SD1654. Diary Entry of Grace Greenwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, (in part).
Florence
May 12 [1853]
We left Naples on the 7th, and reached Leghorn on the 9th, having had a most disagreeable and uncomfortable little voyage. …
This evening I have spent with the Brownings, to whom I brought letters. They live in that Casa Guidi which Mrs. Browning has already immortalized by the grandest poem ever penned by woman. And now, how can I fittingly speak of the two noble poet-souls, whose union is a poem, profounder and diviner than words can compass, and of their home, doubly sanctified by genius and love? Admitted for a few happy hours into this heaven of high thought and pure affections, I am sorely tempted to leave the door ajar, and so let out upon others some of the light and music. Robert and Elizabeth Browning are, as the truly great and good ever are, simple, earnest, frank, and kindly in word and manner. An hour’s conversation with them gives you the feeling of years of pleasant acquaintance. With all my reverence for their genius, a reverence in which I yield to none, I was speedily at home and at rest with them. I felt that they did not regard me coldly from the heights of that genius, but met me cordially on the level of the heart; and I was content. Nothing can be more touching and heavenly beautiful than the serene presence of quiet happiness which pervades this household. The very soul of contentment glows in the fine face of Browning, and rests on the calm brow of his wife, and smiles up from the profound depths of her eyes. But I should pause here; I feel guilty of a sort of sacrilege in having said so much. Mr. and Mrs. Browning have taken up their residence in Florence, a place in every way congenial to them. I know that thousands of her unknown friends across the great water will rejoice to hear that the health of Mrs. Browning improves with every year spent in Italy. Yet she is still very delicate—but a frail flower, ceaselessly requiring all the sheltering and fostering care, all the wealth and watchfulness of love, which is round about her. …
Text: Grace Greenwood, Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe (Boston, 1854), pp. 352–359.
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