SD1773. Walter Richard Cassels to David Holt
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 376–380 (in part).
Leghorn
September 11, 1854
… I’ll now go on to tell you of a visit to Florence, from whence I only returned yesterday. I was long looking forward to going, but unable to leave from Benni’s state. But being anxious for a change, I determined to run up tho’ even for a few hours, so I went on Saturday afternoon and returned Sunday night.
Mrs. Browning had before sent to a great friend of hers and mine a message of very kind remembrance of me, and on calling she welcomed me in the most cordial and kind manner, which increased up to the time I left, and then they gave me many invitations to come to see them, and never to come near Florence without so doing, which, of course, I was but too happy to promise. I only found Mrs. B., he being out with the child for a drive; however, he returned before I left, and was most kind and cordial. She sent for the little boy to make my acquaintance; he is a beautiful little fellow of five years old—most intelligent-looking, with blue eyes and yellow golden hair. Browning says they have to repress his mind as he is very much beyond his years in capability. He writes and reads well, with only an hour’s tuition per day, and they are acting wisely in keeping down his precocity. They are tremendously fond of him and told me many beautiful anecdotes of him. They are also tremendously fond of each other, charmingly so. Unfortunately, they were going out that evening, so I only spent some hours with them in the middle of the day. At first I had only Mrs. B., and we talked of everything interesting that could be crammed into the space. We had a regular philosophical discussion, and here, before telling you anything more, I do so with the understanding that you let it be entre nous entirely, as, indeed, I’m sure your own delicacy would at once tell you without this request. For I would not for worlds that conversations that have passed between them and myself thus in confidence, and without dreaming that others should know, should by any chance go wandering from mouth to mouth. After some indifferent talk she asked me what I had thought when in England last of the goings on of mind. I said that I saw decidedly a tendency to progress in some respects, tho’ at the same time a woeful lack of largeness of mind and freedom of thought in many quarters, and I said that certainly the great belief in table-turning and spirit-rapping then prevalent was anything but a favourable sign; and I went on to quiz and ridicule the whole system, especially the latter part (rapping). She surprised me by saying playfully, “I see you are an unbeliever, like Mr. Browning, but take care, for you speak to a believer.” I was surprised, and still spoke laughingly against both systems, saying that the most noted table-mover had never succeeded in stirring a table in my presence, and that I held that as far as electricity was generated, it would pass through the table into the floor, which was as good a conductor as itself. As for the spiritual agency or rapping, nothing could overthrow one broad reason in my mind for discarding any belief in it, however supported, viz. that the occupation of spirits in the next world, or, in other words, of spirits who had ceased to be visible to us, could not be that of answering the call of every bread-and-butter miss or schoolgirl who wished to know the name of her future husband. It was quite beneath the dignity of spirit, and if I thought I should have to do such things, I confessed I would not look forward to a future state as to a Blessed Life.
