The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II | Page 4

new poem, 'Casa Guidi Windows,' soon
after this note. I have asked Sarianna Browning to see that you receive
it safely. I don't give away copies (having none to give away, according
to booksellers' terms), but I can't let you receive my little book from
another hand than the writer's. Tell me how you like the
poem--honestly, truly--which numbers of people will be sure to dislike
profoundly and angrily, perhaps. We think of going to Recoaro because
Mr. Chorley praised it to us years ago. Tell him so if you write.
Here are a heap of words tossed down upon paper. I can't put the stops
even. Do write about yourself, not waiting for the book.
Your ever attached E.B.B.
At Paris how near we shall be! How sure to meet. Have you been to the
Exposition yourself? Tell me. And what is the general feeling _now_?
* * * * *
To John Kenyon Paris: July 7, [1851].
My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--I have waited day after day during this week
that we have been here, to be able to tell you that we have decided this
or that--but the indecision lasts, and I can't let you hear from others of
our being in Paris when you have a right more than anybody almost to
hear all about us. I wanted to write to you, indeed, from Venice, where
we stayed a month, and much the same reason made me leave it undone,
as we were making and unmaking plans the whole time, and we didn't
know till the last few hours, for instance, whether or not we should go

to Milan. Venice is quite exquisite; it wrapt me round with a spell at
first sight, and I longed to live and die there--never to go away. The
gondolas, and the glory they swim through, and the silence of the
population, drifted over one's head across the bridges, and the fantastic
architecture and the coffee-drinking and music in the Piazza San Marco,
everything fitted into my lazy, idle nature and weakness of body, as if I
had been born to the manner of it and to no other. Do you know I
expected in Venice a dreary sort of desolation? Whereas there was
nothing melancholy at all, only a soothing, lulling, rocking atmosphere
which if Armida had lived in a city rather than in a garden would have
suited her purpose. Indeed Taglioni seems to be resting her feet from
dancing, there, with a peculiar zest, inasmuch as she has bought three
or four of the most beautiful palaces. How could she do better? And
one or two ex-kings and queens (of the more vulgar royalties) have
wrapt themselves round with those shining waters to forget the
purple--or dream of it, as the case may be. Robert and I led a true
Venetian life, I assure you; we 'swam in gondolas' to the Lido and
everywhere else, we went to a festa at Chioggia in the steamer
(frightening Wilson by being kept out by the wind till two o'clock in
the morning), we went to the opera and the play (at a shilling each, or
not as much!), and we took coffee every evening on St. Mark's Piazza,
to music and the stars. Altogether it would have been perfect, only
what's perfect in the world? While I grew fat, Wilson grew thin, and
Robert could not sleep at nights. The air was too relaxing or soft or
something for them both, and poor Wilson declares that another month
of Venice would have killed her outright. Certainly she looked
dreadfully ill and could eat nothing. So I was forced to be glad to go
away, out of pure humanity and sympathy, though I keep saying softly
to myself ever since, 'What is there on earth like Venice?'
Then, we slept at Padua on St. Anthony's night (more's the pity for us:
they made us pay sixteen zwanzigers for it!), and Robert and I, leaving
Wiedeman at the inn, took a calèche and drove over to Arqua, which I
had set my heart on seeing for Petrarch's sake. Did you ever see it,
_you_? And didn't it move you, the sight of that little room where the
great soul exhaled itself? Even Robert's man's eyes had tears in them as
we stood there, and looked through the window at the green-peaked

hills. And, do you know, I believe in 'the cat.'
Through Brescia we passed by moonlight (such a flood of white
moonlight) and got into Milan in the morning. There we stayed two
days, and I climbed to the topmost pinnacle of the cathedral; wonder at
me! Indeed I was rather overtired, it must be confessed--three hundred
and fifty steps--but the sight was worth everything, enough to light up
one's memory for ever.