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