SD1624. Ellen Twisleton to Mary Parkman
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 376–377 (in part).
Florence.
Friday. Dec. 11th 1852.
I am so vexed, dearest Mary, at our having lost two letters from you …
Since I wrote home, I have been again to see Mrs Browning, & this time have seen her. She was very cordial & delightful in her manners, not with any reference to me, as me, for she did not recollect me, I think, till I mentioned Mrs Carlyle, but evidently from her own warmhearted nature. After our first call, she did not call herself, but her husband left her card, & I thought she might mean to say that she did not care to make new acquaintances, & felt very shy of going again; but Edward thought that she might be ill, or that any accident might have caused it, & that it was better to see her once, at any rate, & judge from her manner, if she had meant to decline my visit, & as I concluded that she would not intentionally dishonor Mrs Carlyle’s introduction, we did go again, yesterday, Monday, afternoon. We saw Mr Browning also, as they seemed to have been sitting & talking, for it was just at sunset, & their room was too dark to see to do anything in. Mr Browning is a hearty, straightforward person, with a voice as cordial & cheerful, as hers is gentle & low—he talked to Edward, but had the faculty of hearing all she was saying, at the same time, & turned round to us, whenever there was occasion. Nothing could be better or pleasanter than both their manners were, & I am sure there never was a more successful match made, not even among those “made in heaven.” She charmed me just as much with her soft, beautiful curls, & brown eyes, & her words full of sense & meaning as she did before, & if I only shall not make a bore of myself, I shall be so glad to see her this winter. I depend upon Edward to fascinate one of them! She is the littlest woman that ever was made, & he is not tall & has a good deal of thick hair—& for the rest, I could hardly see him. Mr Browning was abusing Carlyle for his dislike of picture-lovers, & disbelief in the genuineness of a taste for art—& I said to her, that that was so much more a feminine than a masculine quality—the will & ability to sympathize with a taste or tendency in another person which one had not oneself, that one hardly expected it generally, & least of all from a person like Carlyle, or something stupid like that– “Oh, said she, in women it is often more a vice than a virtue”, which I tho’t true enough to be worth repeating. She said she should come to see me as soon as she was able, but I told her if she would allow me to come again to see her, I would not be rigid about the return-calls, at which both she & her husband expressed themselves much satisfied, & so there it rests. It seems they own the apartment which they occupy in the Casa Guidi, which is at the end of the next street to the right after leaving our hotel; a street near the Pitti Palace but having no view & not specially agreeable. She seems very fond of Florence, & I judge they are not likely to live much in England. …
Address: Messrs James K. Miller & Co. / For Mrs. S. Parkman / Boston / United States of America.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Harvard University.
___________________
