Beschreibung:

BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861). Two autograph letters signed, the first to Lady Elgin [presumably wife of the 7th Earl], Florence, 7 January n.y., the second to Lady Augusta [Stanley, wife of Dean Stanley and daughter of the 7th Earl of Elgin], 3 rue du Colysée, [Paris], n.d. (Friday), together 5½ pages, 8vo (remnants of guards). ON KEATS, SPIRITUALISM AND A TENNYSON CHRISTENING. The letter to Lady Elgin, written shortly after the Brownings' arrival in Florence, sends an edition of Keats -- 'May the poet himself not seem to you the worse at all for passing through the hands of two poets less worthy' -- and goes on to refer to evenings of spiritualism ('the witches and the rapping spirits') with some leavening of scepticism, referring in particular to a 'seer' employed by Lord Stanhope in London, in whom 'a good deal of moral twilight' is suspected; the letter refers also to poetical friends in England: 'You will lament over the decadence of the poetical profession in England when I tell you that the poets there seemed chiefly occupied in babyology ... We were invited to two great christenings, one at Mr Monkton Milnes's and another at Alfred Tennyson's ... In the meantime, Carlyle had wandered away out of sight, to make room for the bricklayers & painters in his house at Chelsea ', adding that they had intended to move on to Rome for the winter, but settled instead for their old house in Florence, which 'is dull & dead after Paris to be sure, -- but I call the dulness stillness, & the deadness repose, & it all has a charm to me'. The letter to Lady Augusta Stanley refers also to Lady Elgin and Keats, explaining that as 'my husband' has 'a throat much affected', for him to read Keats to Lady Elgin that evening as agreed would be 'a risk which I cannot be patient about his running'. (2)