She told me of wonderful things in table-movings—of tables which rose from the floor and otherwise moved without being touched, but with hands two feet from it. I asked whether she had seen this herself, for I had heard equally wonderful things, but when attempted to be done in my presence they had never succeeded. She had not seen this herself, but had heard it from friends in whom she had the fullest belief. She then went on to tell me that two American ladies who had been with them were wonderful mediums—that one evening in her house they had done extraordinary things with tables, and after they went away she said, “Now! let us sit down and try the experiment, giving our word of honour not to do anything to assist, but to attempt every means to detect the causes. We shall now find the table charged with electricity, or whatever it may be, after the trials which we have just been making.” She and Mr. B. and other two gentlemen did so, merely resting the points of the fingers on the wood. She said that shortly the table began to tilt towards Mr. Browning, which is considered indicative of a desire to address the person. Then tapping commenced, and Mr. Lytton [“Owen Meredith”] took down what was said by the taps, which was “Be earn—”; arrived so far, some one cried, “It is ‘Be earnest’”: upon which the taps ended and they all rose; and she said that on discussing the matter, the only argument that could be produced against spiritual agency was that an injunction to be earnest would not likely be made by spirits to Mr. B., who they would know was so remarkable for earnestness. I said that was no argument at all, no need to detail reasons, they are evident. Well! this she told me as having been done in her own house by persons of mind and education as you see. She went on in answer to my objections, etc., that we perhaps made too much of the dignity of spirits as it was, seeing that spirit in this world did not sustain its dignity, and might not even in the next, as there were so many degrees of spirits. She also told me in so many words, but certainly in sense, that she is a Swedenborgian. She believes in his theory of infinite grades of spirits, and, as she said, is a decided and firm “spiritualist.” She said that she thought that the spirits of the departed might well be supposed desirous of communicating with this world and of advising and giving information to their fellow-spirits here, and that therefore she did not see any abstract reason why these phenomena might not be thus explained. She said once to me, “I am afraid, Mr. Cassels, that you will laugh at me and think me a great fool for what I have said to you now.” I answered sincerely “No! Certainly I have hitherto treated the matter with ridicule, and laughed at such grave matters being presented to the notice of men thro’ a parcel of silly boys and girls, but tho’ I see no possibility of agreeing with you, I treat with respect, and shall certainly think the question over again more seriously since it is come to me with the weight of having gained the belief of a person like yourself.”
Browning laughs and says he won’t believe, and quizzes her, she says. Regarding her spiritual theory, I told her I could not hold her theory, as I felt fully convinced of another and far nobler philosophy, that of Fichte. (Fichte has been my delight ever since I have been here; I love the man and his philosophy, and I have studied him so well now that I could well speak of him.) She had evidently an erroneous idea of the man, and conceived him to hold that we had no individuality, but would be, as it were, sucked up finally into God. I showed her how this absorption, according the Fichte, was not one of our essence (or spirit or ich), but simply of our views, as was, in short, that of the common Christianity, viz., that the end of all progression and the perfection of the Blessed Life was by love of God to arrive at that union with Him that we became one in thought and act—that we could wish nothing but what He wished—could love nothing but what He loved. In this way alone could we be reabsorbed into the Deity, for by the absolute necessity of life our co-existence must be preserved, and I proved this latter point to her in Fichte’s way, forcing her to admit its force. She said I placed his doctrine in a new way to her. I gave her a sketch of the whole system and its objects and results, which she said was a great one and noble, but she had never understood this admission of our individuality on the part of Fichte—but that indeed she had never studied him. She saw how in the main he agreed with Swedenborg, taking S. in a spiritual aspect, for S. is really, as I forced her to admit, one of the most material and unimaginative of men. She denounced Emerson’s doctrine as an entire denial of our individuality, and she said she could have no sympathy with any doctrine which denied this. In other respects, however, she admired E. greatly. All this part of the conversation was highly interesting, and I wish I could detail it to you. She then asked me with great interest whether I had been writing lately, etc. I told her that I had a volume ready, but that, from great diffidence of what I had done, and feeling that certainly I could do better hereafter, I hesitated to publish. We talked a good deal of this, and she asked me if I never thought of the periodicals. I said I had a great objection to the mode. She said so had her husband, but that many of her own poems had thus appeared. She spoke of the smallness of the poetical audience and lamented it. She said she had been very much surprised at the success of Alexander Smith, his book being at once too good and too bad—absolutely bad. She