excess, no quarrelling, no rudeness nor coarseness can be observed in
the course of such wild masked liberty; not a touch of licence anywhere,
and perfect social equality! Our servant Ferdinando side by side in the
same ball-room with the Grand Duke, and no class's delicacy offended
against! For the Grand Duke went down into the ball-room for a short
time. . . .'


The summer of 1857 saw the family once more at the Baths of Lucca, and
again in company with Mr. Lytton. He had fallen ill at the house
of their common friend, Miss Blagden, also a visitor there; and Mr.
Browning shared in the nursing, of which she refused to entrust any part
to less friendly hands. He sat up with the invalid for four nights; and
would doubtless have done so for as many more as seemed necessary, but
that Mrs. Browning protested against this trifling with his own health.

The only serious difference which ever arose between Mr. Browning and
his wife referred to the subject of spiritualism. Mrs. Browning held
doctrines which prepared her to accept any real or imagined phenomena
betokening intercourse with the spirits of the dead; nor could she
be repelled by anything grotesque or trivial in the manner of this
intercourse, because it was no part of her belief that a spirit still
inhabiting the atmosphere of our earth, should exhibit any dignity or
solemnity not belonging to him while he lived upon it. The question must
have been discussed by them on its general grounds at a very early stage
of their intimacy; but it only assumed practical importance when Mr.
Home came to Florence in 1857 or 1858. Mr. Browning found himself
compelled to witness some of the 'manifestations'. He was keenly
alive to their generally prosaic and irreverent character, and to the
appearance of jugglery which was then involved in them. He absolutely