Mr. Tennyson is going to England for a few months, so that our Florence party is breaking up, you see.  He has printed a few copies of his poems, and is likely to publish them if he meets with encouragement in England, I suppose.  They are full of imagery, encompassed with poetical atmosphere, and very melodious.  On the other hand, there is vagueness and too much personification.  It’s the smell of a rose rather than a rose—­very sweet, notwithstanding.  His poems are far superior to Charles Tennyson’s, bear in mind.  As for the poet, we quite love him, Robert and I do.  What Swedenborg calls ‘selfhood,’ the proprium, is not in him.

Oh yes!  I confess to loving Florence and to having associated with it the idea of home.  My child was born here, and here I have been very happy and well.  Yet we shall not live in Florence—­we are steady to our Paris plan.  We must visit Rome next winter, and in the spring we shall go to Paris via London; you may rely on us for next summer.  I think it too probable that I may not be able to bear two successive winters in the North; but in that case it will be easy to take a flight for a few winter months into Italy, and we shall regard Paris, where Robert’s father and sister are waiting for us, as our fixed place of residence.  As to the distance between Paris and London, it’s a mere step now.  We are to have war, I suppose.  I would not believe it for a long while, but the Czar seems to be struck with madness—­mad in good earnest.  Under these circumstances I hope our Ministry will act with decision and honesty—­but I distrust Lord Aberdeen.  There is evidently, or has been, a division in the Cabinet, and perhaps Lord Palmerston is not the strongest.  Louis Napoleon has acted excellently in this conjuncture—­with integrity and boldness—­don’t you think so?  Dear Mr. Kenyon has his brother and sister with him, to his great joy.  Robert pretended he would not give me your last letter.  Little Wiedeman threw his arms round my neck (taking the play-cruelty for earnest) and exclaimed, ‘Never mind, mine darling Ba!  You’ll have it.’  He always calls me Ba at coaxing times.  Such a darling that child is, indeed!

God bless you!  Do write soon and tell me in detail of yourself.

Our united love, but mine the closest!

Your ever most affectionate
E.B.B.

* * * * *

To Miss I. Blagden

Casa Tolomei, Alia Villa, Bagni di Lucca: 
July 26, [1853].

I deserve another scold for this other silence, dearest Isa.  Scold as softly as you can!  We have been in uncertainty about leaving Florence—­where to go for the summer—­and I did not like to write till I could tell you where to write to me.  Now we are ‘fixed,’ as our American friends would say.  We have taken this house for three months—­a larger house than we need.  We have a row of plane trees before the door in which