did not seem to think very highly of him. She considered he had power, but in his volume it was thrown away; and there was a total want of the artistic. She told me that Mr. Trollope gets £400 a year from the booksellers for producing a certain amount of books regularly, and the same arrangement brings Lever £1500 per annum, which she greatly marvelled at. She said the great thing for poetry was that every year it became more valuable, whilst every year such novels as Mr. T.’s, etc., were dying out. She told me that she was engaged in writing a romance of the present time in verse. She did not think we should always go to the past for our subjects. I said I was delighted she thought so, as I conceived she had shown in “Casa Guidi Windows” a great capability for expressing the thoughts of the age. She said she did not yet know whether it would succeed well. She told me Browning was also ready with a volume of miscellaneous poems, which she said she thought I would like better even than his Bells, etc., at least such of them as she had seen; for I may mention that they do not show each other all they write, and wisely not, for living together thus, and therefore the one mind exercising unconscious influence over the other, they are very apt to write alike even without having each other’s thoughts thus tangibly placed before them and liable to imitation. Browning had proposed going to England this summer to bring out their books, but she was not ready, nor is she yet; but they intend going over next summer for the purpose. This is news for you, old dog. I said I regretted that B. did not give us some more tragedies, and mentioned “The Blot on the ’Scutcheon” as an instance of his aptitude for this line. She quite agreed and said she couldn’t understand how it had not had a greater run. At this point Browning arrived, and the subject was of course interrupted. I see he has got a good many grey hairs in his beard. He has a most charming manner, cordial and frank in the extreme—a noble fellow I should say. They did not come back with the usual impressions of Rome. They said all their sympathies lay with the Greeks and not with the Romans, and that therefore even the associations had not the same strength for them. I said that to me the Romans were the type of brute force, and the Greeks of intellectual, and of course one must prefer the latter. They said that old Rome was so mixed up with the new, and so scraped and polished up, they did not like it; but they saw it under unfavourable circumstances, their little boy having been ill all the time, many of their friends dying, and the pestilence about them. They seemed to think that you had all the bustle and parade of London and Paris without their conveniences. Their great friend there was Adelaide Kemble, of whom they spoke in very high terms. I heard some anecdotes of Carlyle. He said on the journey they made with him two years ago to Paris, “Sea sickness is terrible degradation to a reasonable man, but the greatest humiliation to him is a cold in the head.” Thackeray! did you ever have a description of him? He is about 6 feet 2 inches high, with a large head and perfectly white hair—prematurely grey, you understand—and his nose flattened in the manner of Michael Angelo by a blow in a fight at school. He is particularly neat in his dress. His wife is mad and in an asylum, and she rarely recognises him. The Brownings think very highly of the North British Review, and call it better than any just now. Mrs. B. does not think very much of Macaulay’s poetry and thinks there is not much in it. A son of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton is now beginning to write poetry. I have seen two of his poems, which are decidedly good. He lives in Florence. Bulwer is a firm believer in the Spirit rapping. Hallam, the father, settled £300 a year on Tennyson’s sister, who was engaged to his son. I heard a story of M. Milnes at second-hand from Browning. A jolly farmer walked into Moxon’s one day and said “I’m told you’ve got the poems of Mr. Monckton Milnes, M.P. Now, I’ve a great respect for the family and should like to take the poems of Mr. Monckton Milnes, M.P.” “Oh! very well,” said Moxon’s brother, “you can have them. Would you like to take them all?” “Why, yes! I’ll take them all, for I’ve a great respect for the family.” They made him out an account for the whole. “Here is the bill, £3 16s. 4d.” “£3 16s. 4d.!” cried the farmer. “Well, I’ve got a high respect for Mr. Monckton Milnes, M.P., a very high respect; but I’ll see him hanged before I’ll give him £3 16s. 4d. for his poetry.”
Here’s a lot of literary gossip for you which you will know how to treat with due delicacy. I’ve got more, but it escapes me at the moment; I may remember it before I’ve done. …
I have got my poems now clean written out, and I find that cutting a great many which were considered good, I have still 240 pages of 24 lines each. I confess I feel this a clog upon me and wish to throw it off, much more also as I should like to get out before the Brownings publish and absorb attention. … My own judgment is that my present volume is a decided advance as a whole, and that there are many good things in it, but still I do not like to trust to such an opinion before publishing. Mrs. Browning almost put it into suggestion to ask her opinion, but I so detest that kind of thing I did not ask her. I must think the matter over. It gives one such a start to throw off what one has written. Mrs. B. said she did not think critics taught one anything, but that seeing one’s poems in print taught us much.
Text: The Cornhill Magazine, January 1924, pp. 106–111.
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