SD1724. Elizabeth Clementine Kinney to Newark Daily Advertiser
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 365 (in part).
Florence
March 22, 1854.
The U.S. frigate Cumberland, the flag-ship of the Mediterranean Squadron, Com. Stringham, and the steam frigate Saranac, Capt. Long, arrived at Leghorn a few days ago. The Commodore, with his family, and several of his officers, have availed themselves of the opportunity of visiting Florence, where they have received those marks of attention, which illustrate the high respect entertained here for the service to which they belong. …
“American extravagance” has become a by-word with the English themselves, who do not spend money prodigally—being, as a body, economical—but thro’ the necessities of society. An English nobleman, now residing at Naples, who has an income of sixty thousand dollars, says he cannot afford to live as his rank obliges him to, in England! while in Italy he can live like a prince on half of it. Besides the English who live here for economy’s sake, there is quite a circle of artists and authors who make Florence their residence on account of the advantages it affords them professionally.
Among the English authors living here are Mrs. Somerville, the Brownings, Charles Lever, Mr. Kirkup, the antiquarian, Mr. Tennyson, brother of the poet-laureate, and who has himself a volume of poems now in press; … The Brownings still occupy the Casa Guidi, an old palace; never go into society, but receive their friends quietly in the evening. Mrs. B— is physically as frail, as her mind and verse are strong: with such gentle, unpretending manners, and such a pleasant expression of face, that no one, to look at her, would believe that such force and passion could come out of such an apparently delicate, unperturbed nature. Mr. Browning is alive with good nature and humor; full of practical knowledge, and as plain and smooth in talk, as he is obscure and rough in his writings; in short, as is the case with Mrs. B., the very opposite of the book—Browning. Mr. Read, one of our American artists, now in Florence, has painted lately cabinet portraits of both, and they are truthful likenesses—they belong to a gentleman in Philadelphia, and will give all who see them there just notions of the originals. …
Text: Newark Daily Advertiser, 21 April 1854, p. 2.
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