s given in Charles Knight's
edition. Seek for it there. Now do write to me and at length, and tell
me everything of yourself. Flush hated Vallombrosa, and was frightened
out of his wits by the pine forests. Flush likes civilised life, and
the society of little dogs with turned-up tails, such as Florence
abounds with. Unhappily it abounds also with _fleas_, which afflict
poor Flush to the verge sometimes of despair. Fancy Robert and me
down on our knees combing him, with a basin of water on one side! He
suffers to such a degree from fleas that I cannot bear to witness it.
He tears off his pretty curls through the irritation. Do you know of a
remedy? Direct to me, Poste Restante, Florence. Put _via_ France. Let
me hear, do; and everything of yourself, mind. Is Mrs. Partridge in
better spirits? Do you read any new French books? Dearest friend, let
me offer you my husband's cordial regards, with the love of your own
affectionate

E.B.B., BA.

[Footnote 163: Mr. Horne was just engaged to be married.]

[Footnote 164: Tennyson's _Princess_ had just been published.]

_To Mr. Westwood_
Florence: September 1847.

Yes, indeed, my dear Mr. Westwood, I have seen 'friars.' We have been
on a pilgrimage to Vallombrosa, and while my husband rode up and down
the precipitous mountain paths, I and my maid and Flush were dragged
in a hamper by two white bullocks--and such scenery; such hilly peaks,
such black ravines and gurgling waters, and rocks and forests above
and below, and at last such a monastery and such friars, who wouldn't
let us stay with them beyond five days for fear of corrupting the
fraternity. The monks had a new abbot, a St. Sejanus of a holy
man, and a petticoat stank in his nostrils, said he, and all the I
beseeching which we could offer him with joined hands was classed with
the temptations of St. Anthony. So we had to come away as we went, and
get the better as we could of our disappointment, and really it was
a disappointment not to be able to stay our two months out in the
wilderness as we had planned it, to say nothing of the heat of
Florence, to which at the moment it was not pleasant to return. But
we got new lodgings in the shade and comforted ourselves as well as we
could. 'Comforted'--there's a word for Florence--that ingratitude was
a slip of the pen, believe me. Only we had set our hearts upon a two
months' seclusion in the deep of the pine forests (which have such
a strange dialect in the silence th