Chapter 12

1855-1859

About a month after the date of the last letter, Mr. and Mrs. Browning left Italy for the second time. As on the previous occasion (1851-2), their absence extended over two summers and a winter, the latter being spent in Paris, while portions of each summer were given up to visits to England. Each of them was bringing home an important work for publication, Mr. Browning's 'Men and Women,' containing much of his very greatest poetry, being passed through the press in 1855, while Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' although more than half of it had been written before she left Florence, was not ready for printing until the following year. They travelled direct from Florence to London, arriving there apparently in the course of July, and taking up their quarters at 13 Dorset Street. Their stay there was made memorable, as Mrs. Browning records below, by a visit from Tennyson, who read to them, on September 27, his new poem of 'Maud;' and it was while he was thus employed that Rossetti drew a well-known portrait of the Laureate in pen and ink. But in spite of glimpses of Tennyson, Ruskin, Carlyle, Kenyon, and other friends, the visit to England was, on the whole, a painful one to Mrs. Browning. Intercourse with her own family did not run smooth. One sister was living at too great a distance to see her; the other was kept out of her reach, for a considerable part of the time, by her father. In addition, a third member of the Barrett family, her brother Alfred, earned excommunication from his father's house by the unforgivable offence of matrimony. Altogether it was not without a certain feeling of relief that, in the middle of October, Mrs. Browning, with her husband and child, left England for Paris. The whole visit had been so crowded with work and social engagements as to leave little time for correspondence; and the letters for the period are consequently few and short.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

13 Dorset Street, Baker Street: Tuesday, [July-August 1855].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I have waited days and days in the answering of your dear, kind, welcoming letter, and yet I have been very very grateful for it. Thank you. I need such things in England above other places.

For the rest, we could not go to Herefordshire, even if I were rational, which I am not; I could as soon open a coffin as do it: there's the truth. The place is nothing to me, of course, only the string round a faggot burnt or scattered. But if I went there, the thought of _one face_ which never ceases to be present with me (and which I parted from for ever in my poor blind unconsciousness with a pettish word) would rise up, put down all the rest, and prevent my having one moment of ordinary calm intercourse with you, so don't ask me; set it down to mania or obstinacy, but I never _could_ go into that neighbourhood, except to die, which I think sometimes I should like. So you may have me some day when the physicians give me up, but then, you won't, you know, and it wouldn't, any way, be merry visiting.

Foolish to write all this! As if any human being could know thoroughly what _he_ was to me. It must seem so extravagant, and perhaps affected, even to _you_, who are large-hearted and make allowances. After these years!

And, after all, I might have just said the other truth, that we are at the end of our purse, and can't travel any more, not even to Taunton, where poor Henrietta, who is hindered from coming to me by a like pecuniary straitness, begs so hard that we should go. Also, we are bound to London by business engagements; a book in the press (Robert's two volumes), and _proofs_ coming in at all hours. We have been asked to two or three places at an hour's distance from London, and can't stir; to Knebworth, for instance, where Sir Edward Lytton wants us to go. It would be amusing in some ways; but we are tired. Also Robert's sister is staying with us.

Also, we shall see you in Paris on the way to Pau next November, shall we not? Write and tell me that we shall, and that you are not disgusted with me meanwhile.

Do you know our news? Alfred is just married at the Paris Embassy to Lizzie Barrett.... Of course, he makes the third exile from Wimpole Street, the course of true love running remarkably rough in our house. For the rest, there have been no _scenes_, I thank God, for dearest Arabel's sake. He had written to my father nine or ten days before the ceremony, received no answer, and followed up the silence rather briskly by another letter to announce his marriage.... I am going to write to him at Marseilles.

You cannot imagine to yourself the unsatisfactory and disheartening turmoil in which we are at present. It's the mad bull and the china shop, and, _nota bene_, we are the china shop. People want to see if Italy has cut off our noses, or what! A very kind anxiety certainly, but so horribly fatiguing that my heart sinks, and my brain goes round under the process. O my Florence! how much better you are!

Have you heard that Wilson is married to a Florentine who lived once with the Peytons, and is here now with us, a good, tender-hearted man?[46]

I am tolerably well, though to breathe this heavy air always strikes me as difficult; and my little Penini is very well, thank God. I want so much to show him to you. We shall be here till the end of September, if the weather admits of it, then go to Paris for the winter, then return to London, and then--why, _that_ 'then' is too far off to see. Only we talk of Italy in the distance.

My book is not ready for the press yet; and as to writing here, who could produce an epic in the pauses of a summerset? Not that my poem is an epic, I hurry on to say in consideration for dear Mr. Martin's feelings. I flatter myself it's a _novel_, rather, a sort of novel in verse. Arabel looks well.

What pens! What ink! Do write, and tell me of _you both_. I love you cordially indeed.

Your ever affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

13 Dorset Street: Tuesday, [July-August 1855].

My dearest Mona Nina,--I write to you in the midst of so much fatigue and unsatisfactory turmoil, that I feel I shall scarcely be articulate in what I say. Still, it must be tried, for I can't have you think that I have come to London to forget you, much less to be callous to the influence of this dear affectionate letter of yours. May God bless you! How sorry I am that you should have vexation on the top of more serious hurts to depress you. Indeed, if it were not for the _other side of the tapestry_, it would seem not at all worth while for us to stand putting in more weary Gobelin stitches (till we turn into goblins) day after day, year after year, in this sad world. For my part, I am ready at melancholy with anybody. The air, mentally or physically considered, is very heavy for me here, and I long for the quiet of my Florence, where somehow it always has gone best with my life. As to England, it affects me so, in body, soul, and circumstances, that if I could not get away soon, I should be provoked, I think, into turning monster and _hating_ the whole island, which shocks you so to hear, that you will be provoked into not loving me, perhaps, and _that_ would really be too hard, after all.

The best news I can give you is that Robert has printed the first half volume of his poems, and that the work looks better than ever in print, as all true work does brought into the light. He has read these proofs to Mr. Fox (of Oldham), who gives an opinion that the poems are at the top of art in their kind. I don't know whether you care for Mr. Fox's opinion, but it's worth more than mine, of course, on the ground of _impartiality_, to say no otherwise, and it will disappoint me much if you don't confirm both of us presently. The poems, for variety, vitality, and intensity, are quite worthy of the writer, it seems to me, and a clear advance in certain respects on his previous productions.

Has 'Maud' penetrated to you? The winding up is magnificent, full of power, and there are beautiful thrilling bits before you get so far. Still, there is an appearance of labour in the early part; the language is rather encrusted by skill than spontaneously blossoming, and the rhythm is not always happy. The poet seems to aim at more breadth and freedom, which he attains, but at the expense of his characteristic delicious music. People in general appear very unfavourably impressed by this poem, _very unjustly_, Robert and I think. On some points it is even an advance. The sale is great, _nearly five thousand copies already_.

Let me see what London news I have to tell you. We spent an evening with Mr. Ruskin, who was gracious and generous, and strengthened all my good impressions. Robert took our friend young Leighton to see him afterwards, and was as kindly received. We met Carlyle at Mr. Forster's, and found him in great force, particularly in the damnatory clauses. Mr. Kinglake we saw twice at the Procters', and once here.... The Procters are very well. How I like Adelaide's face! that's a face worth a drove of beauties! Dear Mrs. Sartoris has just left London, I grieve to say; and so has Mrs. Kemble, who (let me say it quick in a parenthesis) is looking quite magnificent just now, with those gorgeous eyes of hers. Mr. Kenyon, too, has vanished--gone with his brother to the Isle of Wight. The weather has been very uncertain, cloudy, misty, and rainy, with heavy air, ever since we came. Ferdinando keeps saying, 'Povera gente, che deve vivere in questo posto,' and Penini catches it up, and gives himself immense airs, discoursing about Florentine skies and the glories of the Cascine to anyone who will listen. The child is well, thank God, and in great spirits, which is my comfort. I found my dear sister Arabel, too, well, and it is deep yet sad joy to me to look in her precious loving eyes, which never failed me, nor could. Henrietta will be hindered, perhaps, from coming to see me by want of means, poor darling; and the same cause will keep me from going to Taunton. We have a quantity of invitations to go into the country, to the Custs, to the Martins, &c. &c., and (one which rather tempts _me_) to Knebworth, Sir Edward Lytton having written us the kindest of possible invitations; but none of these things are for us, I see.

Dearest friend, I do hope you won't go to Rome this winter. When you have been to Vienna, come back, and let us have you in Paris. I am glad Lady Elgin liked the book. The history of it was that she asked Robert to get it for her, and he _presented_ it instead.

Our M. Milsand likes you much, he says, and I like you to hear it....

Oh, we read your graceful, spirited letter in the 'Athenæum.' By the way, did you see the absurd exposition of 'Maud' as an allegory? What pure madness, instead of Maudness!

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

13 Dorset Street: Monday, [August-September 1855].

Day after day, my dearest Mrs. Martin, I have been meaning to write to you, always in vain, and now I hear from Mrs. Ormus Biddulph that you are not quite well. How is this? Shall I hear soon that you are better? I want something to cheer me up a little. The bull is out of the china shop, certainly, but the broken pottery doesn't enjoy itself much the more for that. I have lost my Arabel (my one light in London), who has had to go away to Eastbourne; very vexed at it, dear darling, though she really required change of air. We, for our parts, are under promise to follow her in a week, as it will be on our way to Paris, and not cost us many shillings over the expenses of the direct route. But the days drag themselves out, and there remains so much work (on proof sheets, &c.) to be done here, that I despond of our being able to move as soon as I fain would. I assure you I am stuffed as hard as a cricket ball with the work of every day, and I have waited in vain for a clear hour to write quietly and comfortably to you, in order to say how your letter touched me, dear dear friend. You always understand. Your sympathy stretches _beyond_ points of agreement, which is so rare and so precious, and makes one feel so unspeakably grateful....

London has emptied itself, as you may suppose, by this time. Mrs. Ormus Biddulph was so kind as to wish us to dine with them on Monday (to-day), but we found it absolutely impossible. The few engagements we make we don't keep, and I shall try for the future to avoid perjury. As it is, I have no doubt that various people have set me down as 'full of arrogance and assumption,' at which the gods must laugh, for really, if truths could be known, I feel even morbidly humble just now, and could show my sackcloth with anybody's sackcloth. But it is difficult to keep to the conventions rigidly, and return visits to the hour, and hold engagements to the minute, when one has neither carriage, nor legs, nor time at one's disposal, which is my case. If I don't at once answer (for instance) such a letter as you sent me, I must be a beggar....

May God bless you both, my very dear friends! My husband bids me remember him to you in cordial regard. I long to see you, and to hear (first) that you are well.

Dearest Mrs. Martin's ever attached BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

13 Dorset Street: Tuesday, [October 1855].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I can't go without writing to you, but I am ground down with last things to do on last days, and it must be a word only. Dearest friend, I have waited morning after morning for a clear half-hour, because I didn't like to do your bidding and write briefly, though now, after all, I am reduced to it. We leave England to-morrow, and shall sleep (D.V.) at 102 _Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St. Germain, Paris_,--I am afraid in a scarcely convenient apartment, which a zealous friend, in spite of our own expressed opinion, secured for us for the term of six months, because of certain yellow satin furniture which only she could consider 'worthy of us.' We shall probably have to dress on the staircase, but what matter? There's the yellow satin to fall back upon.

If the rooms are not tenable, we must underlet them, or try....

One of the pleasantest things which has happened to us here is the coming down on us of the Laureate, who, being in London for three or four days from the Isle of Wight, spent two of them with us, dined with us, smoked with us, opened his heart to us (and the second bottle of port), and ended by reading 'Maud' through from end to end, and going away at half-past two in the morning. If I had had a heart to spare, certainly he would have won mine. He is captivating with his frankness, confidingness, and unexampled _naïveté_! Think of his stopping in 'Maud' every now and then--'There's a wonderful touch! That's very tender. How beautiful that is!' Yes, and it _was_ wonderful, tender, beautiful, and he read exquisitely in a voice like an organ, rather music than speech.

War, war! It is terrible certainly. But there are worse plagues, deeper griefs, dreader wounds than the physical. What of the forty thousand wretched women in this city? The silent writhing of them is to me more appalling than the roar of the cannons. Then this war is _necessary_ on our sides. Is _that_ wrong necessary? It is not so clear to me.

Can I write of such questions in the midst of packing?

May God bless you both! Write to me in Paris, and do come soon and find us out.

Robert's love. My love to you both, dearest friends. May God bless you! Your ever affectionate

BA.

* * * * *

_To Mr. Ruskin_

13 Dorset Street: Tuesday morning, October 17, 1855 [postmark].

My dear Mr. Ruskin,--I can't express our amount of mortification in being thwarted in the fulfilment of the promise you allowed us to make to ourselves, that we would go down to you once more before leaving England. What with the crush rather than press of circumstances, I have scarcely needed the weather to pin me to the wall. Sometimes my husband could not go with me, sometimes I couldn't go with him, and always we waited for one another in hope, till this last day overtook us. To-morrow (D.V.) we shall be in Paris. Now, will you believe how we have wished and longed to see you beyond these strait tantalising limits?--how you look to us at this moment like the phantasm of a thing dear and desired, just seen and vanishing? What! are you to be ranked among my spiritualities after all? Forgive me that wrong.

Then you had things to say to me, I know, which in your consideration, and through my cowardice, you did not say, but yet will!

Will you write to me, dear Mr. Ruskin, sometimes, or have I disgusted you so wholly that you won't or can't?

Once, I know, somewhat because of shyness and somewhat because of intense apprehension--somewhat, too, through characteristic stupidity (no contradiction this!)--I said I was grateful to you when you had just bade me not. Well, I really couldn't help it. That's all I can say now. Even if your appreciation were perfectly deserved at all points, why, appreciation means sympathy, and sympathy being the best gift nearly which one human creature can give another, I don't understand (I never could) why it does not deserve thanks. I am stupid perhaps, but for my life I never could help being grateful to the people who loved me, even if they happened to say, 'I can't help it! not I!'

As for Mr. Ruskin, he sees often in his own light. That's what I see and feel.

Will you write to me sometimes? I come back to it. Will you, though I am awkward and shy and obstinate now and then, and a wicked spiritualist to wit--a _realist_ in an out-of-the-world sense--accepting matter as a means (no matter for it otherwise!)?

Don't give me up, dear Mr. Ruskin! My husband's truest regards, and farewell from both of us! I would fain be

Your affectionate friend, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Our address in Paris will be, _102 Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St. Germain_.

* * * * *

The house in the Rue de Grenelle, however, did not prove a success, in spite of the consolations of the yellow satin, and after six weeks of discomfort and house-hunting the Brownings moved to 3 Rue de Colisée, which became their home for the next eight months. It was a period, first of illness caused by the unsuitable rooms, and then of hard work for Mrs. Browning, who was engaged in completing 'Aurora Leigh,' while her husband was less profitably employed in the attempt to recast 'Sordello' into a more intelligible form. No such incident as the visits to George Sand marked this stay in Paris, and politics were in a very much less exciting state. The Crimean war was just coming to a close, and public opinion in England was far from satisfied with the conduct of its ally; but on the whole the times were uneventful.

The first letter from Paris has, however, a special interest as containing a very full estimate of the character and genius of Mrs. Browning's dear friend, Miss Mitford. It is addressed to Mr. Ruskin, who had been unceasingly attentive and helpful to Miss Mitford during her declining days.

