Autograph letter signed : Florence, to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett, [1853] May [3].

Thanking George (on her own behalf and on Robert's) for his kind letter about Browning's play "Colombe's Birthday"; describing her excitement and anticipation when the play opened: "I insisted on going down with him yesterday morning early to get the letters & afterwards examine the newspapers at Vieussieux's before anybody else arrived--So frightened I was. Robert was calling on me to admire this bright light across the mountains--that black shadow on an old wall--but I could'nt look at anything for my part--My heart beat so I could hear it with my ears"; summarizing the reviews and writing that, though she doubts the play will have a run, it is a 'succes d'estime' and may help editions of Browning's poetry sell better; criticizing the publishers Chapman & Hall for not using the opportunity to advertise, comparing them unfavorably to her publisher Edward Moxon, and criticizing Moxon as well: "For instance--how do you make out that from the sale of a large edition of my two volumes (above a thousand copies) at sixteen shillings, my share of the 'half profits' should be only about a hundred pounds? Do you really imagine that booksellers pay themselves after the same fashion, & buy villas at Wimbledon out of such pay? I believe more easily in Rapping spirits"; mentioning that a Mr. and Mrs. Twistleton will be spending the evening with them, and meeting Frederick Tennyson and Edward Bulwer Lytton; writing that Lytton came by the evening before to tell them about a table that had moved during a séance at the house of acquaintances of his in Florence ("There was a great crackling, & then it spun round"); reacting to Humboldt's dismissal of spiritualism: "So Humbolt speaks contemptuously of these things! So be it--Even Humbolt has not seen the end of all wisdom--"; asking if people in London are talking about a new volume of poems by Matthew Arnold (probably Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems); giving an account of Pen and Wilson's trip to the races; writing that she hears he has been named in the House of Commons, "& I do earnestly hope that after all this uphill work, this walking in bogs (called the law) you will get soon upon smoother ground."