Correspondence

4946.  Robert Bulwer Lytton to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 200–202.

My very dear Browning–

I cannot leave Florence, and all that is forever so dear and so sad here, without turning to you whose absence has left nothing here that can make me wish to linger– I start to morrow for my post. How are you my own true friend? Be assured that wherever I may be the greater part of my heart will be with you. You will care perhaps to hear something of my visit to the Convents, from which I only returned last night—with feelings of such inexpressible horror and disgust that I feel powerless to give you any detailed account of the circumstances which have caused them.

As a tour, however, the journey repays all toil– L’Alvernia [1] (which I probably spell wrong) is, I think the most striking of the 3 convents, but both this & Camaldoli [2] exceed in beauty & sublimity of scenery even Val[l]ombrosa which you know– [3] Nothing can surpass the effect first produced by Camaldoli as reached by the route I followed– Starting from Prato Vec[c]hio, [4] in the valley you mount & mount till nature seems tired of following—first the vines, then the chestnuts, then the pines drop off—and you are still mounting a stoney desert with the Earth apparently much farther beneath, than the heaven above, you– And after an hour’s tug over the stones in a broiling sun, you drop suddenly out of this Arabia petræa [5] into a lovely English lane thro’ cool oak coppice—well-watered meadows with old horses grazing under the trees, dairies, cows &c and so on to the convent perched in a fold of pine hills with mountains of all shapes and colours heaped and tumbled underneath it in long gorges out to the horizon– So much for the material nature– But the human nature .. what must I say? The story of my two days with the Camaldoli monks wd weary you from its length and must involve certain explanations wh I have neither the right nor the wish to intrude on you unsought– But if you should ever care to know more precisely than you can gather from the following hint, all that happen’d, I will send you the whole account, as you may please.

Bref. I went to the Camaldoli with two friends– One Capt Wilson whom you know, and who, on his visiting me after the departure of his wife & family for Gombo, [6] I asked to join me—the other a lady whom you dont know– [7] Amg our provisions were three bottles of champaign[e] (in case the convent wine proved undrinkably sour) the other a bottle of brandy (in case of sickness)– The Prior of the Convent invited himself to dine with us—& we brought out a bottle of champaigne for him– This he relished so much that he sent at once for another boon companion of the cowl; the lady drank no wine– Wilson & myself were not very well and did not touch the champaigne– In a word—the two Monks between them finished the 3 bottles of champaigne, and the one bottle of brandy and finally got so drunk that W. & myself were obliged to support one of them back to the convent—leaving him on the floor of the Laboratory—(too intoxicated to stand) singing and roaring out for more champaigne, while two or three wretches were waiting to be drugged and doctored by him (he was the Esculapius [8] of the cloister) and returned to the hospice, fortunately just in time to hear the cries of the lady whom we had left there, and rescue her from a most brutal and indecent assault by another monk– She speaks little Italian, was supposed to be a R. Cathl & it was therefore presumed that she wd submit quietly & secretly to an infamous outrage rather than cause a scandal to her religion! She has ever since been seriously ill from the terror & indignation of this horrible shock–

On our immediate declaration that we wd expose the whole infamy to the Piedse Govt the wretch who attempted this vil[l]ainy has been consigned to three years of the Sagro Eremo, [9] and deprived of his post– I certainly should not have rested content with this very doubtful satisfaction—(the faithful execution of wh I cannot make sure of) but for circumstances which rendered publicity peculiarly painful– And I beg you to consider this confession as confidential.

Enough of these atrocities– I take leave of Trollope to night, & to morrow I shall be on the road you lately traversed– I am sure that you and Isa must have had no sleep that night– It was so late when I left you both—& you went away so early– I am very anxious to have news both of you and her, and how you have fared since we parted. But you must not write to me just now, dear friend. I know that our best true Isa will give me her last news of you when she writes– Only you must let me write to you often, much more often than of late, not minding such scrawls as this– That will help me over the time that must intervene till we meet again– I shall use it to the utmost in stronger effort after better things both in work and all else, never forgetting whose ring you have placed on my finger [10] and whose memory deepens all the life I have with which I love you both– I can not think that anything should ever bring a moment’s alienation between you and me dear Browning; for I have ever loved you and her most truly, & never loved you both more truly than now & henceforth. I cannot try to comfort you my friend– You need no such comfort as man at his utmost endeavour can give. I know that God is with you, and that she is with God—and therefore my thoughts of you both are solemn and hopeful—and full of certainty. I am quite sure that you have yet much great and lasting work to achieve and that God will bless you in the doing of it– He does not make such men as you, and then leave them to be marred by any accident– So I look upon you & all your work as above the reach of chance, and only hope that I may be near to you to the very end, & follow you not long after, when that comes. Will you give my best & most true love to dear Penny—and remember me in your thoughts as your ever loving

R Lytton

Address, on cover sheet: Francato / Robert Browning Esqr / 151 Rue de Grenelle / Faubourg St Germains / Paris / La France.

Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 173–176.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. La Verna (known as La Vernia by English travellers), a Franciscan convent about 45 miles east of Florence, “is situated on the S. side of a circuit of rugged rocks, at an elevation of 3720 ft. above the sea. … The convent dates from 1218: the principal church was built in 1264, on a site which had been visited by St. Francis” (Murray’s Handbook of Florence and Its Environs, 1861, p. 113).

2. Camaldoli lies northwest of La Verna, about 45 miles from Florence. “It is said to have been founded about A.D. 1000, by S. Romualdo,” a Benedictine monk, “and is capable of containing more than 100 monks; the present number, however, is small” (Murray’s Handbook, p. 113).

3. The Brownings visited Vallombrosa in July 1847 (see letter 2686).

4. About 30 miles east of Florence, with an inn.

5. “Rocky Arabia,” one of three “Arabian” provinces of the Roman Empire. It included the Sinai Peninsula and parts of present-day Jordan and Syria.

6. Fleetwood Wilson (1817–62) and his wife, Harriet Horatia (née Walker, 1826–1907), had two children: Guy (1850–1940) and Evelyn (1853–75). Years later, Guy recalled that “1861 was the happiest of my life. … We passed the whole summer together at the Gombo, a small but exquisite little seaside village on the coast, about twelve miles from Pisa, between the rivers Arno and Serchio” (Guy Fleetwood Wilson, Letters to Somebody, 1922, p. 20).

7. Unidentified. In the Camaldoli book of visitors, Lytton entered “Il Capitano Fleetwood Wilson” and entered himself and the “lady” as “Mr. & Mrs. Clifford,” perhaps a sly allusion to his father’s 1830 novel, Paul Clifford.

8. Sic, for Æsculapius, Latin form of Asclepius, a physician in The Iliad, later a demi-god in Greek mythology.

9. “Sacred Hermitage.” It is “higher up the glen, and about 1½ m. to the northward of the convent … with numerous cells on the ground-floor, arranged symmetrically in rows” (Murray’s Handbook, p. 113). According to Thomas Adolphus Trollope, the hermitage was occupied by three classes of monks: novices, willing ascetics, and “those who have been sent thither from the convent below as punishment for some misdoing” (What I Remember, 1887, II, 280).

10. We have been unable to determine whether this statement is metaphorical or literal. If the latter, we have not traced the ring.

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