* * * * *

_To Mr. Ruskin_

Paris, 102 Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St. Germain: November 5, [1855].

My dear Mr. Ruskin,--I thank you from my heart for your more than interesting letter. You have helped me to see that dear friend of ours, as without you I could not have seen her, in those last affecting days of illness, by the window not only of the house in Berkshire, but of the house of the body and of the material world--an open window through which the light shone, thank God. It would be a comfort to me now if I had had the privilege of giving her a very very little of the great pleasure you certainly gave her (for I know how she enjoyed your visit--she wrote and told me), but I must be satisfied with the thought left to me, that now _she_ regrets nothing, not even great pleasures.

I agree with you in much if not in everything you have written of her. It was a great, warm, outflowing heart, and the head was worthy of the heart. People have observed that she resembled Coleridge in her granite forehead--something, too, in the lower part of the face--however unlike Coleridge in mental characteristics, in his tendency to abstract speculation, or indeed his ideality. There might have been, as you suggest, a somewhat different development elsewhere than in Berkshire--not very different, though--souls don't grow out of the ground.

I agree quite with you that she was stronger and wider in her conversation and letters than in her books. Oh, I have said so a hundred times. The heat of human sympathy seemed to bring out her powerful vitality, rustling all over with laces and flowers. She seemed to think and speak stronger holding a hand--not that she required help or borrowed a word, but that the human magnetism acted on her nature, as it does upon men born to speak. Perhaps if she had been a man with a man's opportunities, she would have spoken rather than written a reputation. Who can say? She hated the act of composition. Did you hear that from her ever?

Her letters were always admirable, but I do most deeply regret that what made one of their greatest charms unfits them for the public--I mean their personal details. Mr. Harness sends to me for letters, and when I bring them up, and with the greatest pain force myself to examine them (all those letters she wrote to me in her warm goodness and affectionateness), I find with wonder and sorrow how only a half-page here and there _could_ be submitted to general readers--_could_, with any decency, much less delicacy.

But no, her 'judgment' was not 'unerring.' She was too intensely sympathetical not to err often, and in fact it was singular (or seemed so) what faces struck her as most beautiful, and what books as most excellent. If she loved a person, it was enough. She made mistakes one couldn't help smiling at, till one grew serious to adore her for it. And yet when she read a book, provided it wasn't written by a friend, edited by a friend, lent by a friend, or associated with a friend, her judgment could be fine and discriminating on most subjects, especially upon subjects connected with life and society and manners. Shall I confess? She never taught _me_ anything but a very limited admiration of Miss Austen, whose people struck me as wanting souls, even more than is necessary for men and women of the world. The novels are perfect as far as they go--that's certain. Only they don't go far, I think. It may be my fault.

You lay down your finger and stop me, and exclaim that it's my way perhaps to attribute a leaning of the judgment through personal sympathy to people in general--that I do it perhaps to _you_. No, indeed. I can quite easily believe that you don't either think or say 'the pleasantest things to your friends;' in fact, I am sure you don't. You would say them as soon to your enemies--perhaps sooner. Also, when you began to say pleasant things to me, you hadn't a bit of personal feeling to make a happy prejudice of, and really I can't flatter myself that you have now. What I meant was that you, John Ruskin, not being a critic _sal merum_ as the ancients had it, but half critic, and half poet, may be rather encumbered sometimes by the burning imagination in you, may be apt sometimes, when you turn the light of your countenance on a thing, to see the thing lighted up as a matter of course, just as we, when we carried torches into the Vatican, were not perfectly clear how much we brought to that wonderful Demosthenes, folding the marble round him in its thousand folds--how much we brought, and how much we received. Was it the sculptor or was it the torch-bearer who produced that effect? And like doubts I have had of you, I confess, and not only when you have spoken kindly of _me_. You don't mistake by your heart, through loving, but you exaggerate by your imagination, through glorifying. There's my thought at least.

But what I meant by 'apprehending too intensely,' dear Mr. Ruskin, don't ask me. Really I have forgotten. I suppose I did mean something, though it was a day of chaos and packing boxes--try to think I did therefore, and let it pass.

You please me--oh, so much--by the words about my husband. When you wrote to praise my poems, of course I had to bear it--I couldn't turn round and say, 'Well, and why don't you praise him, who is worth twenty of me? Praise my second Me, as well as my Me proper, if you please.' One's forced to be rather decent and modest for one's husband as well as for one's self, even if it's harder. I couldn't pull at your coat to read 'Pippa Passes,' for instance. I can't now.

But you have put him on the shelf, so we have both taken courage to send you his new volumes, 'Men and Women,' not that you may say 'pleasant things' of them or think yourself bound to say anything indeed, but that you may accept them as a sign of the esteem and admiration of both of us. I consider them on the whole an advance upon his former poems, and am ready to die at the stake for my faith in these last, even though the discerning public should set it down afterwards as only a 'Heretic's Tragedy.'

Our friend Mr. Jarves came to read a part of your letter to us, confirmatory of doctrines he had heard from us on an earlier day. The idea of your writing the art criticisms of the 'Leader' (!) was so stupendously ludicrous, there was no need of faith in your loyalty to laugh the whole imputation, at first hearing, to uttermost scorn. I must say, in justice to Mr. Jarves, that he never did really believe one word of it, though a good deal ruffled and pained that it should have been believed by anybody. He is full of admiring and grateful feeling for you, and has gone on to Italy in that mind.

As for me, I almost yearn to go too. We have fallen into a pit here in Paris, upon evil days and rooms, an impulsive friend having taken an apartment for us facing the east, insufficiently protected, and with a bedroom wanting, so that we are still waiting, with trunks unpacked, and our child sleeping on the floor, till we can get emancipated anyhow. Then, through the last week's cold, I have not been well--only it will not, I think, be much, as I am better already, and there will be no practical end to the talk of Nice and Pau, which my husband had begun a little. All this has hindered me from following my first impulse of thanking you for your letter immediately.

How beautiful Paris is, and how I agree with you, as we both did with dear Miss Mitford, on the subject of Louis Napoleon. I approve of him _exactly because_ I am a democrat, and not at all for an exceptional reason. I hold that the most democratical government in Europe is out and out the French Government (which doesn't exclude the absolutist element, far from it); but who in England understands this? and that the representative man of France, the incarnate republic, is the man Louis Napoleon? An extraordinary man he is. I never was a Buonapartist, though the legend of the First Napoleon has wrung tears from me before now, and I was very sorry when Louis Napoleon was elected instead of Cavaignac. At the _coup d'état_ I was not sorry. And since then I have believed in him more and more.

So far in sympathy. In regard to the slaves, no, no, no; I belong to a family of West Indian slaveholders, and if I believed in curses, I should be afraid. I can at least thank God that I am not an American. How you look serenely at slavery, I cannot understand, and I distrust your power to explain. Do you indeed?

Dear Mr. Ruskin, do let us hear from you sometimes. It is such a great gift, a letter of yours. Then remember that I am a spirit in prison all the winter, not able to stir out. Up to this time we have lived _perdus_ from all our acquaintances because of our misfortunes. With my husband's cordial regards, I remain most truly yours always,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

The publishers are directed to send you the volumes on their publication.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[Paris] 3 Rue du Colisée, Avenue des Champs-Elysées: Saturday, December 17, 1855 [postmark].

How pleasant, dearest Mona Nina, to hear you, though the voice sounds far! Try and come back to us soon, and let us talk, or listen, rather, to your talking. Why shouldn't _I_, too, have a sister of charity, like others? I appeal to you.

Still, I have only good to tell you of myself. I am better through the better weather and through our arrival in this apartment, where, as Robert says, we are as pleased as if we had never lived in a house before. Well, I assure you the rooms are perfect in comfort and convenience; not large, but _warm_, and of a number and arrangement which exclude all fault-finding. Clean, carpeted; no glitter, nothing very pretty--not even the clocks--but with sofas and chairs suited to lollers such as one of us, and altogether what I mean whenever I say that an 'apartment' on the Continent is twenty times more really 'comfortable' than any of your small houses in England. Robert has a room to himself too. It's perfect. I hop about from one side to the other, like a bird in a new cage. The feathers are draggled and rough, though. I am not strong, though the cough is quieter without the least doubt.

And this time also I shall not die, perhaps. Indeed, I do think not.

That darling Robert carried me into the carriage, swathed past possible breathing, over face and respirator in woollen shawls. No, he wouldn't set me down even to walk up the fiacre steps, but shoved me in upside down, in a struggling bundle--I struggling for breath--he accounting to the concierge for 'his murdered man' (rather woman) in a way which threw me into fits of laughter afterwards to remember. 'Elle se porte très bien! elle se porte extrêmement bien. Ce n'est rien que les poumons.' Nothing but lungs! No air in them, which was the worst! Think how the concierge must have wondered ever since about 'cet original d'Anglais,' and the peculiar way of treating wives when they are in excellent health. 'Sacre.'

Kind Madame Mohl was here to-day, asking about you; and the Aides, male and female, whom we did not see, being at dinner; and dear Lady Elgin came to the door in her wheel-chair.

We keep Penini (in a bed this time) in our bedroom. He was so pathetic about it, we would not lose him.

Write to us, keep writing to us, till you come. I think much of you, wish much for you, and feel much _with_ you. May God bless you, my dear dear friend! The frost broke up on Thursday, and it is raining warmly to-day; but I can't believe in the possibility of the cold penetrating much into this house under worse circumstances; and I shall be bold, and try hard to begin writing next week.

Oh! George Sand. How magnificent that eighteenth volume is; I mean the volume which concludes with the views upon the _sexes_! After all, and through all, if her hands are ever so defiled, that woman has a clean soul.

On the magnetic subjects, too, her 'je ne sais' is worthy of her. And yet, more is to be known I am sure, than she knows.

I read this book so eagerly and earnestly that I seem to burn it up before me. Really there are great things in it.

And to hear people talking it over coldly, pulling it leaf from leaf!

Robert quite joins with me at last. He is intensely interested, and full of admiration.

Now do write. With our united love, we are ever yours, be certain!

R.B. and E.B.B.

Remember not to agree to do the etching. Pray be careful not to involve the precious eyes too much. How easy it would be to etch them out! Frightfully easy.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

[Paris] 3: Rue du Colisée: Monday, January 29, 1856 [postmark].

Dearest Fanny,--I can't get over it that you should fancy I meant to 'banter' you.[47] If I wrote lightly, it was partly that _you_ wrote lightly, and partly perhaps because at bottom I wasn't light at all. When one feels out of spirits, it's the most natural thing possible to be extravagantly gay; now, isn't it?

And now believe me with what truth and earnestness of heart I am interested in all that concerns you; and this is every woman's chief concern, of course, this great fact of love and marriage. My advice is, be sure of him _first_, and of yourself _chiefly_. For the rest I would marry ('if I were a woman,' I was going to say), though the whole world spouted fire in my face. Marriage is a personal matter, be sure, and the nearest and wisest can't judge for you. If you can make up two hundred a year between you, or less even, there is no pecuniary obstacle in my eyes. People may live very cheaply and very happily if they are happy otherwise.

As for me, my only way was to cut the knot--because it was an untieable knot--and because my fingers generally are not strong at untieing. What do you mean by Mr. Kenyon's backing me? Nobody backed me except the north wind which blew us vehemently out of England. Mr. Kenyon knew no more of the affair than you did, though he was very kind afterwards and took my part. And as to money, there was (and is) little enough. It was a case of pure madness (for people of the world), just like table-moving and spirit-rapping and the 'hands'!

But you, my dear friend, I do earnestly entreat you to consider if you are sure of principles, sentiment--and _of yourself_. Because, whether you know it or not, you are happily situated _now_ as far as exterior circumstances are concerned. They are not worth much, but they have their worth. They give you liberty to follow your own devices, to think the beautiful and feel the noble; to live out, in short, your individual life, which it is so hard to do in marriage, even where you marry worthily.

I say this probably 'as one who beateth the air;' yet you _must_ consider that I who say it, and who say it _emphatically_, consider a happy marriage as the happiest state, and that all pecuniary reasons against love are both ineffectual and _stupid_.

Flippancy, flippancy, of course. London would be better (for your friends) as a residence for you, than Wittemberg can be; and for that, and no other account, I could be sorry that you did not settle _so_.

Well, never mind! The description sounds excellently; almost over-romantic, though. Is there steadiness, do you think, and depth, and reliableness altogether? What impression does he make among those who have known him longest? Dearest Fanny, do nothing in haste.

Now I am going to tell you something which has vexed me, and continues to vex me. The clock. If you knew Robert, you never would have asked him. He has a sort of mania about shops, and won't buy his own gloves. He bought a pair of boots the other day (because I went down on my knees to ask him, and the water was running in through his soles), and he will not soon get over it. Without exaggeration, he would rather leap down among the lions after your glove, as the knight of old, than walk into a shop for you. If I could but go out, there would be no difficulties; but I am shut up in my winter prison, in spite of the extraordinarily mild weather, through having suffered so much in the beginning of the winter. I asked Sarianna; she also shrinks from the responsibility; is afraid of not pleasing you, &c. The end of it all is that Mrs. Haworth will think us all very disobliging barbarians, and that really I am vexed. Why not ask Mrs. Cochrane to get the thing for you? You can but ask, at any rate.

I am very anxious just now about dear Mr. Kenyon, who has been alarmingly ill, and is only better, I fear. Miss Bayley wrote to tell me, and added that he was going to Cowes when he could move, which pleases me; for only change of air and liberation from London air can complete his convalescence.

For the rest, I am busy beyond description; but never too much so, mind, dear Fanny, to be glad to get your letters. Write soon. Your ever affectionate

E.B.B.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

[Paris]: 3 Rue du Colisée: February 21, [1856].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I should have answered your note days ago! If you saw how I am in a plague of industry just now, and not a moment unspotted!--how, for instance, I kept an 'Examiner' newspaper (sent to us from London) three days on the table before I could read it,--you would make an allowance for me. It's a sort of _furia_! I must get over so much writing, or I shall be too late for the summer's printing. If it isn't done by June, what will become of me? I shall go back to Italy in disgrace, and considerably poorer than I need be, which is of more practical consequence. So I fag. Then there's an hour and a half in the morning for Penini's lessons. We breakfast at nine, and receive nobody till past four. This will all prove to you two things, dearest friend--first (I hope) that I'm pardonable for making you wait a few days longer than should have been, and secondly that I'm tolerably well. Yes, indeed. Since our arrival in this house, after just the first, when there was some frost, we have had such a miraculous mildness under the name of winter, that I rallied as a matter of course, and for the last month there has been no return of the spitting of blood, and no extravagance of cough. I have persisted with cod's liver oil, and I look by no means ill, people assure me, and so I may assure _you_. But I am not very strong, and was a good deal tired after a two hours' drive which I ventured on a week ago in the Bois de Boulogne. The small rooms, and deficiency of air resulting from them, make a long shutting up a more serious thing than I find it in Florence in our acres of apartment. But it is easy to mend strength when only strength is to be mended, and I, for one, get strong again easily. I only hope that the cold is not returning. The air was sharp yesterday and is to-day; but it's February, and the spring is at the doors, and we may hope with reason....

