SD2301. Elizabeth Clementine Kinney to Newark Daily Advertiser
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 336 (in part).
Florence, November 11th, 1859.
Whilst you have been shivering over your grates or air-tight stoves, frosty mornings and chilly evenings for these past six weeks, we in Italy—“sunny Italy” indeed, this year—have been enjoying the balmiest south wind, the brightest, blandest of atmospheres, the softest, gentlest of showers, at intervals, and the greenness left behind when the sun shone out again, drinking up the dampness and smiling on the lovely landscape in which Firenze la bella is set like a picture framed by pictures. …
The foreign literary circle, which for some years has had a charm of its own at Florence, is unfortunately broken up, at least the dear little circle of old. … “The Brownings” are but seldom in Florence, now; Mrs. B’s health obliging them to pass their winters at Rome, for a milder climate, and their summers in the country for pure air; so that the famous Casa Guidi windows are closed save for a few weeks in the Spring and Fall; while the increasing debility of Mrs. Browning, prevents her joining the literary gatherings of which she was once the acknowledged queen. Mr. Browning is too devoted to her, to indulge his own genial and social tastes at the expense of leaving her alone. …
Text: Newark Daily Advertiser, 5 December 1859, p. 2.
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