We heard nothing, however, from the American Minister, Mr. Marsh, and his wife, who have just come from Constantinople in consequence of the change of Presidency, and who passed an evening with us a few days ago.  She is pretty and interesting, a great invalid and almost blind, yet she has lately been to Jerusalem, and insisted on being carried to the top of Mount Horeb.  After which I certainly should have the courage to attempt the journey myself, if we had money enough.  Going to the Holy Land has been a favorite dream of Robert’s and mine ever since we were married, and some day you will wonder why I don’t write, and hear suddenly that I am lost in the desert.  You will wonder, too, at our wandering madness, by the way, more than at any rapping spirit extant; we have ‘a spirit in our feet,’ as Shelley says in his lovely Eastern song—­and our child is as bad as either of us.  He says, ’I tuite tired of Flolence.  I want to go to Brome,’ which is worse than either of us.  I never am tired of Florence.  Robert has had an application from Miss Faucit (now Mrs. Martin) to bring out his ‘Colombe’s Birthday’ at the Haymarket.

[The remainder of this letter is missing]

* * * * *

To Miss I. Blagden

Florence:  March 3, 1853.

My dearest Isa, ...  You have seen in the papers that Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer has had an accident in the arm, which keeps him away from the House of Commons, and even from the Haymarket, where they are acting his play (’Not so bad as we seem’) with some success.  Well, here is a curious thing about it.  Mr. Lytton told us some time ago, that, by several clairvoyantes, without knowledge or connection with one another, an impending accident had been announced to him, ’not fatal, but serious.’  Mr. Lytton said, ’I have been very uneasy about it, and nervous as every letter arrived, but nearly three months having passed, I began to think they must have made a mistake—­only it is curious that they all should all make a mistake of the same kind precisely.’  When after this we saw the accident in the paper, it was effective, as you may suppose!

Profane or not, I am resolved on getting as near to a solution of the spirit question as I can, and I don’t believe in the least risk of profanity, seeing that whatever is, must be permitted; and that the contemplation of whatever is, must be permitted also, where the intentions are pure and reverent.  I can discern no more danger in psychology than in mineralogy, only intensely a greater interest.  As to the spirits, I care less about what they are capable of communicating, than of the fact of there being communications.  I certainly wouldn’t set about building a system of theology out of their oracles.  God forbid.  They seem abundantly foolish, one must admit.  There is probably, however, a mixture of good spirits and bad, foolish and wise, of the lower orders perhaps, in both kinds....