out the fingers thus Illus. —and the table was sharply knocked on the inters[t]ices thus left between the fingers of each hand[,] the knocks following each other with extraordinary rapidity, and being made, (I forgot to say) with the hickory stick above mentioned.

Then the following dialogue Storey recounts–

Sp. Story, are you afraid of me?

Story. No.

Sp. Well then hold your head steady.

(Story is then quickly & sharply touched (but not so as to be hurt) by the hickory stick on the point of the nose. (as a button on a fencing jacket touched by a foil)

Sp. Guess I touched you on the nose. Now then keep steady & I[’]ll touch you under the right eye (done) and now under the left eye– (done) Now, Story put up your right hand to your ear.

Story—puts up his left by mistake–

Spirit G_____d d_____n you I told you to put up your right. (Spirit begins to thrash Storey with the Stick. Story remonstrates & Spirit apologi[z]es.) (All this in the dark observe)

The Spirit then declares himself to be Peter Gibbs the Pirate. [5] He relates the circumstances of his past life in characteristic language– The narration of his various crimes throws him into a state of violent excitement—in wh he exclaims with a great many unmentionable oaths … “G_____d alive I shd like to kill you all—but I cant—I’m not allowed–” He states that he is now in a most wretched & fallen condition—that he suffers agony—(apparently moral) “I have covered myself with blood,” he says “& it wont come off me—do what I will.”

He says he has made continual but quite ineffectual struggles to better himself– In the midst of these confessions he falls to praying for help &c & while the prayer is proceeding—he breaks suddenly out in laughing, cursing, swearing, & expressing his desire to kill every one present—upsets chairs & tables, & makes the devil’s own to-do in the room, whereupon the company declare that he is not fit for decent society, conjure him to be off, or else keep quiet—& as he continues restive, open the door & let in the light, when the room becomes suddenly silent: this spirit having from the first declined all manifestations in the light.

Story also gave me a description of the spiritual drawings—but you may have heard this already & at any rate this letter is already long enough.

God bless you all & believe me

Your ever aff

RBL

PS. Will you ask Browning to get my ‘In Memoriam’ [6] from Mr Greene, before he leaves the baths, shd he have a chance of so doing–

[Continued by Isa Blagden]

Did Mr Browning ever receive a letter from me—? I wrote one to him just before Lytton’s–

You will see our letters crossed– I hope you are all going on well. We went to the Cocomero [7] last night—& took Frolic!!!! [8] tell Penini—he liked it so much– Lytton did not go to the Kinneys with us he went to the W.s! [9]

Address, in Lytton’s hand: Bagni di Lucca / Mrs Browning / à la Villa / Bains de Lucques / la Toscane.

Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 140–144.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. This letter is not extant, but EBB may have briefly described it in letter 3800: “I have had another letter from Mr. Story, consisting of six sheets & confirmatory of the spirits– He has had a medium walking in the air over his head … table floating in like way.”

2. Unidentified.

3. “Conjuring.”

4. Sic, for Eldredge; one of Emelyn Story’s five brothers (see letter 3734, note 6).

5. i.e., Charles Gibbs (alias James Jeffreys), an American pirate, who was hanged on 22 April 1831 at Ellis Island, New York, after being found guilty of mutiny and murder. While awaiting execution, he dictated the story of his adventures, confessing to hundreds of murders (see Mutiny and Murder: Confession of Charles Gibbs, Providence, Rhode Island, 1831).

6. The poem by Alfred Tennyson; see letter 2859, note 5.

7. “Watermelon,” a theatre, later (1860) re-named “Teatro Niccolini,” on Via del Cocomero (now Via Ricasoli), next to the Duomo.

8. Isa Blagden’s dog, a King Charles spaniel (see letter 2836, note 14).

9. Fleetwood Wilson and his wife, Harriet (see letter 3427, note 5).

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