What do you say of the peace as a final peace? You are not at least vexed, as so many English are, that we can't fight a little for glory to reinstate our reputation. You'll excuse that. Still, I can't help feeling disappointed in the peace--chiefly, perhaps, because I hoped too much from the war. Will nothing be done after all for Italy? nothing for Poland?

You want books. Read About's 'Tolla.' He is a new writer, and his book is exquisite as a transcript of Italian manners. Then read Octave Feuillet. There is much in him.

Will there be war with America, dear Mr. Martin? Never will I believe it till I hear the cannons.

Talking of what we should believe, it appears that Mrs. Trollope has thrown over Hume[48] from some failure in his moral character in Florence. I have had many letters on the subject. I have no doubt that the young man, who is weak and vain, and was exposed to gross flatteries from the various unwise coteries at Florence who took him up, deserves to be thrown over. But his _mediumship_ is undisproved, as far as I can understand. It is simply a physical faculty--he is quite an electric wire. At Florence everybody is quarrelling with everybody on the subject. I thought I would tell you.

Penini, the pet, is radiant, and learning French triumphantly. May God bless you! Write to me, dearest Mrs. Martin, and tell me of both of you. Robert's love.

Your ever, ever affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[Paris]: 3 Rue du Colisée: February 28, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Mona Nina,--Three letters, one on the top of another, and I don't answer. Shame on me. How I have thought of you, to make up! And you write to apologise to _us_, from a dreamy mystical apprehension that we may peradventure have lost eightpence on your account! Well, it would have been awful if we had. And so Providence interposed with a special miracle, and obliged the officials to accept the actual penny stamp for the fourpenny stamp you meant to put, and _we paid just nothing for the terrible letter_! Take heart, therefore, in future, before all hypothetical misfortunes. That's the moral of the tale....

My dear friend, how shall I pull you and make you come to Paris? Madame de Triqueti was here the other day, and spoke of you, and swore she wouldn't help to take rooms for you, unless you came near _her_. As to the two rooms you speak of, I am sure you might have what rooms you pleased now, in this neighbourhood. What would you give? Our present apartment is comfort itself, and except some cold days a short time after you went away, we have really had no winter. The miraculous warmth has saved me, for I was so _felled_ in that Rue de Grenelle, I should scarcely have had force against an ordinary cold season. Little Penini has been blossoming like a rose all the time. Such a darling, idle, distracted child he is, not keeping his attention for three minutes together for the hour and a half I teach him, and when I upbraid him for it, throwing himself upon me like a dog, kissing my cheeks and head and hands. 'O you little pet, _dive_ me one chance more! I will really be dood,' and learning everything by magnetism, getting on in seven weeks, for instance, to read French quite surprisingly. He has written a poem on the war and the peace, called 'Soldiers going and coming,' which Robert and I thought so remarkable that I sent it to Mr. Forster. Oh, such a darling, that child is! I expect the wings to grow presently.

As for my poem (far below Penini's), I work on steadily and have put in order and transcribed five books, containing in all above six thousand lines ready for the press. I have another book to put together and transcribe, and then must begin the composition part of one or two more books, I suppose. I must be ready for printing by the time we go to England, in June. Robert too is much occupied with 'Sordello,'[49] and we neither of us receive anybody till past four o'clock. I mean that when you have read my new book, you put away all my other poems or most of them, and know me only by the new. Oh, I am so anxious to make it good. I have put much of myself in it--I mean to say, of my soul, my thoughts, emotions, opinions; in other respects, there is not a personal line, of course. It's a sort of poetic art-novel. If it's a failure, there will be the comfort of having made a worthy effort, of having done it as well as I could. Write soon to me, and love us both constantly, as we do you.

Your ever affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[Paris]: May 2, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Mona Nina,--It's very pleasant always to get letters from you, and such kind dear letters, showing that you haven't broken the tether-strings in search of 'pastures new,' weary of our cropped grass.

As for news, you have most of the persons upon whom you care for gossip in your hand now--Mrs. Sartoris, Madame Viardot, Lady Monson, and the Ristori herself. Robert went to see her twice, because Lady Monson led him by the hand kindly, and was charmed; thought the Médée very fine, but won't join in the cry about miraculous genius and Rachel out-Racheled. He thinks that as far as the highest and largest development of sensibility can go, she is very great; but that for those grand and sudden _aperçus_ which have distinguished actors--such as Kean, for instance--he does not acknowledge them in her. You have heard perhaps how Dickens and others, Macready among the rest, depreciated her. Dickens went so far as to say, I understand, that no English audience would tolerate her defects; which will be put to the proof presently. By the way, you had better not quote Macready on this subject, as he expressed himself unwilling to be quoted on it....

So now we are well again,[50] thank God; and if Robert will but take regular exercise, he will keep so, I hope. As to Penini, he is radiant, and even I have been out walking twice, though a good deal weaker for the winter. More open air, and much more, is necessary to set me growing again, but I shall grow; and meantime I have been working, and am working, at so close a rate that if I lose a day I am lost, which is too close a rate, and makes one feel rather nervous. We see nobody till after four meantime. I have finished (not transcribed) the last book but one, and am now in the very last book, which must be finished with the last days of May. Then the first fortnight of June will be occupied with the transcription of these two last books, and I shall carry the completed work with me to England on the 16th if it please God. Oh, I do hope you won't be disappointed with it--much! Some things you will like certainly, because of the boldness and veracity of them, and others you _may_; I can't be so sure. Robert speaks well of the poetry--encourages me much. But then he has seen only six of the eight books yet.

He just now has taken to drawing, and after thirteen days' application has produced some quite startling copies of heads. I am very glad. He can't rest from serious work in light literature, as I can; it wearies him, and there are hours which are on his hands, which is bad both for them and for him. The secret of life is in full occupation, isn't it? This world is not tenable on other terms. So while I lie on the sofa and rest in a novel, Robert has a resource in his drawing; and really, with all his feeling and knowledge of art, some of the mechanical trick of it can't be out of place.

To-night he is going to Madame Mohl, who is well and as vivacious as ever. When Monckton Milnes was in Paris he dined with him in company with Mignet, Cavour, George Sand, and an empty chair in which Lamartine was expected to sit. George Sand had an ivy wreath round her head, and looked like herself; But Lady Monson will talk to you of _her_, better than I can. Now, mind you ask Lady Monson.

As to this Government, I only entreat you _not_ to believe any of the mendacious reports set afloat here by a most unworthy Opposition, and carried out by the English 'Athenæum' and other prints. Surely a cause must be bad which is supported by such bad means. In the first place, Béranger did _not_ write the verses attributed to him. The internal evidence was sufficient--for Victor Hugo is his personal enemy--to say nothing of the poetry. Then it would be wise, I think, in considering this question, and in taking for granted that the 'literature and talent' of the country are against the Government, to analyse the antecedents and character of the persons who _do_ stand out, persons implicated in former Governments, or favored by former Governments, and whose vanity and prejudices are necessarily contrary to a new order. These persons, either in themselves or their friends, have all been tried in action and found wanting. They have all lost the confidence of the French people, either by their misconduct or their ill-fortune. They are all cast aside as broken instruments. Under these circumstances they think it desirable to break themselves into the lock, to prevent the turning of another key; they consider it noble and patriotic to stand aside and revile and throw mud, in order to hinder the action of those who _are_ acting for the country. In my mind, it is quite otherwise; in my mind and in many other minds--Robert's, for instance! and he began with a most intense hatred of this Government, as you well know. But he does not shut his eyes to all that is noble and admirable going on, on all sides. At last he is sick of the Opposition, he admits. In respect to literature, nothing can be more mendacious than to say there are restraints upon literature. Books of freer opinion are printed now than would ever have been permitted under Louis Philippe, as was reproached against Napoleon by an enemy the other day--books of free opinion, even licentious opinion, on religion and philosophy. _There is restraint in the newspapers only._ That the 'Athenæum' should venture to say that in consequence of the suppression of books compositors are thrown out of work and forced to become transcribers of verses like Béranger's (which are not Béranger's) is so stupendous a falsehood in the face of _statistics which prove a yearly increase in the amount of books printed_ that I quite lose my breath, you see, in speaking of it.

The Government is steadily solving, or attempting to solve, that difficult modern problem of possible _Socialism_ which has been knocking at all our heads and hearts so long. _That_ is its vexation. It is a Government for the _'bus people_, the first settled and serious Government that ever attempted _their_ case. Its action is worth all the pedantry of the _doctrinaires_ and the middling morals of the _juste milieu_; and I, who am a Democrat, will stand by it as long as I can stand, which isn't very long just now, as I told you.

Dearest Mona Nina, I am so uneasy about dear Mr. Kenyon, who has been ill again--_is_ ill, I fear. He is in London--more's the pity! and Miss Bayley is with him. He gives me sad thoughts.

Do write of yourself. Don't _you_ be sad, dearest friend. Oh, I do wish you could have come, and let us love you and talk to you--but on the 16th of June, at any rate.

Your ever affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[Paris]: Monday, May 6, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Mona Nina,--Your letter makes me feel very uncomfortable. We are in real difficulty about our dear friend Mr. Kenyon, the impulse being, of course, that Robert should go at once, and then the fear coming that it might be an annoyance, an intrusion, something the farthest from what it should be at all. If you had been more explicit--_you_--and we could know what was in your mind when you 'ask' Robert to come, my dear friend, then it would be all easier. If we could but know whether anything passed between you and Miss Bayley on this subject, or whether it is entirely out of your own head that you wish Robert to come. I thought about it yesterday, till I went to bed at eight o'clock with headache. Shall I tell you something in your ear? It is easier for a rich man to enter, after all, into the kingdom of heaven than into the full advantages of real human tenderness. Robert would give much at this moment to be allowed to go to dearest Mr. Kenyon, sit up with him, hold his hand, speak a good loving word to him. This would be privilege to him and to me; and love and gratitude on our parts justified us in _asking_ to be allowed to do it. Twice we have asked. The first time a very kind but decided negative was returned to us on the part of our friend. Yesterday we again asked. Yesterday I wrote to say that it would be _consolation_ to us if Robert might go--if we might say so without 'teasing.' To-morrow, in the case of Miss Bayley sending a consent, even on her own part, Robert will set off instantly; but without an encouraging word from her--my dear friend, do you not see that it might really vex dearest Mr. Kenyon? Observe, we have no more right of intruding than you would have if you forced your way upstairs. It's a wretched world, where we can't express an honest affection honestly without half appearing indelicate to ourselves; nothing proves more how the dirt of the world is up to our chins, and I think I had my headache yesterday really and absolutely from simple disgust.

You see, Robert might go to stay till Mr. Edward Kenyon arrives--if it were only till then. I still hope and pray that our dearest friend may rally, to recover at least a tolerable degree of health. He has certain good symptoms; and some of the bad ones, such as the wandering, &c., are constitutional with him under the least fever. You may suppose what painful anxiety we are in about him. Oh, he has been always so good to me--so true, sympathising, and generous a friend!

I shall always have a peculiar feeling to that dear kind Miss Bayley for what she has been to him these latter months.

Now I can't write any more just now. Leighton has been cut up unmercifully by the critics, but bears on, Robert says, not without courage. That you should say 'his picture looked well' was comfort in the general gloom, though even you don't give anything yet that can be called an opinion. Mrs. Sartoris will be much vexed by it all, I am sure.

May God bless you! Write to me. Robert's love with that of

Your ever affectionate BA.

Did you observe a portrait of Robert by Page? Where have they hung it, and how does it strike you?

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

[Paris]: 3 Rue du Colisée: Saturday, June 17, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,--I was just going to write to you to beg you to apply to Chapman for Robert's book, when he came to stop me with the newspaper. Thank you, my dearest Fanny, for having thought of me when you had so much weary thought; it was very touching to me that you should. And I am vexed to have missed two days before I told you this--the first by an accident, and the second (to-day) by its being a blank post-day; but you will know by your heart how deeply I have felt and feel for you. May God bless you and love you! If I were as He to comfort, you should be strong and calm at this moment. But what are we to one another in this world? How weak, how far, we all feel in moments like these.

Still, I should like to know that you had some friend near you, to hold your hand and look in your face and be silent, as those are silent who know and feel. When you can write again, tell me how it is with you in this respect, and in others.

So sudden, so sudden! Yet bereavements like these are always sudden to the soul, more or less. All _blows_ must needs be sudden. May your health not suffer, dear Fanny. We shall be in London in about a week after the 16th, for we are delayed through my not having finished my poem, which nobody will finish reading perhaps. We go to Mr. Kenyon's house in Devonshire Place, kindly offered to us for the summer. Shall we find you, I wonder, in London?

Yes; there are terrible costs in this world. We get knowledge by losing what we hoped for, and liberty by losing what we loved. But this world is a fragment--or, rather, a segment--and it will be rounded presently, to the completer satisfaction. Not to doubt _that_ is the greatest blessing it gives now. Death is as vain as life; the common impression of it, as false and as absurd. A mere change of circumstances. What more? And how near these spirits are, how conscious, how full of active energy and tender reminiscence and interest, who shall dare to doubt? For myself, I do not doubt at all. If I did, I should be sitting here inexpressibly sad--for myself, not you....

Robert unites with me in affectionate sympathy, and Sarianna was here last night, talking feelingly about you. You shall have Robert's book when we get to England. Think how much I think of you.

Your ever affectionate BA.

Mr. Kenyon has been very ill, and is still in a state occasioning anxiety. He is at the Isle of Wight.

* * * * *

At the end of June the Brownings came back to London, for what was, as it proved, Mrs. Browning's last visit to England. Mr. Kenyon had lent them his house in London, at 39 Devonshire Place, he himself being in the Isle of Wight; but a shadow was thrown over the whole of this visit by the serious and ultimately fatal illness of this dear friend. It was partly in order to see him, and partly because Miss Arabel Barrett had been sent out of town by her father almost as soon as her sister reached Devonshire Place, that about the beginning of September they made an expedition to the Isle of Wight, staying first at Ventnor with Miss Barrett, and subsequently at West Cowes with Mr. Kenyon. All the while Mrs. Browning was actively engaged in seeing 'Aurora Leigh' through the press, and the poem was published just about the time they left England. The letters during this visit are few and mostly unimportant, but the following are of interest.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

39 Devonshire Place: Friday morning [July-August 1856].

My dearest Mona Nina, my dear friend,--I am so grieved, so humiliated. If it is possible to forgive me, do.

I received your note, delayed answering it because I fancied Robert might _learn_ to accept your kindness about the box after a day's consideration, and so forgot everything bodily, taking one day for another, as is my way lately, in this great crush of too much to do and think of. When I was persuaded to go yesterday morning for the first and last time to the Royal Academy, on the point of closing, I went in like an idiot--that is, an innocent--never once thinking of what I was running the risk of losing; and when I returned and found you gone, you were lost and I in despair. So much in despair that I did not hope once you might come again, and out I went after dinner to see the Edward Kenyons in Beaumont Street, like an innocent--that is, an idiot--and so lost you again. You may forgive me--it is possible--but to forgive myself! it is more difficult. Try not quite to give me up for it. Your note gave me so much pleasure. I _wished_ so to see you! For the future I mean to write down engagements in a text-hand, and set them up somewhere in sight; but if I broke through twenty others as shamefully, it would not be with as much real grief to myself as in this fault to my dearest Mona Nina. Do come soon, out of mercy--and magnanimity!

