Milnes, Mrs.
Browning, Mrs. Nightingale, and her daughter were the only ladies at
table; and I think there were as many as eight or ten gentlemen, whose
names--as I came so late--I was left to find out for myself, or to leave
unknown.
It was a pleasant and sociable meal, and, thanks to my cold beef and
coffee at home, I had no occasion to trouble myself much about the fare;
so I just ate some delicate chicken, and a very small cutlet, and a slice
of dry toast, and thereupon surceased from my labors. Mrs. Browning and
I talked a good deal during breakfast, for she is of that quickly
appreciative and responsive order of women with whom I can talk more
freely than with any man; and she has, besides, her own originality,
wherewith to help on conversation, though, I should say, not of a
loquacious tendency. She introduced the subject of spiritualism, which,
she says, interests her very much; indeed, she seems to be a believer.
Mr. Browning, she told me, utterly rejects the subject, and will not
believe even in the outward manifestations, of which there is such
overwhelming evidence. We also talked of Miss Bacon; and I developed
something of that lady's theory respecting Shakespeare, greatly to the
horror of Mrs. Browning, and that of her next neighbor,--a nobleman,
whose name I did not hear. On the whole, I like her the better for
loving the man Shakespeare with a personal love. We talked, too, of
Margaret Fuller, who spent her last night in Italy with the Brownings;
and of William Story, with whom they have been intimate, and who, Mrs.
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