Florence: June 2, 1855.

My dear Mr. Ruskin,--I believe I shall rather prove in this letter how
my head turns round when I write it, than explain why I didn't write it
before--and so you will go on to think me the most insusceptible and
least grateful of human beings--no small distinction in our bad obtuse
world. Yet the truth is--oh, the truth is, that I am deeply grateful to
you and have felt to the quick of my heart the meaning and kindness of
your words, the worth of your sympathy and praise. One thing especially
which you said, made me thankful that I had been allowed to live to hear
it--since even to fancy that anything I had written could be the means
of the least good to _you_, is worth all the trumpet blowing of a vulgar
fame. Oh, of course, I do not exaggerate, though your generosity does. I
understand the case as it is. We burn straw and it warms us. My verses
catch fire from you as you read them, and so you see them in that light
of your own. But it is something to be used to such an end by such a
man, and I thank you, thank you, and so does my husband, for the deep
pleasure you have given us in the words you have written.

And why not say so sooner? Just because I wanted to say so fully, and
because I have been crushed into a corner past all elbow-room for doing
anything largely and comfortably, by work and fuss and uncertainty of
various kinds. Now it isn't any better scarcely, though it is quite
fixed now that we are going from Florence to England--no more of the
shadow dancing which is so pretty at the opera and so fatiguing in real
life. We are coming, and have finished most of our preparations;
conducted on a balance of--must we go? _may_ we stay? which is so very
inconvenient. If you knew what it is to give up this still dream-life of
our Florence, where if one is over-busy ever, the old tapestries on the
walls and the pre-Giotto pictures (picked up by my husband for so many
pauls) surround us ready to quiet us again--if you knew what it is to
give it all up and be put into the mill of a dingy London lodging and
ground very small indeed, you wouldn't be angry with us for being sorry
to go north--you wouldn't think it unnatural. As for me, I have all
sorts of pain in England--everything is against me, except a few things;
and yet, while my husband and I groan at one another, strophe and
antistrophe (pardon that rag of Greek!) we admit our compensations--that
it will be an excellent thing, for instance, to see Mr. Ruskin! Are we
likely to undervalue that?

Let me consider how to answer your questions. My poetry--which you are
so good to, and which you once thought 'sickly,' you say, and why not?
(I have often written sickly poetry, I do not doubt--I have been sickly
myself!)--has been called by much harder names, 'affected' for instance,
a charge I have never deserved, for I do think, if I may say it of
myself, that the desire of speaking or _spluttering_ the real truth out
broadly, may be a cause of a good deal of what is called in me careless
and awkward expression. My friends took some trouble with me at one
time; but though I am not self-willed naturally, as you will find when
you know me, I hope, I never could adopt the counsel urged upon me to
keep in sight always the stupidest person of my acquaintance in order to
clear and judicious forms of composition. Will you set me down as
arrogant, if I say that the longer I live in this writing and reading
world, the more convinced I am that the mass of readers _never_ receive
a poet (you, who are a poet yourself, must surely observe that) without
intermediation? The few understand, appreciate, and distribute to the
multitude below. Therefore to say a thing faintly, because saying it
strongly sounds odd or obscure or unattractive for some reason, to
'careless readers,' does appear to me bad policy as well as bad art. Is
not art, like virtue, to be practised for its own sake first? If we
sacrifice our ideal to notions of immediate utility, would it not be
better for us to write tracts at once?

Of course any remark of yours is to be received and considered with all
reverence. Only, be sure you please to say, 'Do it differently to
satisfy _me_, John Ruskin,' and not to satisfy Mr., Mrs., and the Miss
and Master Smith of the great majority. The great majority is the
majority of the little, you know, who will come over to you if you don't
think of them--and if they don't, you will bear it.

Am I pert, do you think? No, _don't_ think it. And the truth is, though
you may not see that, that your praise made me feel very humble. Nay, I
was quite _abashed_ at the idea of the 'illumination' of my poem; and
still I keep winking my eyes at the prospect of so much glory. If you
were a woman, I might say, when one feels ugly one pulls down the
blinds; but as a man you are superior to the understanding of such a
figure, and so I must simply tell you that you honor me over much
indeed. My husband is very much pleased, and particularly pleased that
you selected 'Catarina,' which is his favourite among my poems for some
personal fanciful reasons besides the rest.

But to go back. I said that any remark of yours was to be received by me
in all reverence; and truth is a part of reverence, so I shall end by
telling you the truth, that I think you quite wrong in your objection to
'nympholept.' Nympholepsy is no more a Greek word than epilepsy, and
nobody would or could object to epilepsy or apoplexy as a Greek word.
It's a word for a specific disease or mania among the ancients, that
mystical passion for an invisible nymph common to a certain class of
visionaries. Indeed, I am not the first in referring to it in English
literature. De Quincey has done so in prose, for instance, and Lord
Byron talks of 'The nympholepsy of a fond despair,' though _he_ never
was accused of being overridden by his Greek. Tell me now if I am not
justified, I also? We are all nympholepts in running after our
ideals--and none more than yourself, indeed!

Our American friend Mr. Jarves wrote to us full of gratitude and
gratification on account of your kindness to him, for which we also
should thank you. Whether he felt most overjoyed by the clasp of your
hand or that of a disembodied spirit, which he swears was as real (under
the mediumship of Hume, his compatriot), it was somewhat difficult to
distinguish. But all else in England seemed dull and worthless in
comparison with those two 'manifestations,' the spirit's and yours!

How very very kind of your mother to think of my child! and how happy I
am near the end of my paper, not to be tempted on into 'descriptions'
that 'hold the place of sense.' He is six years old, he reads English
and Italian, and writes without lines, and shall I send you a poem of
his for 'illumination'? His poems are far before mine, the very prattle
of the angels, when they stammer at first and are not sure of the
pronunciation of _e_'s and _i_'s in the spiritual heavens (see
Swedenborg). Really he is a sweet good child, and I am not bearable in
my conceit of him, as you see! My thankful regards to your mother, whom
I shall hope to meet with you, and do yourself accept as much from us
both.

Most truly yours,
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

We leave Florence next week, and spend at least a week in Paris, 138
Avenue des Champs-Elysees.