Florence: June [1853].

My dearest Fanny,--I hope you will write to me as if I deserved it. You
see, my first word is to avert the consequences of my sin instead of
repenting of it in the proper and effectual way. The truth is, that ever
since I received your letter we have been looking out for 'messengers'
from the Legation, so as to save you postage; while the Embassy people
have been regularly forgetting us whenever there has been an
opportunity. By the way, I catch up that word of 'postage' to beg you
_never to think of it_ when inclined in charity to write to us. If you
knew what a sublunary thing--oh, far below any visible moon!--postage is
to us exiles! Too glad we are to get a letter and pay for it. So write
to me _directly_, dear Fanny, when you think enough of us for that, and
write at length, and tell us of yourself first, swirling off into Pope's
circles--'your country first and then the human race'--and, indeed, we
get little news from home on the subjects which especially interest us.
My sister sends me heaps of near things, but she is not in the magnetic
circles, nor in the literary, nor even in the gossiping. Be good to us,
_you_ who stand near the fountains of life! Every cup of cold water is
worth a ducat here.

To wait to a second page without thanking you for your kindness and
sympathy about 'Colombe' does not do justice to the grateful sense I had
of both at the time, and have now. We were _very_ glad to have your
opinion and impressions. Most of our friends took for granted that we
had supernatural communications on the subject, and did not send us a
word. Mrs. Duncan Stewart was one of the kind exceptions (with yourself
and one or two more), and I write to thank her. It was very pleasant to
hear what you said, dear Fanny. Certainly, says the author, you are
right, and Helen Faucit wrong, in the particular reading you refer to;
but she seems to have been right in so much, that we should only
remember our grateful thoughts of her in general.

Now what am I to say about my illustrations--that is, your illustrations
of my poems? To thank you again and again first. To be eager next to see
what is done. To be sure it is good, and surer still that _you_ are good
for spending your strength on me. See how it is. When you wrote to me, a
new edition was in the press; yes, and I was expecting every day to hear
it was out again. But it would not have done, I suppose, to have used
illustrations for that sort of edition; it would have raised the price
(already too high) beyond the public. But there will be time always for
such arrangements--when it so pleases Mr. Chapman, I suppose. Do tell me
more of what you have done.

We did not go to Rome last winter, in spite of the spirits of the sun
who declared from Lord Stanhope's crystal ball, you remember, that we
should. And we don't go to England till next summer, because we must see
Rome next winter, and must lie _perdus_ in Italy meantime. I have had a
happy winter in Florence, recovered my lost advantages in point of
health, been busy and tranquil, had plenty of books and talk, and seen
my child grow rosier and prettier (said aside) every day. Robert and I
are talking of going up to the monasteries beyond Vallombrosa for a day
or two, on mule-back through forests and mountains. We have had an
excursion to Prato (less difficult) already, and we keep various dreams
in our heads to be acted out on occasion. Our favorite friend here is a
brother of Alfred Tennyson's, himself a poet, but most admirable to me
for his simplicity and truth. Robert is very fond of him. Then we like
Powers--of the 'Greek Slave'--Swedenborgian and spiritualist; and Mr.
Lytton, Sir Edward's son, who is with us often, and always a welcome
visitor. All these confederate friends are ranged with me on the
believing side with regard to the phenomena, and Robert has to keep us
at bay as he best can. Oh, do tell me what you can. Your account deeply
interested me. We have heard many more intimate personal relations from
Americans who brush us with their garments as they pass through
Florence, and I should like to talk these things over with you. Paid
mediums, as paid clairvoyants in general, excite a prejudice; yet,
perhaps, not reasonably. The curious fact in this movement is, however,
the degree in which it works within private families in America. Has
anything of the kind appeared in England? And has the motion of the
tables ever taken the form of alphabetical expression, which has been
the case in America? I had a letter from Athens the other day,
mentioning that 'nothing was talked of there except moving tables and
spiritual manifestations.' (The writer was not a believer.) Even here,
from the priest to the Mazzinian, they are making circles. An engraving
of a spinning table at a shop window bears this motto: '_E pur si
muove!_' That's adroit for Galileo's land, isn't it? Now mind you tell
me whatever you hear and see. How does Mrs. Crowe decide? By the way, I
was glad to observe by the papers that she has had a dramatic success.

Your Alexander Smith has noble stuff in him. It's undeniable, indeed. It
strikes us, however, that he has more imagery than verity, more colour
than form. He will learn to be less arbitrary in the use of his
figures--of which the opulence is so striking--and attain, as he ripens,
more clearness of outline and depth of intention. Meanwhile none but a
poet could write this, and this, and this.

Your faithfully affectionate
E.B.B., properly speaking BA.

July 3.

This was written ever so long since. Here we are in July; but I won't
write it over again. The 'tables' are speaking alphabetically and
intelligently in Paris; they knock with their legs on the floor,
establishing (what was clear enough before to _me_) the connection
between the table-moving and 'rapping spirits.' Sarianna--who is of the
unbelieving of temperaments, as you know--wrote a most curious account
to me the other day of a seance at which she had been present, composed
simply of one or two of our own honest friends and of a young friend of
theirs, a young lady....[23] She says that she 'was not as much
impressed as she would have been,' 'but I am bound to tell the truth,
that I _do not think it possible that any tricks could have been
played_.'

This from Sarianna is equal to the same testimony--from Mr. Chorley,
say!

We are planning a retreat into the mountains--into Giotto's country, the
Casentino--where we are to find a villa for almost nothing, and shall
have our letters sent daily from Florence, together with books and
newspapers. I look forward to it with joy. We promise one another to be
industrious _a faire fremir_, so as to make the pleasure lawful. Little
Penini walks about, talking of 'mine villa,' anxiously hoping that 'some
boys' may not have pulled all the flowers before he gets there. He
boasts, with considerable complacency, that 'a table in Pallis says I am
four years,' though the fact doesn't strike him as extraordinary.

Do you ever see Mr. Kenyon? I congratulate you on your friend's 'Coeur
de Lion.' _That_ has given you pleasure.

      * * * * *


The summer 'retreat' from Florence this year was not to the Casentino
after all, but to the Baths of Lucca, which they had already visited in
1849. During their stay there, which lasted from July to October, Mr.
Browning is said to have composed 'In a Balcony.'