Your _ever_ affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

3 Parade, West Cowes: September 9, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Your letter has followed us. We have been in the south of the island, at Ventnor, with Arabel, and are now in the north with Mr. Kenyon. We came off from London at a day's notice, the Wimpole Street people being sent away abruptly (in consequence, plainly, of our arrival becoming known), and Arabel bringing her praying eyes to bear on Robert, who agreed to go with her and stay for a fortnight. So we have had a happy sorrowful two weeks together, between meeting and parting; and then came here, where our invalid friend called us. Poor Arabel is in low spirits--very--and _aggrieved_ with being sent away from town; but the fresh air and _repose_ will do her good, in spite of herself, though she swears they won't (in the tone of saying they shan't). She is not by any means strong, and overworks herself in London with schools and Refuges, and societies--does the work of a horse, and _isn't_ a horse. Last winter she was quite unwell, as you heard. In spite of which, I did not think her looking ill when I saw her first; and now she looks well, I think--quite as well as she ever does. But she wants a new moral atmosphere--a little society. She is thrown too entirely on her own resources, and her own resources are of somewhat a gloomy character. This is all wrong. It has been partly necessary and a little her fault, at one time. I would give my right hand to take her to Italy; but if I gave right and left, it would not be found possible. My father has remained in London, and may not go to Ventnor for the next week or two, says a letter from Arabel this morning.... The very day he heard of our being in Devonshire Place he gave orders that his family should go away. I wrote afterwards, but my letter, as usual, remained unnoticed.

It has naturally begun to dawn upon my child that I have done something very wicked to make my father what he is. Once he came up to me earnestly and said, 'Mama, if you've been very, very naughty--if you've _broken china_!' (his idea of the heinous in crime)--'I advise you to go into the room and say, "_Papa, I'll be dood._"' Almost I obeyed the inspiration--almost I felt inclined to go. But there were considerations--yes, good reasons--which kept me back, and must continue to do so. In fact, the position is perfectly hopeless--perfectly.

We find our dear friend Mr. Kenyon better in some respects than we expected, but I fear in a very precarious state. Our stay is uncertain. We may go at a moment's notice, or remain if he wishes it; and, my proofs being sent post by post, we are able to see to them together, without too much delay. Still, only one-half of the book is done, and the days come when I shall find no pleasure in them--nothing but coughing.

George and my brothers were very kind to Robert at Ventnor, and he is quite touched by it. Also, little Pen made his way into the heart of 'mine untles,' and was carried on their backs up and down hills, and taught the ways of 'English boys,' with so much success that he makes pretensions to 'pluck,' and has left a good reputation behind him. On one occasion he went up to a boy of twelve who took liberties, and exclaimed, 'Don't be impertinent, sir' (doubling his small fist), 'or I will show you that _I'm a boy_.' Of course 'mine untles' are charmed with this 'proper spirit,' and applaud highly. Robert and I begged to suggest to the hero that the 'boy of twelve' might have killed him if he had pleased. 'Never mind,' cried little Pen, 'there would have been somebody to think of _me_, who would have him hanged' (great applause from the uncles). 'But _you_ would still be dead,' said Robert remorselessly. 'Well, I don't tare for _that_. It was a beautiful place to die in--close to the sea.'

So you will please to observe that, in spite of being Italians and wearing curls, we can fight to the death on occasion....

Write to me, and say how you both are. Robert's love. We both love you.

Very lovingly yours, BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[West Cowes]: September 13, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Sarianna,--Robert comes suddenly down on me with news that he is going to write to you, so, though I have been writing letters all the morning, I must throw in a few words. As to keeping Penini at the sea longer, he will have been three weeks at the sea to-morrow, and you must remember how late into the year it is getting--and we with so much work before us! And if Peni recovered his roses at Ventnor, I recovered my cough (from the piercing east winds); but I am better since, and last night slept well. It's far too early for cough, however, in any shape. We have heaps of business to do in London--heaps--and the book is only half-done. Still, we are asked to stay here till three days after Madame Braun's arrival, and it isn't fixed yet when she will arrive; so that I daresay Peni will have a full month of the sea, after all. Then I have a design upon Robert's good-nature, of persuading him to _go round by Taunton_ to London (something like going round the earth to Paris), that I may see my poor forsaken sister Henrietta, who wants us to give her a week in her cottage, pathetically bewailing herself that she has no means for the expense of going to London this time--that she has done it twice for me, and can't this time (the purse being low); and unless we go to her, she must do without seeing me, in spite of a separation of four years. So I am anxious to go, of course.

Robert will have told you of our dear friend here. We began by finding him much better than we expected, but gradually the sad truth deepens that he is very ill--oh, it deepens and saddens at once. The face lights up with the warm, generous heart; then the fire drops, and you see the embers. The breath is very difficult--it is hard to live. He leans on the table, saying softly and pathetically 'My God! my God!' Now and then he desires aloud to pass away and be at rest. I cannot tell you what his kindness is--his consideration is too affecting; kinder he is than ever. Miss Bayley is an excellent nurse--at once gentle and decided--and, if she did but look further than this life and this death, she would be a perfect companion for him. Peni creeps about like a mouse; but he goes out, and he isn't over-tired, as he was at Ventnor. We think he is altogether better in looks and ways.

Your affectionate BA.

* * * * *

A short visit to Taunton seems to have been made about the end of September, as anticipated in the last letter, and then, at some time in the course of October, they set out for Florence. But Mrs. Browning, in thus quitting England for the last time, left behind her as a legacy the completed volume of 'Aurora Leigh.' This poem was the realisation of her early scheme, which goes back at least to the year 1844, of writing a novel in verse--a novel modern in setting and ideas, and embodying her own ideals of social and moral progress. And to a large extent she succeeded. As a vehicle of her opinions, the scheme and style of the poem proved completely adequate. She moves easily through the story; she handles her metre with freedom and command; she can say her say without exaggeration or unnatural strain. Further, the opinions themselves, as those who have learnt to know her through her letters will feel sure, are lofty and honourable, and full of a genuine enthusiasm for humanity. As a novel, 'Aurora Leigh' may be open to the criticism that most of the characters fail to impress us with a sense of reality and vitality, and that the hero hardly wins the sympathy from the reader which he is meant to win. But as a poem it is unquestionably a very remarkable work--not so full of permanent poetic spirit as the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' not so readily popular as 'The Cry of the Children' or 'Cowper's Grave'--but a highly characteristic work of one whose character was made up of pure thoughts and noble ideals, which, in spite of the inevitable change of manners and social interests with the lapse of years, will retain into an indefinite future a very considerable intrinsic value as poetry, and a very high rank among the works of its author.

At the time of its publication its success was immediate. The subjects touched on were largely such as always attract interest, because they are open to much controversy; and the freshness of style and originality of conception (for almost the only other novel-poem in the language is 'Don Juan,' which can hardly be regarded as of the same type as 'Aurora Leigh') attracted a multitude of readers. A second edition was required in a fortnight, a third in a few months--a success which must have greatly pleased the authoress, who had put her inmost self into her work, and had laboured hard to leave behind her an adequate representation of her poetic art.

This natural satisfaction was darkened, however, by the death, on December 3, of Mr. Kenyon, in whose house the poem had been completed, and to whom it had been dedicated. Readers of these letters do not require to be told how near and dear a friend he had been to both Mrs. Browning and her husband. During his life his friendship had taken the practical form of allowing them 100_l._ a year, in order that they might be more free to follow their art for its own sake only, and in his will he left 6,500_l._ to Robert Browning and 4,500_l._ to Mrs. Browning. These were the largest legacies in a very generous will--the fitting end to a life passed in acts of generosity and kindness to those in need.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence. November 1856.]

Robert says he will wait for me till to-morrow, but I leave my other letters rather and write to you, so sure I am that we oughtn't to put that off any longer. Dearest Sarianna, I am very much pleased that you like the poem, having feared a little that you might not. M. Milsand will _not_, I prophesy; 'seeing as from a tower the end of all.' The 'Athenæum' is right in supposing that it will be much liked _and_ much disliked by people in general, although the press is so far astonishing in its goodwill, and although the extravagance of private letters might well surprise the warmest of my friends. But, patience! In a little while we shall have the other side of the question, and the whips will fall fast after the nosegays. Still, I am surprised, I own, at the amount of success; and that golden-hearted Robert is in ecstasies about it--far more than if it all related to a book of his own. The form of the story, and also something in the philosophy, seem to have caught the crowd. As to the poetry by itself, anything good in _that_ repels rather. I am not as blind as Romney, not to perceive this. He had to be blinded, observe, to be made to see; just as Marian had to be dragged through the uttermost debasement of circumstances to arrive at the sentiment of personal dignity. I am sorry, but indeed it seemed necessary.

You tantalise me with your account of 'warm days.' It is warmer with us to-day, but we have had snow on all the mountains, and poor Isa has been half-frozen at her villa. As for me, I have suffered wonderfully little--no more than discomfort and languor. We have piled up the wood in this room and the next, and had a perpetual blaze. Not for ten years has there been in Florence such a November! 'Is this Italy?' says poor Fanny Haworth's wondering face. Still, she likes Florence better than she did....

Is it not strange that dear Mr. Kenyon should have lost his brother by this sudden stroke? Strange and sad?... He was suffering too under a relapse when the news came--which, Miss Bayley says, did not dangerously affect him, after all. Oh, sad and strange! I pity the unfortunate wife more than anyone. She said to me this summer, 'I could not live without him. Let us hope in God that he and I may die at the same moment.'...

There's much good in dear M. Milsand's idea for us about Paris and the South of France. Still, I'm rather glad to be quite outside the world for a little, during these first steps of 'Aurora.' Best love to the dear Nonno. May God bless you both!

Your ever affectionate BA.

Oh, the spirits! Hate of Hume and belief in the facts are universal here.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

[About December 1856.]

My dearest Isa,--Just before your note came I had the pleasure of burning my own to you yesterday, which was not called for, as I expected. You would have seen from _that_, that Robert was going to you of his own accord and mine....

I am rather glad you have not seen the 'Athenæum'; the analysis it gives of my poem is so very unfair and partial. You would say the conception was really _null_. It does not console me at all that I should be praised and over-praised, the idea given of the poem remaining so absolutely futile. Even the outside shell of the plan is but half given, and the double action of the metaphysical intention entirely ignored. I protest against it. Still, Robert thinks the article not likely to do harm. Perhaps not. Only one hates to be misrepresented.

So glad I am that Robert was good last night. He told me he had been defending Swedenborg and the spirits, which suggested to me some notion of superhuman virtue on his part. Yes; love him. He is my right 'glory'; and the 'lute and harp' would go for nothing beside him, even if 'Athenæums' spelled one out properly.

Dearest Isa, may God bless you! Let me hear by a word, when Ansuno passes, how you are. Your loving

E.B.B.

* * * * *

The following letter was written almost immediately after the receipt of the news of Mr. Kenyon's death. Mrs. Kinney, to whom it is addressed, was the wife of the Hon. William Burnett Kinney, who was United States Minister at the Court of Sardinia in 1851. After his term of office he removed to Florence, for the purpose of producing an historical work, but he did not live to accomplish it. Mrs. Kinney, who was herself a poet, was also the mother of the well-known American poet and critic, Mr. E.C. Stedman.[51]

* * * * *

_To Mrs. W.B. Kinney_

Casa Guidi: Friday evening [December 1856].

Your generous sympathy, my dear Mrs. Kinney, would have made me glad yesterday, if I had not been so very, very sad with some news of the day before, telling me of the loss of the loved friend to whom that book is dedicated. So sad I was that I could not lift up my head to write and express to you how gratefully I felt the recognition of your letter. You are most generous--overflowingly generous. If I said I wished to deserve it better, it would be like wishing you less generous; so I won't. I will only thank you from my heart; _that_ shall be all I shall say.

Affectionately yours always, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Florence: December 26, 1856 [postmark].

My ever dear Friend,--To have three letters from you all unanswered seems really to discredit me to myself, while it gives such proof of your kindness and affection. No other excuse is to be offered but the sort of interruption which sadness gives. I really had not the heart to sit down and talk of my 'Aurora,' even in reference to the pleasure and honour brought to me by the expression of your opinion, when the beloved friend associated with the poor book was lost to me in this world, gone where perhaps he no longer sympathises with pleasure or honour of mine, now--for nearly the first time. _Perhaps._ After such separations the sense of _distance_ is the thing felt first. And certainly my book at least is naturally saddened to me, and the success of it wholesomely spoiled.

Yet your letter, my dearest Mona Nina, arrived in time to give me great, great pleasure--true pleasure indeed, and most tenderly do I thank you for it. I have had many of such letters from persons loved less, and whose opinions had less weight; and you will like to hear that in a fortnight after publication Chapman had to go to press with the second edition. In fact, the kind of reception given to the book has much surprised me, as I was prepared for an outcry of quite another kind, and extravagances in a quite opposite sense. This has been left, however, to the 'Press,' the 'Post,' and the 'Tablet,' who calls 'Aurora' 'a brazen-faced woman,' and brands the story as a romance in the manner of Frederic Soulié--in reference, of course, to its gross indecency.

I can't leave this subject without noticing (by the way) what you say of the likeness to the catastrophe of 'Jane Eyre.' I have sent to the library here for 'Jane Eyre' (but haven't got it yet) in order to refresh my memory on this point; but, as far as I do recall the facts, the hero was monstrously disfigured and blinded in a fire the particulars of which escape me, and the circumstance of his being hideously scarred is the thing impressed chiefly on the reader's mind; certainly it remains innermost in mine. Now if you read over again those pages of my poem, you will find that the only injury received by Romney in the fire was from a blow and from the emotion produced by the _circumstances_ of the fire. Not only did he _not_ lose his eyes in the fire, but he describes the ruin of his house as no blind man could. He was standing there, a spectator. Afterwards he had a fever, and the eyes, the visual nerve, perished, showing no external stain--perished as Milton's did. I believe that a great shock on the nerves might produce such an effect in certain constitutions, and the reader on referring as far back as Marian's letter (when she avoided the marriage) may observe that his eyes had never been strong, that her desire had been to read his notes at night, and save them. For it was necessary, I thought, to the bringing-out of my thought, that Romney should be mulcted in his natural sight. The 'Examiner' saw that. Tell me if, on looking into the book again, you modify your feeling at all.

Dearest Mona Nina, you are well now, are you not? Your last dear letter seems brighter altogether, and seems to promise, too, that quiet in Italy will restore the tone of your spirits and health. Do you know, I almost advise you (though it is like speaking against my heart) to go from Marseilles to Rome straight, and to give us the spring. The spring is beautiful in Florence; and then I should be free to go and see the pictures with you, and enjoy you in the in-door and out-of-door way, both....

You will have heard (we heard it only three days ago) how our kindest friend, who never forgot us, remembered us in his will. The legacy is eleven thousand pounds; six thousand five hundred of which are left to Robert, marking delicately a sense of trust for which I am especially grateful Of course, this addition to our income will free us from the pressure which has been upon us hitherto. But oh, how much sadness goes to making every gain in this world! It has been a sad, sad Christmas to me. A great gap is left among friends, and the void catches the eyes of the soul, whichever way it turns. He has been to me in much what my father might have been, and now the place is empty twice over.

