SD1636. Walter Richard Cassels to David Holt
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 379–382 (in part).
Leghorn
January 26, 1853
… Some months ago, as I had promised you, in default of a regular introduction I wrote to the Brownings expressing my sentiments with regard to them, and begging Mrs. B. to receive me if unable to get a proper introduction. I took the liberty of calling during one of my visits to Florence. I sent the book, at the same time saying that I could not consider it any passport. I soon discovered that they were still away and continued so until a very short time ago. A young lady with whom I am acquainted here, however, being lately in Florence on a visit, happened to mention my name at a party, and a gentleman, a literary man I believe, immediately began to ask about me, saying that he had heard the Brownings speaking of me in kind terms, and supposing that I must have left Italy. Of course she undeceived him on this head, and a few days afterwards, evidently after they had seen this gentleman again, I received the following note, which, as I know it will interest you, I copy verbatim.
“We shall very glad indeed to make Mr. Cassels’ acquaintance whenever circumstances bring him into Florence: very glad to receive him, and thank him for his book, which floats in a poetical fragrant atmosphere, and is very well adapted to interest us in the writer. We owe Mr. Cassels many apologies for not saying this sooner, but we found the proofs of his kindness—book and letter—on our arrival in Florence, months after he had sent them, and we too hastily concluded he had been a mere traveller in Italy, who had taken up his staff long since and gone away. It is pleasant, as far as we are all concerned, to be able to correct this impression.
Robert and Elizabeth Browning.
Florence, Casa Guidi, January 18, 1853.”
Imagine, old fellow, how busy I have been when I have not yet been able to go to Florence! I wrote, however, immediately, thanking them for this note, and saying that I hoped soon to be able to avail myself of their kind permission to call. By the first train on Saturday I shall go, if all be well; and in this letter you shall have an account of my journey, if I be fortunate enough to find them at home. I need not say that I am looking forward with anxiety for the pleasure, and only feel that nervousness which one naturally would on such an occasion; but one should not [fail to] make that figure before such judges as may lead to constant and closer intercourse. An occasional meeting would trouble me little, but in a call of this kind it is difficult to get opportunity or one’s steam up to run the engine thro’ formality and diffidence; however, coragio! “Faint heart never won fair lady,” and as I want to win her I mustn’t funk. If they are talkative people my fears will vanish like morning mist, but I am only afraid to find them silent, and that the ball may rest with me. Browning, I have heard, is so, and those who write well cannot generally speak as much up to the mark—Vedremo. It will be a memorable visit for me in any case, and at the same time I shall see the galleries and other beauties of the loveliest city on the earth; therefore I hope to make this, ere I am done with it, a pleasant epistle for you and worthy of a long and speedy reply, for it’s few letters I have lately been getting.
Anything about Florence and its treasures must bear a breath of the sweet south over a bank of violets to you in smoky Manchester, and if it be coupled with news of the private life of such dear friends, unknown though they be, as we have always spiritually considered the Brownings, it will be doubly sweet, and quite overpower the cloud of “baccy” you will blow over it. I trust we shall neither of us be disappointed. Mrs. Trollope, I am told, lives at Florence and is a great friend of the B.’s. She may be a great acquaintance, but I exceedingly doubt the friendship, unless Mrs. T. is very different from what her books show her, and from what I have always heard of her from those who have met her in society. …
… You have never told me what view Mrs. Browning takes of Guerrazzi in “Casa Guidi Windows.” I am anxious to know. …
February 1.—Well! old fellow, I have spent two delightful days in Florence, and to come to what I know you will want to learn about most, here goes for the Brownings. I called about one o’clock and found only Mrs. Browning in. I sat with her an hour or so and was invited to spend the evening, she saying, “I should so much like you to know Mr. B. I hope you have no engagement.” Of course I had not, and spent a most delightful time of it, there being only we three. They were kind beyond all I could have possibly expected—treated me in the most cordial manner possible—and repeatedly expressed their pleasure at having made my acquaintance, saying also that I must always call when I came to Florence, and that they were always at home in the evenings. In short, they were all kindness. Thus much for the general reception. Now for something further. Mrs. Browning is a little ladylike person with black ringlets and very delicate looking; besides, she has a cough that goes through one. However, she says she is always very well so long as she takes care of herself, and that during the winter she rarely goes out. She told me, talking of the English climate, that she was confined five years in one room, and therefore that in coming to Italy she felt she was coming to liberty. Her hand shows the delicate constitution, so thin and emaciated. However, she seems generally well, and I only mention these things to make up the picture.
