No—­I thank you; and I know it was your kindness entirely.  Will you, if you love me, not touch on the subject (I mean on the personal thing to myself) in your next letters, not even by saying that you were sorry you did once touch on them.  I know how foolish and morbid I must seem to you.  So I am made, and I can’t help my idiosyncrasies.

Now don’t mistake me.  Tell me all about the spirits, only not about what they say of me.  I am very interested.  The drawback is, that without any sort of doubt they personate falsely.

We are seething in the heat.  The last three days have been a composition of Gehenna and Paradise.  It is a perpetual steam bath.  Yet Robert and I have not finished our plans for escaping.  Mrs. Jameson is here still, recovering her health and spirits.  The Villa hospitality goes on as usual, and the evening before last we had tea on the terrace by a divine sunset, with a favoring breath or two.  Only even there we wished for Lazarus’s finger.

Certainly Florence will not be bearable many days longer.  Write to me though, at Florence as usual....

It is said that Hume, who is back again in Paris and under the shadow of the Emperor’s wing, has been the means of an extraordinary manifestation, two spiritual figures, male and female, who were recognised by their friends.  Five or six persons (including the medium) fainted away at this apparition.  It happened in Paris, lately.

Yes, I mistrust the mediums less than I do the spirits who write.  Tell me....

Write and tell me everything with exceptions such as I have set down.  And forgive my poor brittle body, which shakes and breaks.  May God love you, dear.

Yours in true affection,
BA.

* * * * *

At the end of July, Florence had become unbearable, and the Brownings removed, for the third time, to the Bagni di Lucca, whither they were followed by some of their friends, notably Miss Blagden and Mr. Robert Lytton.  Unfortunately, their holiday was marred by the dangerous illness of Lytton, which not only kept them in great anxiety for a considerable time, but also entailed much labour in nursing on Mr. Browning and Miss Blagden.  Besides Mrs. Browning’s letters, a letter from her husband to his sister is given below, containing an account of the earlier stages of the illness.

* * * * *

Robert Browning to Miss Browning

Bagni di Lucca:  August 18, [1857].

Dearest,—­We arrived here on the 30th last, and two or three days after were followed by Miss Blagden, Miss Bracken, and Lytton—­all for our sake:  they not otherwise wanting to come this way.  Lytton arrived unwell, got worse soon, and last Friday week was laid up with a sort of nervous fever, caused by exposure to the sun, or something, acting on his nervous frame:  since then he has been very ill in bed—­doctor, anxiety &c.