You are yet _unconvinced_. You will be convinced one day, I think. Here are wide-awake men (some of them most anti-spiritual to this hour, as to theory) who agree in giving testimony to facts of one order. You shall hear their testimony when you come. As to the 'supernatural,' if you mean by that the miraculous, the suspension of natural law, I certainly believe in it no more than you do. What happens, happens according to a natural law, the development of which only becomes fuller and more observable. The movement, such as it is, is accelerated, and the whole structure of society in America is becoming affected more or less for good or evil, and very often for evil, through the extreme tenacity or slowness of those who ought to be leaders in every revolution of thought, but who, on this subject, are pleased to leave their places to the unqualified and the fanatical. Wise men will be sorry presently. When Faraday was asked to go and see Hume, to see a heavy table lifted without the touch of a finger, he answered that 'he had not time.' Time has its 'revenges.'

I am very glad that dear Mr. Procter has had some of these last benefits of one beloved by so many. What a loss, what a loss! Was there no bequest to yourself? We have heard scarcely anything.

May God bless you, dearest Mona Nina, with the blessing of years old and new.

Robert's love. Your ever attached

BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

Florence: December 29, 1856.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am very, very sorry. I feel for you to the bottom of my heart. But she was a pure spirit, leaning out the way God had marked for her to go, and you had not associated this world too much with her, as if she could have been meant to stay long in it. Always you felt that she was about to go--did you not, dear friend?--and so that she does not stay cannot be an astonishment to you. The pain is the same; only it can't be the bitter, unnatural pain of certain separations. Her sweetness has gone to the sweet, her lovely nature to the lovely; no violence was done to her in carrying her home. May God enable you to dwell on this till you are satisfied--glad, and not sorry! That the spirits do not go far, and that they love us still, has grown to me surer and surer. And yet, how death shakes us!

Yes indeed. I, too, have been very, very sad. This Christmas has come to me like a cloud. I can scarcely fancy England without that bright face and sympathetic hand, that princely nature, in which you might put your trust more reasonably than in princes. These ten years back he has stood to me almost in my father's place; and now the place is empty--doubly. Since the birth of my child (seven years since) he has allowed us--rather, insisted on our accepting (for my husband was loth)--a hundred a year, and without it we should have often been in hard straits. His last act was to leave us eleven thousand pounds; and I do not doubt but that, if he had not known our preference of a simple mode of life and a freedom from worldly responsibilities (born artists as we both are), the bequest would have been greater still. As it is, we shall be relieved from pecuniary pressure, and your affectionateness will be glad to hear this, but I shall have more comfort from the consideration of it presently than I can at this instant, when the loss, the empty chair, the silent voice, the apparently suspended sympathy, must still keep painfully uppermost.

You will wonder at a paragraph from the 'Athenæum,' which Robert thought out of taste until he came to understand the motive of it--that there had been (two days previous to its appearance) a brutal attack on the _will_, to the effect that literary persons had been altogether overlooked in the dispositions of the testator, in consequence of his, being a disappointed literary pretender himself. Therefore we were brought forward, you see, together with Barry Cornwall and Dr. Southey, producing a wrong impression on the other side--only I can't blame the 'Athenæum' writer for it; nor can anyone, I think. The effect, however, to ourselves is most uncomfortable, as we are overwhelmed with 'congratulations' on all sides, just as if we had not lost a dear, tender, faithful friend and relative--just as if, in fact, some stranger had made us a bequest as a tribute to our poetry. People are so obtuse in this world--as Robert says, so '_dense_'; as Lord Brougham says, so '_crass_.'

Whatever may be your liking or disliking of 'Aurora Leigh,' you will like to hear that it's a great success, and in a way which I the least expected, for a fortnight after the day of publication it had to go to press for the second edition. The extravagances written to me about that book would make you laugh, if you were in a laughing mood; and the strange thing is that the press, the daily and weekly press, upon which I calculated for furious abuse, has been, for the most part, furious the other way. The 'Press' newspaper, the 'Post,' and the 'Tablet' are exceptions; but for the rest, the 'Athenæum' is the coldest in praising. It's a puzzle to me, altogether. I don't know upon what principle the public likes and dislikes poems. Any way, it is very satisfactory at the end of a laborious work (for much hard working and hard thinking have gone to it) to hear it thus recognised, however I must think, with some bitterness, that the beloved and sympathetic friend to whom it was dedicated scarcely lived to know what would have given him so much pleasure as this.

Dearest Mrs. Martin, mind you tell me the truth exactly. I should like much to have pleased you and Mr. Martin, but I like the truth _best_ of all from you....

Dearest friends, keep kind thoughts of

Your affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence: January 1857.]

My dearest Sarianna,--A great many happy years to you, and also to the dear Nonno. I am glad, for my part, to be out of the last, which has been gloomy and almost embittering to me personally; but we must throw our burdens behind our backs as far as possible, and be cheerful for the rest of the road. If Robert alone wrote about 'Aurora,' I won't leave it to him to be alone grateful to dear M. Milsand for his extraordinary kindness. Do tell him, with my love, that I could not have expected it, even from himself--which is saying much. Most thankfully I leave everything to his discretion and judgment. On this subject I have been, from the beginning, divided between my strong desire of being translated and my strong fear of being ill-translated. Harrison Ainsworth's novels are quite one thing, and a poem of mine quite another. Oh yes! and yet, so great is my faith in Milsand, that the touch of his hand and the overseership of his eyes must tranquillise me. I am simply grateful.

Peni has been overwhelmed with gifts this year. I gave him on Christmas Day (by his own secret inspiration) 'a sword with a blade to dazzle the eyes'; Robert, a box of tools and carpenter's bench; and we united in a 'Robinson Crusoe,' who was well received. Then from others he had sleeve-studs, a silver pencil-case, books, &c. According to his own magniloquent phrase, he was '_exceptionally_ happy.' He has taken to long words; I heard him talking of '_evidences_' the other day. Poor little Pen! it's the more funny that he has by no means yet left off certain of his babyisms of articulation, and the combined effects are curious. You asked of Ferdinando.[52] Peni's attachment for Ferdinando is undiminished. Ferdinando can't be found fault with, even in gentleness, without a burst of tears on Peni's part. Lately I ventured to ask not to be left quite alone in the house on certain occasions; and though I spoke quite kindly, there was Peni in tears, assuring me that we ought to have another servant to open the door, for that 'poor Ferdinando had a great deal too much work'! When I ventured to demur to that, the next charge was, 'plainly I did not love Ferdinando as much as I loved Penini,' which I could not deny; and then with passionate sobs Peni said that 'I was very unjust indeed.' 'Indeed, indeed, dear mama, you _are_ unjust! Ferdinando does everything for you, and I do nothing, except tease you, and even' (sobbing) 'I am sometimes a very naughty boy.' I had to mop up his tears with my pocket-handkerchief, and excuse myself as well as I could from the moral imputation of loving Peni better than Ferdinando.

We have been very glad in a visit from Frederick Tennyson.... God bless you! Robert won't wait.

Your ever attached BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Florence: February 2, 1857 [postmark].

My dearest Mona Nina,--To begin (lest I forget before the ending), don't mind the sugar-tongs, if you have not actually bought them, inasmuch as, to my astonishment, Wilson has found a pair in Florence, marking the progress of civilisation in this South. In Paris last winter we sought in vain. There was nothing between one's fingers and real silver--too expensive for poets. But now we are supplied splendidly--and at the cost of five pauls, let me tell you.

Always delighted I am to have your letters, even when you don't tell me as touchingly as in this that mine are something to you. Do I not indeed love you and _sympathise_ with you fully and deeply? Yes, indeed. On one subject I am afraid to touch. But I _know_ why it is you feel so long, so unduly--so morbidly, in a sense. People in general, knowing themselves to be innocently made to suffer, would take comfort in righteous indignation and justified contempt: but to you the indignation and contempt would be the worst part of suffering; you can't bear it, and you are in a strait between the two. In fact, it relieves you rather to take part against yourself, and to conclude on the whole that there's something really bad in you calling on the pure Heavens for vengeance. Yes, that's _you_. You sympathise tenderly with your executioner....

And as for the critics--yes, indeed, I agree with you that I have no reason to complain. More than that, I confess to you that I am entirely astonished at the amount of reception I have met with--I who expected to be put in the stocks and pelted with the eggs of the last twenty years' 'singing birds' as a disorderly woman and freethinking poet! People have been so kind that, in the first place, I really come to modify my opinions somewhat upon their conventionality, to see the progress made in freedom of thought. Think of quite decent women taking the part of the book in a sort of _effervescence_ which I hear of with astonishment. In fact, there has been an enormous quantity of extravagance talked and written on the subject, and I _know it_--oh, I know it. I wish I deserved some things--some things; I wish it were all true. But I see too distinctly what I _ought_ to have written. Still, it is nearer the mark than my former efforts--fuller, stronger, more sustained--and one may be encouraged to push on to something worthier, for I don't feel as if I had done yet--no indeed. I have had from Leigh Hunt a very pleasant letter of twenty pages, and I think I told you of the two from John Ruskin. In America, also, there's great success, and the publisher is said to have shed tears over the proofs (perhaps in reference to the hundred pounds he had to pay for them), and the critics congratulate me on having worked myself clear of all my affectations, mannerisms, and other morbidities.

Even 'Blackwood' is not to be complained of, seeing that the writer evidently belongs to an elder school, and judges from his own point of view. He is wrong, though, even in classical matters, as it seems to _me_.

I heard one of Thackeray's lectures, the one on George the Third, and thought it better than good--fine and touching. To what is it that people are objecting? At any rate, they crowd and pay.

Ah yes. You appreciate Robert; you know what is in his poetry. Certainly there is no pretension in _me_ towards that profound suggestiveness, and I thank you for knowing it and saying it.

There is a real _poem_ being lived between Mr. Kirkup and the 'spirits,' so called.[53] If I were to _write_ it in a poem, I should beat 'Aurora' over and over. And such a tragic face the old man has, with his bleak white beard. Even Robert is touched.

Best love from him and your

Ever attached BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

Florence: February [1857].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I needn't say how much, how very much, pleasure your letter gave me. That the poem should really have touched you, reached you, with whatever drawbacks, is a joy. And then that Mr. Martin should have read it with any sort of interest! It was more than I counted on, as you know. Thank you, dearest Mrs. Martin--thank both of you for so much sympathy.

In respect to certain objections, I am quite sure you do me the justice to believe that I do not willingly give cause for offence. Without going as far as Robert, who holds that I 'couldn't be coarse if I tried,' (only that!) you will grant that I don't habitually dabble in the dirt; it's not the way of my mind or life. If, therefore, I move certain subjects in this work, it is because my conscience was first moved in me not to ignore them. What has given most offence in the book, more than the story of Marian--far more!--has been the reference to the condition of women in our cities, which a woman oughtn't to refer to, by any manner of means, says the conventional tradition. Now I have thought deeply otherwise. If a woman ignores these wrongs, then may women as a sex continue to suffer them; there is no help for any of us--let us be dumb and die. I have spoken therefore, and in speaking have used plain words--words which look like blots, and which you yourself would put away--words which, if blurred or softened, would imperil perhaps the force and righteousness of the moral influence. Still, I certainly will, when the time comes, go over the poem carefully, and see where an offence can be got rid of without loss otherwise. The second edition was issued so early that Robert would not let me alter even a comma, would not let me look between the pages in order to the least alteration. He said (the truth) that my head was dizzy-blind with the book, and that, if I changed anything, it would be probably for the worse; like arranging a room in the dark. Oh no. Indeed he is not vexed that you should say what you do. On the contrary, he was _pleased_ because of the much more that you said. As to your friend with the susceptible 'morals'--well, I could not help smiling indeed. I am assured too, by a friend of my own, that the 'mamas of England' in a body refuse to let their daughters read it. Still, the daughters emancipate themselves and _do_, that is certain; for the number of _young_ women, not merely 'the strong-minded' as a sect, but pretty, affluent, happy women, surrounded by all the temptations of English respectability, that cover it with the most extravagant praises is surprising to me, who was not prepared for that particular kind of welcome. It's true that there's a quantity of hate to balance the love, only I think it chiefly seems to come from the less advanced part of society. (See how modest that sounds! But you will know what I mean.) I mean, from persons whose opinions are not in a state of growth, and who do not like to be disturbed from a settled position. Oh, that there are faults in the book, no human being knows so well as I; defects, weaknesses, great gaps of intelligence. Don't let me stop to recount them.

The review in 'Blackwood' proves to be by Mr. Aytoun; and coming from the camp of the enemy (artistically and socially) cannot be considered other than generous. It is not quite so by the 'North British,' where another poet (Patmore), who knows more, is somewhat depreciatory, I can't help feeling.

Now will you be sick of my literature; but you liked to hear, you said. If you would see, besides, I would show you what George sent me the other day, a number of the 'National Magazine,' with the most hideous engraving, from a medallion, you could imagine--the head of a 'strong-minded' giantess on the neck of a bull, and my name underneath! Penini said, 'It's not a bit like; it's too old, and _not half so pretty_'--which was comforting under the trying circumstance, if anything could comfort one in despair....

Your ever most affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence: February 1857.]

My dearest Sarianna,--I am delighted, and so is Robert, that you should have found what pleases you in the clock. Here is Penini's letter, which takes up so much room that I must be sparing of mine--and, by the way, if you consider him improved in his writing, give the praise to Robert, who has been taking most patient pains with him indeed. You will see how the little curly head is turned with carnival doings. So gay a carnival never was in our experience--for until last year (when we were absent) all masks had been prohibited, and now everybody has eaten of the tree of good and evil till not an apple was left. Peni persecuted me to let him have a domino, with tears and embraces; he '_almost never_ in all his life had had a domino,' and he would like it so. Not a black domino--no; he hated black--but a blue domino, trimmed with pink! that was his taste. The pink trimming I coaxed him out of; but for the rest I let him have his way, darling child; and certainly it answered, as far as the overflow of joy in his little heart went. Never was such delight. Morning and evening there he was in the streets, running Wilson out of breath, and lost sight of every ten minutes. 'Now, Lily, I do _pray_ you not to call out "Penini! Penini!"' Not to be known was his immense ambition. Oh, of course he thought of nothing else. As to lessons, there was an absolute absence of wits. All Florence being turned out into the streets in one gigantic pantomime, one couldn't expect people to be wiser indoors than out. For my part, the universal madness reached me sitting by the fire (whence I had not stirred for three months); and you will open your eyes when I tell you that I went (in domino and masked) to the great opera ball. Yes, I did really. Robert, who had been invited two or three times to other people's boxes, had proposed to return this kindness by taking a box himself at the opera this night and entertaining two or three friends with _gallantina_ and champagne. Just as he and I were lamenting the impossibility of my going, on that very morning the wind changed, the air grew soft and mild, and he maintained that I might and should go. There was no time to get a domino of my own (Robert himself had a beautiful one made, and I am having it metamorphosed into a black silk gown for myself!), so I sent out and hired one, buying the mask. And very much amused I was. I like to see these characteristic things. (I shall never rest, Sarianna, till I risk my reputation at the Bal de l'Opéra at Paris.) Do you think I was satisfied with staying in the box? No, indeed. Down I went, and Robert and I elbowed our way through the crowd to the remotest corner of the ball below. Somebody smote me on the shoulder and cried 'Bella mascherina!' and I answered as imprudently as one feels under a mask. At two o'clock in the morning, however, I had to give up and come away (being overcome by the heavy air), and ingloriously left Robert and our friends to follow at half-past four. Think of the refinement and gentleness--yes, I must call it _superiority_--of this people, when no excess, no quarrelling, no rudeness nor coarseness can be observed in the course of such wild masked liberty. Not a touch of license anywhere. And perfect social equality! Ferdinando side by side in the same ballroom with the Grand Duke, and no class's delicacy offended against! For the Grand Duke went down into the ballroom for a short time. The boxes, however, were dear. We were on a third tier, yet paid 2_l._ 5_s._ English, besides entrance money. I think that, generally speaking, theatrical amusements are cheaper in Paris, in spite of apparent cheapnesses here. The pit here and stalls are cheap. But 'women in society' can't go there, it is said; and you must take a whole box, if you want two seats in a box--which seems to me monstrous. People combine generally....