Browning is a very nice fellow, with a great deal of bonhomie; he is rather under than over the middle height, dark, with whiskers all round the face; but that portrait gives no idea whatever of him. They seem tremendously attached to one another, and exactly fitted for domestic happiness. A more simple, unaffected, kind-hearted couple don’t exist, and I admire them both, now, more than I did before—not from any brilliancy of conversation, but from their frank, unassuming, and thorough good-heartedness. Mrs. B. was speaking very well of Swedenborg, whose doctrines she said were extending tremendously. She said she did not know him at all deeply, but admired a good deal of what she did. For instance, his theory of correspondencies. I cut him up, and said I greatly preferred Fichte’s “Divine Idea,” which was another form of the same view. She did not know Fichte, but afterwards, when, talking of Emerson and the spiritualists, I expounded his doctrine, they did not agree—she not being able to receive anything which did not give a distinct Ego to the Divine Spirit. She could not see how this was quite allowed by Fichte. However, as Browning said, the half of all these things arose from one man choosing to call things by a different name: thus, one man named an animal horse, another equus, another Hippos, another Cavallo, but all meant the same. They admired Emerson much, were most curious in asking about him, and Browning said that some of his poems were beautiful, tho’ deficient in music.
They had only seen portions of Tennyson’s Ode [on the Death of the Duke of Wellington], which they were most glad to have a loan of from me, so I sent it, to be likewise lent to Tennyson’s brother Frederick who is settled (as a walking gentleman) at Florence; so perhaps I shall meet him one of these days. I asked about the new book. They said it was not to be a continuation of the epic, but a series of short poems linked in the way of “In Memoriam,” treating of the legends of the Round Table. They agreed with me in thinking the epic the best thing he had written. They also greatly admired the series of pictures in “The Lady of Shalott,” which was another of the poems relative to the Table, which Tennyson had already written. They regretted his omission from the original copy of a verse about “landing at the plankèd wharf.” I spoke about Lowell, whom they know personally. They didn’t think very much about “Conversations on the old Poets,” but liked his poems, especially his humorous ones, much, and himself personally. They knew Margaret Fuller well, and her last day in Florence was spent in the room in which we sat. They said she was anything but one of the cold intellectual class, but was a very fine and warm-hearted woman.
They spoke in the very highest and most admiring terms of George Sand, of whom they had seen a good deal in Paris lately.
They asked me particularly about Leghorn as a summer residence, and I should not wonder if I induce them to come, which would be jolly. They talk of going to Rome the end of March, where Mrs. B. has never yet been. I said I had always set the Holy Week as the time when I should endeavour to run there myself. She seemed quite pleased. It would be pleasant to see the Coliseum in their company—wouldn’t it? Talking of the Germans, we had a long discussion about Goethe, Schiller, and Richter. They evidently knew little about Richter, and not deeply about the other two. But I at last brought them to agree in thinking Goethe too cold and egotistical. Browning confessed he talked too much as “Grand Chamberlain about his petty Majesty the Duke.” Mrs. B. said she liked mysticism but not mist, and thought that when the Germans tried to explain they lost themselves. She, however, admitted that where they really had depth they were fine. From them we came to Carlyle, whom they knew, and of course admired tremendously. Carlyle was in Paris when they were there, going to visit Lord Ashburton. They say there never was a man who was so utterly indifferent to criticism as he. Browning said he had shown him some of the Great Frederick’s original letters with great gusto, and one he remembered in particular: it was talking of some treaty or investigation that was proceeding, “and in the meantime,” says Frederick, “things are going to the devil”; this is the end of the letter, and under he has made a dash with his pen denoting supreme disgust. Carlyle thinks very highly of him. C. said that he could see some things in the “French Revolution” which some people could not understand, and he said if he had to do it over again he might perhaps alter slightly. We all agreed that he’d better not. Browning’s favourite is the “Sartor Resartus.” He said that Carlyle liked Tennyson, but as to their being “great friends,” he did not see any grounds for saying it. I said I wished Carlyle would give us a life of Goethe, and that there was no one so well fitted for the task. They heartily joined in the wish, and said they thought it a good idea. We canvassed whole lots of other people, and had a long talk about music. But enough this for one spell; I’ll give you bits as they occur to me hereafter. Now in being thus minute in giving you their opinions and words, I act on the assurance that I can well trust you with such matters, and I therefore tell you everything in confidence, relying entirely on your discretion. It would ill accord with my feelings or intentions to act as a spy on them, hearing at their fireside private sentiments never intended to be made public and then blowing them through a trumpet in the market-place—but this caution I know is un-necessary, your own delicacy being quite sufficient guide. …
Text: The Cornhill Magazine, January 1924, pp. 100–104.
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