while
as the cold mountain air will let us. On leaving this place we go to
Florence and wait. Unless, indeed (which is possible too), we go to
Egypt and the Holy Land, in which case we shall not remain where we are
beyond the end of September....

I never could consent to receive my theology or any other species of
guidance, in fact--from the 'spirits,' so called. I have no more
confidence, apart from my own conscience and discretionary selection, in
spirits out of the body than in those embodied. The submission of the
whole mind and judgment carries you in either case to the pope--or to
the devil. So _I_ think. Don't let them bind you hand and foot. Resist.
Be yourself. Also where (as in the medium-writing) you have the human
mixture to evolve the spiritual sentiment from, the insecurity becomes
doubly insecure....

Your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

The end of the time at the Bagni di Lucca was clouded by another
anxiety, caused by the illness of Penini. It was not, however, a long
one, and early in October the whole party was able to return to
Florence, where they remained throughout the winter and the following
spring. Letters of this period are, however, scarce, and there is
nothing particular to record concerning it. Since the publication of
'Aurora Leigh,' Mrs. Browning had been taking a holiday from poetical
composition; indeed she never resumed it on a large scale, and published
no other volume save the 'Poems before Congress,' which were the fruit
of a later period of special excitement. She had put her whole self into
'Aurora Leigh,' and seemed to have no further message to give to
mankind. It is evident, too, that her strength was already beginning to
decline and the various family and public anxieties which followed 1856
made demands on what remained of it too great to allow of much
application to poetry.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

[Bagni di Lucca:] Monday, September 28, [1857].

You will understand too well why I have waited some days before
answering your letter, dearest Fanny, though you bade me write at once,
when I tell you that my own precious Penini has been ill with gastric
fever and is even now confined to his bed. Eleven days ago, when he was
looking like a live rose and in an exaggeration of spirits, he proposed
to go with me, to run by my portantina in which I went to pay a visit
some mile and a half away.