Ever affectionate BA.

I meant to write only a word--and see! May it not be overweight!

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Florence: April 9 [1857].

Dearest Madonna,--I must not wait, lest I miss you in your transit to Naples; thank you for your dear letter, then. The weather has burst suddenly into summer (though it rains a little this morning), and I have been let out of prison to drive in the Cascine and to Bellosguardo. Beautiful, beautiful Florence. How beautiful at this time of year! The trees stand in their 'green mist' as if in a trance of joy. Oh, I do hope nothing will drive us out of our Paradise this summer, for I seem to hate the North more 'unnaturally' than ever.

Mrs. Stowe has just arrived, and called here yesterday and this morning, when Robert took her to see the Salvators at the end of our street. I like her better than I thought I should--that is, I find more refinement in her voice and manner--no rampant Americanisms. Very simple and gentle, with a sweet voice; undesirous of shining or _poser_-ing, so it seems to me. Never did lioness roar more softly (that is quite certain); and the temptations of a sudden enormous popularity should be estimated, in doing her full justice. She is nice-looking, too; and there's something strong and copious and characteristic in her dusky wavy hair. For the rest, the brow has not very large capacity; and the mouth wants something both in frankness and sensitiveness, I should say. But what can one see in a morning visit? I must wait for another opportunity. She spends to-morrow evening with us, and talks of remaining in Florence till the end of next week--so I shall see and hear more. Her books are not so much to me, I confess, as the fact is, that she above all women (yes, and men of the age) has moved the world--and _for good_.

I hear that Mrs. Gaskell is coming, whom I am sure to like and love. I know _that_ by her letters, though I was stupid or idle enough to let our correspondence go by; and by her books, which I earnestly admire. How anxious I am to see the life of Charlotte Brontë! But we shall have to wait for it here.

Dearest friend, you don't mention Madme de Goethe, but I do hope you will have her with you before long. The good to you will be immense, and after friendship (and reason) the sun and moon and earth of Italy will work for you in their places. May God grant to us all that you may be soon strong enough to throw every burden behind you! The griefs that are incurable are those which have our own sins festering in them....

On April 6 we had tea out of doors, on the terrace of our friend Miss Blagden in her villa up [at] Bellosguardo (not exactly Aurora Leigh's,[54] mind). You seemed to be lifted up above the world in a divine ecstasy. Oh, what a vision!

Have you read Victor Hugo's 'Contemplations'? We are doing so at last. As for _me_, my eyes and my heart melted over them--some of the personal poems are overcoming in their pathos; and nothing more exquisite in poetry can express deeper pain....

Robert comes back. He says that Mrs. Stowe was very simple and pleasant. He likes her. So shall I, I think. She has the grace, too, to admire our Florence.

Your ever affectionate BA.

I dare say the illustrations will be beautiful. But you are at work on a new book, are you not?

* * * * *

The mention of the 'Contemplations' of Victor Hugo in the preceding letter supplies a clue to the date of the following draft of an appeal to the Emperor Napoleon on behalf of the poet, which has been found among Mrs. Browning's papers. An endorsement on the letter says that it was not sent, but it is none the less worthy of being printed.

* * * * *

_To the Emperor Napoleon_

[April 1857.]

Sire,--I am only a woman, and have no claim on your Majesty's attention except that of the weakest on the strongest. Probably my very name as the wife of an English poet, and as named itself a little among English poets, is unknown to your Majesty. I never approached my own sovereign with a petition, nor am skilled in the way of addressing kings. Yet having, through a studious and thoughtful life, grown used to great men (among the dead, at least), I cannot feel entirely at a loss in speaking to the Emperor Napoleon.

And I beseech you to have patience with me while I supplicate you. It is not for myself nor for mine.

I have been reading with wet eyes and a swelling heart (as many who love and some who hate your Majesty have lately done) a book called the 'Contemplations' of a man who has sinned deeply against you in certain of his political writings, and who expiates rash phrases and unjustifiable statements in exile in Jersey. I have no personal knowledge of this man; I never saw his face; and certainly I do not come now to make his apology. It is, indeed, precisely because he cannot be excused that, I think, he might worthily be forgiven. For this man, whatever else he is not, is a great poet of France, and the Emperor, who is the guardian of her other glories, should remember him and not leave him out. Ah, sire, what was written on 'Napoleon le Petit' does not touch your Majesty; but what touches you is, that no historian of the age should have to write hereafter, 'While Napoleon III. reigned, Victor Hugo lived in exile.' What touches you is, that when your people count gratefully the men of commerce, arms, and science secured by you to France, no voice shall murmur, 'But where is our poet?' What touches you is, that, however statesmen and politicians may justify his exclusion, it may draw no sigh from men of sentiment and impulse, yes, and from women like myself. What touches you is, that when your own beloved young prince shall come to read these poems (and when you wish him a princely nature, you wish, sire, that such things should move him), he may exult to recall that his imperial father was great enough to overcome this great poet with magnanimity.

Ah, sire, you are great enough! You can allow for the peculiarity of the poetical temperament, for the temptations of high gifts, for the fever in which poets are apt to rage and suffer beyond the measure of other men. You can consider that when they hate most causelessly there is a divine love in them somewhere; and that when they see most falsely they are loyal to some ideal light. Forgive this enemy, this accuser, this traducer. Disprove him by your generosity. Let no tear of an admirer of his poetry drop upon your purple. Make an exception of him, as God made an exception of him when He gave him genius, and call him back _without condition_ to his country and his daughter's grave.

I have written these words without the knowledge of any. Naturally I should have preferred, as a woman, to have addressed them through the mediation of the tender-hearted Empress Eugénie; but, a wife myself, I felt it would be harder for her Majesty to pardon an offence against the Emperor Napoleon, than it could be for the Emperor.

And I am driven by an irresistible impulse to your Majesty's feet to ask this grace. It is a woman's voice, sire, which dares to utter what many yearn for in silence. I have believed in Napoleon III. Passionately loving the democracy, I have understood from the beginning that it was to be served throughout Europe in you and by you. I have trusted you for doing greatly. I will trust you, besides, for pardoning nobly. You will be Napoleon in this also.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

Shortly after this date, on April 17, Mrs. Browning's father died. In the course of the previous summer an attempt made by a relative to bring about a reconciliation between him and his daughters was met with the answer that they had 'disgraced his family;' and, although he professed to have 'forgiven' them, he refused all intercourse, removed his family out of town when the Brownings came thither, and declined to give his daughter Henrietta's address to Mr. Kenyon's executor, who was instructed to pay her a small legacy. A further attempt at reconciliation was made by Mrs. Martin only a few months before his death, but had no better success. His pride stood in the way of his forgiveness to the end.

On receiving the news of his death, the following letter was written by Robert Browning to Mrs. Martin; but it was not until two months later that Mrs. Browning was able to bring herself to write to anyone outside her own family.

* * * * *

_Robert Browning to Mrs. Martin_

Florence: May 3, 1857.

My dear Mrs. Martin,--Truest thanks for your letter. We had the intelligence from George last Thursday week, having been only prepared for the illness by a note received from Arabel the day before. Ba was sadly affected at first; miserable to see and hear. After a few days tears came to her relief. She is now very weak and prostrated, but improving in strength of body and mind: I have no fear for the result. I suppose you know, at least, the very little that we know; and how unaware poor Mr. Barrett was of his imminent death: 'he bade them,' says Arabel, 'make him comfortable for the night, but a moment before the last.' And he had dismissed her and her aunt about an hour before, with a cheerful or careless word about 'wishing them good night.' So it is all over now, all hope of better things, or a kind answer to entreaties such as I have seen Ba write in the bitterness of her heart. There must have been something in the organisation, or education, at least, that would account for and extenuate all this; but it has caused grief enough, I know; and now here is a new grief not likely to subside very soon. Not that Ba is other than reasonable and just to herself in the matter: she does not reproach herself at all; it is all mere grief, as I say, that this should have been _so_; and I sympathise with her there.

George wrote very affectionately to tell me; and dear, admirable Arabel sent a note the very next day to prove to Ba that there was nothing to fear on her account. Since then we have heard nothing. The funeral was to take place in Herefordshire. We had just made up our minds to go on no account to England this year. Ba felt the restraint on her too horrible to bear. I will, or she will, no doubt, write and tell you of herself; and you must write, dear Mrs. Martin, will you not?

Kindest regard to Mr. Martin and all.

Yours faithfully ever, ROBERT BROWNING.

* * * * *

_E.B. Browning to Mrs. Martin_

Florence: July 1, [1857].

Thank you, thank you from my heart, my dearest friend--this poor heart, which has been so torn and mangled,--for your dear, tender sympathy, whether expressed in silence or in words. Of the past I cannot speak. You understand, yes, you understand. And when I say that you understand (and feel that you do), it is an expression of belief in the largeness of your power of understanding, seeing that few _can_ understand--few can. There has been great bitterness--great bitterness, which is natural; and some recoil against myself, more, perhaps, than is quite rational. Now I am much better, calm, and not despondingly calm (as, off and on, I have been), able to read and talk, and keep from vexing my poor husband, who has been a good deal tried in all these things. Through these three months you and what you told me touched me with a thought of comfort--came the nearest to me of all. May God bless you and return it to you a hundredfold, dear dear friend!

I believe _hope_ had died in me long ago of reconciliation in this world. Strange, that what I called 'unkindness' for so many years, in departing should have left to me such a sudden desolation! And yet, it is not strange, perhaps.

No, I cannot write any more. You will understand....

We shall be in Paris next summer. This year we remain quietly where we are. Presently we may creep to the seaside or into the mountains to avoid the great heats, but no further. My temptation is to lie on the sofa, and never stir nor speak, only I don't give up, be certain. I drive out for two or three hours on most days, and I hear Peni's lessons, and am good and obedient. If I could get into hard regular work of some kind, it would be excellent for me, I know; but the 'flesh is weak.' Oh, no, to have gone to England this summer would have _helped nobody_, and would have been very overcoming to _me_. I was not fit for it, indeed, and Robert was averse on his own account....

May God bless you both, dearest friends. My little Penini is bright and well. I have begun to teach him German. I do hope you won't fatigue yourselves too much at Colwall. Enjoy the summer and the roses, and be well, be well. We shall meet next year....

Once more, goodbye.

Your ever affectionate and grateful BA.

Robert's love as ever.

This is the first letter I have written to anyone out of my own family. I hate writing, and can't help being stupid.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Florence: [about July 1857].

I write soon, you see, dearest Fanny. I thank you for all, but I do beseech you, _dear_, not to say a word more to me of what is said of me. The truth is, I am made of paper, and it tears me. Do not, dear. Make no reference to things personal to myself. As far as I could read and understand, it was absurd, perfectly _ungenuine_. I shall say nothing to anybody. I have torn that sheet. Do not refer to the subject to Isa Blagden. And there--I have done.

No--I thank you; and I know it was your kindness entirely. Will you, if you love me, _not_ touch on the subject (I mean on the personal thing to myself) in your next letters, not even by saying that you were sorry you did once touch on them. I know how foolish and morbid I must seem to you. So I am made, and I can't help my idiosyncrasies.

Now don't mistake me. Tell me all about the spirits, only not about what they say of _me_. I am very interested. The drawback is, that without any sort of doubt they _personate falsely_.

We are seething in the heat. The last three days have been a composition of Gehenna and Paradise. It is a perpetual steam bath. Yet Robert and I have not finished our plans for escaping. Mrs. Jameson is here still, recovering her health and spirits. The Villa hospitality goes on as usual, and the evening before last we had tea on the terrace by a divine sunset, with a favoring breath or two. Only even there we wished for Lazarus's finger.

Certainly Florence will not be bearable many days longer. Write to me though, at Florence as usual....

It is said that Hume, who is back again in Paris and under the shadow of the Emperor's wing, has been the means of an extraordinary manifestation, two spiritual figures, male and female, who were _recognised_ by their friends. Five or six persons (including the medium) fainted away at this apparition. It happened in Paris, lately.

Yes, I mistrust the mediums less than I do the spirits who write. Tell me....

Write and tell me everything _with exceptions_ such as I have set down. And forgive my poor brittle body, which shakes and breaks. May God love you, dear.

Yours in true affection, BA.

* * * * *

At the end of July, Florence had become unbearable, and the Brownings removed, for the third time, to the Bagni di Lucca, whither they were followed by some of their friends, notably Miss Blagden and Mr. Robert Lytton. Unfortunately, their holiday was marred by the dangerous illness of Lytton, which not only kept them in great anxiety for a considerable time, but also entailed much labour in nursing on Mr. Browning and Miss Blagden. Besides Mrs. Browning's letters, a letter from her husband to his sister is given below, containing an account of the earlier stages of the illness.

* * * * *

_Robert Browning to Miss Browning_

Bagni di Lucca: August 18, [1857].

Dearest,--We arrived here on the 30th last, and two or three days after were followed by Miss Blagden, Miss Bracken, and Lytton--all for our sake: they not otherwise wanting to come this way. Lytton arrived unwell, got worse soon, and last Friday week was laid up with a sort of nervous fever, caused by exposure to the sun, or something, acting on his nervous frame: since then he has been very ill in bed--doctor, anxiety &c. as you may suppose: they are exactly opposite us, at twelve or fifteen feet distance only. Through sentimentality and economy combined, Isa would have no nurse (an imbecile arrangement), and all has been done by her, with me to help: I have sate up four nights out of the last five, and sometimes been there nearly all day beside....[55] He is much better to-day, taken broth, and will, I hope, have no relapse, poor fellow: imagine what a pleasant holiday we all have! Otherwise the place is very beautiful, and cool exceedingly. We have done nothing notable yet, but all are very well, Peni particularly so: as for me, I bathe in the river, a rapid little mountain stream, every morning at 6-1/2, and find such good from the practice that I shall continue it, and whatever I can get as like it as possible, to the end of my days, I hope: the strength of all sorts therefrom accruing is wonderful: I thought the shower baths perfection, but this is far above it.... I was so rejoiced to hear from you, and think you so wise in staying another month. I sent the 'Ath.' to 151 R. de G. Kindest love to papa: we can't get news from England, but the Americans have paid up the rest of the money for 'Aurora:' by the by, in this new book of Ruskin's, the drawing book,[56] he says '"Aurora Leigh" is the finest poem written in any language this century.' There is a review of it, which I have not yet got, in the 'Rivista di Firenze' of this month. God bless you. I will write very soon again. Do you write at once. Ba will add a word. How fortunate about the books! How is Milsand? Pray always remember my best love to him.

* * * * *

_E.B. Browning to Miss Browning_

[Same date.]

My dearest Sarianna,--Robert will have told you, I dare say, what a heavy time we have had here with poor Lytton. It was imprudent of him to come to Florence at the hottest of the year, and to expose himself perfectly unacclimated; and the chance by which he was removed here just in time to be nursed was happy for him and all of us. We have had great heat in the days even here, of course--no blotting out, even by mountains, of the Italian sun; but the cool nights extenuate very much--refresh and heal. Now I do hope the corner is turned of the illness. Isa Blagden has been devoted, sitting up night after night, and Robert has sate up four nights that she might not really die at her post. There is nothing _infectious_ in the fever, so don't be afraid. Robert is quite well, with good appetite and good spirits, and Peni is like a rose possessed by a fairy. They both bathe in the river, and profit (as I am so glad you do). Not that it's a real river, though it has a name, the _Lima_. A mere mountain stream, which curls itself up into holes in the rocks to admit of bathing. Then, as far as they have been able on account of Lytton, they have had riding on donkeys and mountain ponies, Peni as bold as a lion.

[_The last words of the letter, with the signature, have been cut off_]

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

La Villa, Bagni di Lucca: August 22, [1857].

As you bid me write, my dear friend, about Lytton, I write, but I grieve to say we are still very uneasy about him. For sixteen days he has been prostrate with this gastric fever, and the disease is not baffled, though the pulse is not high nor the head at all affected. Dr. Trotman, however, is uncheerful about him--is what medical men call '_cautious_' in giving an opinion, observing that, though _at present_ he is not in danger, the delicacy of his constitution gives room for great apprehension in the case of the least turning towards relapse. Robert had been up with him during eight nights, and Isa Blagden eight nights. Nothing can exceed her devotion to him by night or day. We have persuaded her, however, at last to call in a nurse for the nights. I am afraid for Robert, and in fact a trained nurse can do certain things better than the most zealous and tender friend can pretend to do. You may suppose how saddened we all are. Dear Lytton! At intervals he talks and can hear reading, but this morning he is lower again. In fact, from the first he has been very apprehensive about himself--inclined to talk of divine things, of the state of his soul and God's love, and to hold this life but slackly.

I feel I am writing a horrible account to you. You will conclude the worst from it, and that is what I don't want you to do. The pulse has never been high, and is now much lower, and if he can be kept from a relapse he will live. I pray God he may live. He is not altered in the face, and Dr. Trotman reiterated this morning, 'There _is no_ danger at present.'

You are better. I thank God for it. Oh, yes, it is very beautiful, that cathedral. The weather here is cool and enjoyable by day even. At nights it is really cold, and I _have_ thought of a blanket once or twice as of a thing tolerable. I will write again when there is a change. The course of the fever may extend to six days more.

Your ever most affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Thursday, [end of August 1857].

Dearest Friend,--I think it better to inclose to you this letter which has come to your address. Thank you for your kind words about Lytton, which will be very soothing to him. He continues better, and is preparing to take his first drive to-day, for half an hour, with his _nurse_ and Robert. See how weak he must be, and the hollow cheeks and temples remain as signs of the past. Still, he is convalescent, and begins to think of poems and apple puddings in a manner other than celestial. I do thank God that our anxieties have ended so.

Robert bathes in the river every morning, which does him great good; besides the rides at mornings and evenings on mountain ponies with Annette Bracken and a Crimean hero (as Mrs. Stisted has it), who has turned up at the hotel, with one leg and so many agreeable and amiable qualities that everybody is charmed with him.

Robert had a letter from Chapman yesterday. Not much news. He speaks of two penny papers, sold lately, after making the fortune of their proprietors, for twenty-five and thirty-five thousand pounds. If Robert 'could but write bad enough,' says the learned publisher, he should recommend one of them. But even Charles Reade was found too good, and the sale fell ten thousand in a few weeks on account of a serial tale of his, so he had to make place to his _worses_. Chapman hears of a 'comprehensive review' being about to appear in the 'Westminster' on 'Aurora,' whether for or against he cannot tell. The third edition sells well.

So happy I am to hear that Mr. Procter's son is safe. We saw his name in the 'Galignani,' and were alarmed. Lytton has heard from Forster, but I had no English news from the letter. I get letters from my sisters which make me feel '_froissée_' all over, except that they seem pretty well. My eldest brother has returned from Jamaica, and has taken a place with a Welsh name on the Welsh borders for three years--what I knew he would do. He wrote me some tender words, dear fellow....

May God bless you!

Yours in much love, BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

La Villa, Bagni di Lucca: September 14, 1857 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,--A letter from me will have crossed yours and told you of all our misadventures. It has been a summer to me full of blots, vexations, anxieties; and if, in spite of everything, I am physically stronger for the fresh air and smell of green leaves, that's a proof that soul and body are two.

Our friends of the hotel went away last Saturday, and I have a letter from Isa Blagden with a good account of Lytton. He goes back to Villa Bricchieri, where they are to house together, unless Sir Edward comes down (which he may do) to catch up his son and change the plan. Isa has not quite killed herself with nursing him, a little of her being still left to express what has been.

Now, dear Fanny, I am going to try to tell you of _our_ plans. No, 'plans' is not the word; our thoughts are in the purely elemental state so far. But we _think_ of going to Rome (or Naples) at the far end of November, and of staying here as many days deep into October meanwhile 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. The portantini men walked too fast for him, and he was tired and heated. Then, while I paid my visit, he played by the river with a child of the house, and returned with me in the dusk. He complained of being tired during the return, and I took him up into my portantina for ten minutes. He was over-tired, however, over-heated, over-chilled, and the next day had fever and complained of his head. We did not think much of it; and the morning after he seemed so recovered that we took him with us to dine in the mountains with some American friends (the Eckleys--did you hear of them in Rome?)--twenty miles in the carriage, and ten miles on donkey-back. He was in high spirits, and came home at night singing at the top of his voice--probably to keep off the creeping sense of illness, for he has confessed since that he felt unwell even then. The next day the fever set in. The medical man doubted whether it was measles, scarlatina, or what; but soon the symptoms took the decisive aspect. He has been in bed, strictly confined to bed, since last Sunday-week night--strictly confined, except for one four hours, after which exertion he had a relapse. It is the same fever as Mr. Lytton's, only not as severe, I thank God; the attacks coming on at nights chiefly, and terrifying us, as you may suppose. The child's sweetness and goodness, too, his patience and gentleness, have been very trying. He said to me, 'You pet! don't be unhappy for _me_. Think it's a poor little boy in the street, and be just only a little sorry, and not unhappy at all.' Well, we may thank God that the bad time seems passed. He is still in bed, but it is a matter of precaution chiefly. The fever is quite in abeyance--has been for two days, and we have all to be grateful for two most tranquil nights. He amuses himself in putting maps together, and cutting out paper, and packing up his desk to _go to Florence_, which is the _idée fixe_ just now. In fact when he can be moved we shall not wait here a day, for the rains have set in, and the dry elastic air of Florence will be excellent for him. The medical man (an Italian) promises us almost that we may be able to go in a week from this time; but we won't hurry, we will run no risks. For some days he has been allowed no other sort of nourishment but ten dessert-spoonfuls of thin broth twice a day--literally nothing; not a morsel of bread, not a drop of tea, nothing. Even now the only change is, a few more spoonfuls of the same broth. It is hard, for his appetite cries out aloud; and he has agonising visions of beefsteak pies and buttered toast seen in _mirage_. Still his spirits don't fail on the whole and now that the fever is all but gone, they rise, till we have to beg him to be quiet and not to talk so much. He had the flower-girl in by his bedside yesterday, and it was quite impossible to help laughing, so many Florentine airs did he show off. 'Per Bacco, ho una fame terribile, e non voglio aver più pazienza con questo Dottore.' The doctor, however, seems skilful....

But you may think how worn out I have been in body and soul, and how under these circumstances we think little of Jerusalem or of any other place but our home at Florence. Still, we shall probably pass the winter either at Rome or Naples, but I know no more than a swaddled baby which. Also we _shan't_ know, probably, till the end of November, when we take out our passports. Doubt is our element....

I must go to my Peni. I am almost happy about him now. And yet--oh, his lovely rosy cheeks, his round fat little shoulders, his strength and spring of a month ago!--at the best, we must lose our joy and pride in these for a time. May God bless you! I know you will feel for me, and that makes me so egotistical.

Your ever affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence: February 1858.]

My dearest Sarianna,--Robert is going to write to dear M. Milsand, whose goodness is 'passing that of men,' of all common friends certainly. Robert's thanks are worth more than mine, and so I shall leave it to Robert to thank him.

The 'grippe' has gripped us here most universally, and no wonder, considering our most exceptional weather; and better the grippe than the fever which preceded it. Such cold has not been known here for years, and it has extended throughout the south, it seems, to Rome and Naples, where people are snowed and frozen up. So strange. The Arno, for the first time since '47, has had a slice or two of ice on it. Robert has suffered from the prevailing malady, which did not however, through the precautions we took, touch his throat or chest, amounting only to a bad cold in the head. Peni was afflicted in the same way but in a much slighter degree, and both are now quite well. As for me I have caught no cold--only losing my breath and my soul in the usual way, the cough not being much. So that we have no claim, any of us, on your compassion, you see....

I think, I think Miss Blackwell has succeeded in frightening you a little. In the case of _chaos_, she will fly to England, I suppose; and even there she may fall on a refugee plot; for I have seen a letter of Mazzini's in which it was written that people stood on ruins in England, and that at any moment there might be a crash! Certainly, confusion in Paris would be followed by confusion in Italy and everywhere on the Continent at least, so I should never think of running away, let what might happen. In '52 and '53, when we were in Paris, there was more danger than _could_ arise now, under a successful plot even; for, even if the Emperor fell, the people and the army seem prepared to stand by the dynasty. Also, public order has attained to some of the force of an habitual thing.

As to the crime,[57] it has no more sympathy here than in France--be sure of that. That unscrupulous bad party is repudiated by this majority--by this people as a mass. I hear nothing but lamentations that Italians should be dishonored so by their own hands. Father Prout says that the Emperor's speech is 'the most heroic document of this century,' and in my mind the praise is merited. So indignant I feel with Mazzini and all who name his name and walk in his steps, that I couldn't find it in my heart to write (as I was going to do) to that poor bewitched Jessie on her marriage. Really, when I looked at the pen, I _couldn't move it_....

Best love from BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

Florence: March 27 [1858]

This moment I take up my pen to write to you, my dearest Mrs. Martin. Did you not receive a long letter I wrote to you in Paris? No? Answer me categorically....

And you are not very strong, even now? That grieves me. But here is the sun to make us all strong. For my part, my chest has not been particularly wrong this winter, nor my cough too troublesome. But the weight of the whole year heavy with various kinds of trouble, added to a trying winter, seems to have stamped out of me the vital fluid, and I am physically low, to a degree which makes me glad of renewed opportunities of getting the air; and I mean to do little but drive out for some time. It does not answer to be mastered so. For months I have done nothing but dream and read French and German romances; and the result (of learning a good deal of German) isn't the most useful thing in the world one can attain to. Then, of course, I teach Peni for an hour or so. He reads German, French, and, of course, Italian, and plays on the piano remarkably well, for which Robert deserves the chief credit. A very gentle, sweet child he is; sweet to look at and listen to; affectionate and good to live with, a real 'treasure' so far. His passion is music; and as we are afraid of wearing his brain, we let him give most of his study-time to the piano.

So you want me, you expect me, I suppose, to approve of the miserable, undignified, unconscientious doings in England on the conspiracy question?[58] No, indeed. I would rather we had lost ten battles than stultified ourselves in the House of Commons with Brummagem brag and Derby intrigues before the eyes of Europe and America. It seems to me utterly pitiful. I hold that the most susceptible of nations should not reasonably have been irritated by the Walewski despatch, which was absolutely true in its statement of facts. Ah, dearest friend, _how_ true I know better than you do; for I know of knowledge how this doctrine of assassination is held by chief refugees and communicated to their disciples in England--yes, to noble hearts, and to English hands still innocent--my very soul has bled over these things. With my own ears I have heard them justified. For nights I have been disturbed in my sleep with the thoughts of them. In the name of liberty, which I love, and of the Democracy, which I honour, I protest against them. And if such things can be put down, I hold they should be put down; and that the Conspiracy Bill is the smallest and lightest step that can be taken towards the putting down. For the rest, the great Derby intrigue, as shown in its acts, and as resulting in its State papers, nothing in history, it seems to me, was ever so small and mean.

What I think of _him_? Why, I think he is the only great man of his age, speaking of public men. I think 'Napoleon III devant le peuple anglais' a magnificent State paper. I confess to you it drew the tears to my eyes as I read it. So grand, so calm, so simply true!

And now with regard to Switzerland. You must remember that there is such a thing as an international law, and that only last year the Swiss appealed in virtue of it to France about the Neufchâtel refugees, and that France received and acted on that appeal. The very translation of the French despatch adds to the injustice done to it in England; because '_insister_' does not mean to 'insist upon a thing being done,' but to 'urge it upon one's attention.'

'The Times,' 'The Times.' Why, 'The Times' has intellect, but no conscience. 'The Times' is the most immoral of journals, as well as the most able. 'The Times,' on this very question of the Conspiracy Bill, has swerved, and veered, and dodged, till its readers may well be dizzy if they read every paragraph every day.

See how I fall into a fury. 'Oh, Liberty! I would cry, like the woman who did not love liberty more than I do--'Oh, Liberty, what deeds are done in thy name!' and (looking round Italy) what sorrows are suffered!

For I do fear that Mazzini is at the root of the evil; that man of unscrupulous theory!

Now you will be enough disgusted with me. Tell me that you and dear Mr. Martin forgive me. I never saw Orsini, but have heard and known much of him. Unfortunate man. He died better than he lived--it is all one can say. Surely you admit that the permission to read that letter on the trial was large-hearted. And it has vexed Austria to the last degree, I am happy to say. It was not allowed to be read here, by the Italian public, I mean.

Our plans are perfectly undefined, but we do hope to escape England.... Robert talks of Egypt for the winter. I don't know what may happen; and in the meantime would rather not be pulled and pulled by kind people in England, who want me or fancy they do. You know everybody is as free as I am now, and freer; and if they do want me, and it isn't fancy--never mind! We may see you perhaps, in Paris, after all, this summer....

Now let me tell you. Hume, my _protégé_ prophet, is in Italy. Think of that. He was in Pisa and in Florence for a day, saw friends of his and acquaintances of ours with whom he stayed four months on the last occasion, and who implicitly believe in him. An Englishwoman, who from infidel opinions was converted by his instrumentality to a belief in the life after death, has died in Paris, and left him an annuity of £240, English. On coming here, he paid all his wandering debts, I am glad to hear, and is even said to have returned certain _gifts_ which had been rendered unacceptable to him from the bad opinion of the givers. I hear, too, that his manners, as well as morals, are wonderfully improved. He is gone to Rome, and will return here to pay a visit to his friends in Florence after a time. The object of his coming was health. While he passed through Tuscany, the _power_ seemed to be leaving him, but he has recovered it tenfold, says my informant, so I hope we shall hear of more wonders. Did you read the article in the 'Westminster'? The subject _se prête au ridicule_, but ridicule is not disproof. The Empress Eugénie protects his little sister, and has her educated in Paris.

Surely I have made up for silence. Dearest friends, both of you, may God bless you!

Your affectionate BA.

Robert's love and Peni's.

* * * * *

In the summer of 1858 an expedition was made to France, in order to visit Mr. Browning's father and sister; but no attempt was made to extend the journey into England. In fact, the circle of their flights from Florence was becoming smaller; and as 1856 saw Mrs. Browning's last visit to England, so 1858 saw her last visit to France, or, indeed, beyond the borders of Italy at all. It was only a short visit, too,--not longer than the usual expeditions into the mountains to escape the summer heat of Florence. In the beginning of July they reached Paris, where they stayed at the Hôtel Hyacinthe, rue St. Honoré, for about a fortnight, before going on to Havre in company with old Mr. Browning and Miss Browning. There they remained until September, when they returned to Paris for about a month, and thence, early in October, set out for Italy.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Hôtel Hyacinthe, St. Honoré: Wednesday and Thursday, July 8, 1858 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,--The scene changes. No more cypresses, no more fireflies, no more dreaming repose on burning hot evenings. Push out the churches, push in the boulevards. Here I am, sitting alone at this moment, in an hotel near the Tuileries, where we have taken an apartment for a week, a pretty salon, with the complement of velvet sofas, and arm-chairs, and looking-glasses, and bedrooms to correspond, with clocks at distances of three yards, as if the time was in desperate danger of forgetting itself--which it is, of course. Paris looks more splendid than ever, and we were not too much out of breath with fatigue, on our arrival last night, to admit of various cries of admiration from all of us. It is a wonderfully beautiful city; and wonderfully cold considering the climate we came from. Think of our finding ourselves forced into winter suits, and looking wistfully at the grate. I did so this morning. But now there is sunshine.

We had a prosperous journey, except the sea voyage which prostrated all of us--_Annunziata_, to 'the lowest deep' of misery. At Marseilles we slept, and again at Lyons and Dijon, taking express trains the whole way, so that there was as little fatigue as possible; and what with the reviving change of air and these precautions, I felt less tired throughout the journey than I have sometimes felt at Florence after a long drive and much talking. We had scarcely any companions in the carriages, and were able to stretch to the full longitude of us--a comfort always; and I had 'Madame Ancelot,' and 'Doit et Avoir,' which dropped into my bag from Isa's kind fingers on the last evening, and we gathered 'Galignanis' and 'Illustrations' day by day. Travelling has really become a luxury. I feel the _repose_ of it chiefly. Yes, no possibility of unpleasant visitors! no fear of horrible letters! quite lifted above the plane of bad news, or of the expectation of bad news, which is nearly the same thing. There you are, shut in, in a carriage! Quite out of reach of the telegraph even, which you mock at as you run alongside the wires.

Yes, but some visitors, some faces, and voices are missed. And altogether I was very sad at leaving my Italy, oh, very sad!...

Tell me how you like 'up in the villa' life, and how long you shall bear it.

Paris! I have not been out of the house, except when I came into it. But to-day, Thursday, I mean to drive out a little with Robert. You know I have a _weakness_ for Paris, and a _passion_ for Italy; which would operate thus, perhaps, that I could easily stay here when once here, if there was but a sun to stay with me. We are in admiration, all of us, at everything, from cutlets to costumes. On the latter point I shall give myself great airs over you barbarians presently--no offence to Zerlinda--and, to begin, pray draw your bonnets more over your faces.

I would rather send this bit than wait, as I did not write to you from Marseilles.

May God bless you! If you knew how happy I think you for being in Italy--if you knew.

I shiver with the cold. I tie up three loves to send you from

Your truly affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

Hôtel Hyacinthe, St. Honoré, Paris: Thursday [July 8, 1858].

My dearest dear Isa,--We are here, having lost nothing--neither a carpet bag nor a bit of our true love for you. We arrived the evening before last, and this letter should have been written yesterday if I hadn't been interrupted. Such a pleasant journey we had, after the curse of the sea! ('_Where there shall be no more sea_' beautifies the thought of heaven to me. But Frederick Tennyson's prophets shall compound for as many railroads as they please.)

In fact, we did admirably by land. We were of unbridled extravagance, and slept both at Lyons and Dijon, and travelled by express trains besides, so that we were almost alone the whole way, and able to lie at full length and talk and read, and 'Doit et Avoir' did duty by me, I assure you--to say nothing of 'Galignanis' and French newspapers. I was nearly sorry to arrive, and Robert suggested the facility of 'travelling on for ever so.' He (by help of _nux_) was in a heavenly state of mind, and never was the French people--public manners, private customs, general bearing, hostelry, and cooking, more perfectly appreciated than by him and all of us. Judge of the courtesy and liberality. _One_ box had its lid opened, and when Robert disclaimed smuggling, 'Je vous crois, monsieur' dismissed the others. Then the passport was never looked at after a glance at Marseilles. I am thinking of writing to the 'Times,' or should be if I could keep my temper.

So you see, dear Isa, I am really very well for me to be so pert. Yes, indeed, I am very well. The journey did not overtire me, and change of air had its usual reviving effect. Also, Robert keeps boasting of his influx of energies, and his appetite is renewed. We have resolved nothing about our sea plans, but have long lists of places, and find it difficult to choose among so many enchanting paradises, with drawbacks of 'dearness,' &c. &c. Meanwhile we are settled comfortably in an hotel close to the Tuileries, in a pretty salon and pleasant bedrooms, for which we don't pay exorbitantly, taken for a week, and we shall probably outstay the week. Robert has the deep comfort of finding his father, on whose birthday we arrived, looking ten years younger--really, I may say so--and radiant with joy at seeing him and Peni. Dear Mr. Browning and Sarianna will go with us wherever we go, of course.

Paris looks more beautiful than ever, and we were not too dead to see this as we drove through the streets on Wednesday evening. The development of architectural splendour everywhere is really a sight worth coming to see, even from Italy. Observe, I always feel the charm. And yet I yearn back to my Florence--the dearer the farther.

We slept at Dijon, where Robert, in a passion of friendship, went out twice to stand before Maison Milsand (one of the shows of the town), and muse and bless the threshold. Little did he dream that Milsand was there at that moment, having been called suddenly from Paris by the dangerous illness of his mother. So we miss our friend; but we shall not, I think, altogether, for he talked of following us to the sea, Sarianna says, and even if he is restrained from doing this, we shall pass some little time in Paris on our return, and so see him....

Mrs. Jameson is here, but goes on Saturday to England.

[_Incomplete_]

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

2 Rue de Perry, Le Havre, Maison Versigny: July 23, 1858 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,-- ... I gave you an account of our journey to Paris, which I won't write over again, especially as you may have read some things like it. In Paris we remained a fortnight except a day, and I liked it as I always like Paris, for which I have a decided fancy. And yet I did nothing, except in one shop, and in a fiacre driving round and round, and sometimes at a restaurant, dining round and round. But Paris is so full of life--murmurs so of the fountain of intellectual youth for ever and ever--that rolling up the rue de Rivoli (much more the Boulevards) suggests a quicker beat of the fancy's heart; and I like it--I like it. The architectural beauty is wonderful. Give me Venice on water, Paris on land--each in its way is a dream city. If one had but the sun there--such a sun as one has in Italy! Or if one had no lungs here--such lungs as are in me. But no. Under actual circumstances something different from Paris must satisfy me. Also, when all's said and sighed. I love Italy--I love my Florence. I love that 'hole of a place,' as Father Prout called it lately--with all its dust, its cobwebs, its spiders even, I love it, and with somewhat of the kind of blind, stupid, respectable, obstinate love which people feel when they talk of 'beloved native lands.' I feel this for Italy, by mistake for England. Florence is my chimney-corner, where I can sulk and be happy. But you haven't come to that yet. In spite of which, you will like the Baths of Lucca, just as you like Florence, for certain advantages--for the exquisite beauty, and the sense of abstraction from the vulgarities and vexations of the age, which is the secret of the strange charm of the south, perhaps--who knows? And yet there are vulgarities and vexations even in Tuscany, if one digs for them--or doesn't dig, sometimes....

In Paris we saw Father Prout, who was in great force and kindness, and Charles Sumner, passing through the burning torture under the hands of French surgeons, which is approved of by the brains of English surgeons. Do you remember the Jesuit's agony, in the 'Juif Errant'? Precisely that. Exposed to the living coal for seven minutes, and the burns taking six weeks to heal. Mr. Sumner refused chloroform--from some foolish heroic principle, I imagine, and suffered intensely. Of course he is not able to stir for some time after the operation, and can't read or sleep from the pain. Now, he is just 'healed,' and is allowed to travel for two months, after which he is to return and be burned again. Isn't it a true martyrdom? I ask. What is apprehended is paralysis, or at best nervous infirmity for life, from the effect of the blows (on the spine) of that savage.

Then, just as we arrived in Paris, dear Lady Elgin had another 'stroke,' and was all but gone. She rallied, however, with her wonderful vitality, and we left her sitting in her garden, fixed to the chair, of course, and not able to speak a word, nor even to gesticulate distinctly, but with the eloquent soul full and radiant, alive to both worlds. Robert and I sate there, talking politics and on other subjects, and there she sate and let no word drop unanswered by her bright eyes and smile. It was a beautiful sight. Robert fed her with a spoon from her soup-plate, and she signed, as well as she could, that he should kiss her forehead before he went away. She was always so fond of Robert, as women are apt to be, you know--even _I_, a little....

Forster wrote the other day, melancholy with the misfortunes of his friends, though he doesn't name Dickens. Landor had just fled to his (Forster's) house in London for protection from _an action for libel_.

See what a letter I have written. Write to me, dearest Fanny, and love me. Oh, how glad I shall be to be back among you again in my Florence!

Your ever affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Maison Versigny, 2 Rue de Perry, Le Havre: July 24, 1858 [postmark].

Dearest Mona Nina,--Have you rather wondered at not hearing? We have been a-wandering, a-wandering over the world--have been to Étretat and failed, and now are ignominiously settled at Havre--yes, at Havre, the name of which we should have scorned a week ago as a mere roaring commercial city. But after all, as sometimes I say with originality, 'civilisation is a good thing.' The country about Étretat is very pretty, and the coast picturesque with fantastic rocks, but the accommodation dear in proportion to its badness; which I do believe is the case everywhere with places, now and then even with persons--dear in proportion to their badness. We could get three bedrooms, a salon, and kitchen, one opening into another and no other access, and the kitchen presenting the first door, all furnished exactly alike, except that where the bedroom had a bed the kitchen had a stove; wooden chairs _en suite_, not an inch of carpet, and just an inch of looking-glass in the best bedroom. View, a potato-patch, and price two hundred francs a month. Robert took it in a 'fine phrenzy,' on which I rebelled, and made him give it up on a sacrifice of ten francs, which was the only cheap thing in the place, as far as I observed anything. Also, the bay is so restricted that whoever takes a step is 'commanded' by all the windows of the primitive hotel and the few villas, and as people have nothing whatever to do but to look at you, you may imagine the perfection of the analysis. I should have been a fly in a microscope, feeling my legs and arms counted on all sides, and receiving no comfort from the scientific results. So, you see, we 'gave it up' and came here in a sort of despair, meaning to take the railroad to Dieppe; when lo! our examining forces find that the place here is very tenable, and we take a house close to the sea (though the view is interrupted) in a green garden, and quite away from a suggestion of streets and commerce. The bathing is good, we have a post-office and reading-rooms at our elbow, and nothing distracting of any kind. The house is large and airy, and our two families are lodged in separate apartments, though we meet at dinner in our dining-room. Certainly the country immediately around Havre is not pretty, but we came for the sea after all, and the sea is open and satisfactory. Robert has found a hole I can creep through to the very shore, without walking many yards, and there I can sit on a bench and get strength, if so it pleases God.

Have I not sent you a full account of us? Now if you would return me a cent. per cent.--_soll und haben_. I want so much to know all about you--how you feel, dearest friend, and how you are. Do write and tell me of yourself. May God bless you ever and ever!

Your affectionate and grateful BA.

* * * * *

_To Madame Braun_

2 Rue do Perry, Le Havre, Maison Versigny: August 10 [1858].

My dearest Madame Braun,--If you have not heard from me before, it has not been that I have not thought of you anxiously and tenderly, but I had the idea that so many must be thinking of you, and saying to you with sad faces 'they were sorry,' that I kept away, not to be the one too many. It seems so vain when we sympathise with a suffering friend. And yet it is _something_--oh yes, I have felt that! But you _knew_ I must feel for you, if I teased you with words or not; and I, for my part, hearing of you from others, felt shy, as I say, till I heard you were better, of writing to you myself. And you _are_ feeling better, Mrs. Jameson tells me, and are somewhat more cheerful about your state. I thank God for this good news....

One of the few reasons for which I regret our absence from England this summer is that I miss seeing you with my own eyes, and I should like much to see you and talk to you of things of interest to both of us. If illness suppresses in us a few sources of pleasure, it leaves the real _ich_ open to influences and keen-sighted to _facts_ which are as surely _natural_ as the fly's wing, though we are apt to consider them vaguely as 'supernatural.'

'More and more life is what we want' Tennyson wrote long ago, and that is the right want. Indifference to life is disease, and therefore not strength. But the life here is only half the apple--a cut out of the apple, I should say, merely meant to suggest the perfect round of fruit--and there is in the world now, I can testify to you, _scientific proof_ that what we call death is a mere change of circumstances, a change of dress, a mere breaking of the outside shell and husk. This subject is so much the most interesting to me of all, that I can't help writing of it to you. Among all the ways of progress along which the minds of men are moving, this draws me most. There is much folly and fanaticism, unfortunately, because foolish men and women do not cease to be foolish when they hit upon a truth. There was a man who hung bracelets upon plane trees. But it was a tree--it is a truth--notwithstanding; yes, and so much a truth that in twenty years the probability is you will have no more doubters of the immortality of souls, and no more need of Platos to prove it.

We have come here to dip _me_ in warm sea-water, in order to an improvement in strength, for I have been very weak and unwell of late, as perhaps Mrs. Jameson has told you. But the sea and the change have brought me up again, as I hope they may yourself, and now I am looking forward to getting back to Italy for the winter, and perhaps to Rome.

Did you know Lady Elgin in Paris? She has been hopelessly, in the opinion of her physicians, affected by paralysis, but is now better, her daughter writes to me. A most remarkable person Lady Elgin is. We left her sitting in her garden, not able to speak--to articulate one word--but with one of the most radiant happy faces I ever saw in man or woman. I think I remember that you knew her. Her salon was one of the most agreeable in Paris, and she herself, with her mixture of learning and simplicity, one of the most interesting persons in it....

Dearest Madame Braun, I won't think of the possibility even of your writing to me, so little do I expect to hear. Indeed, I would not write if I considered it would entail writing upon _you_. Only believe that I tenderly regard and think of you, and always shall. May God bless you, my dear friend! Your attached

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

* * * * *

The following letter was written at Paris during the stay there which intervened between leaving Havre and the return to Florence:

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

6 Rue de Castiglione, Place Vendôme, Paris: October 2 [1858].

My dearest Isa,--I am saddened, saddened by your letter. We both are. Indeed, this last news from India must have struck--I know it did. Still, to your generous nature, long regret for your dear Louisa will be impossible; and you, so given to forget yourself, will come to forget a grief which is only your own. For she was in the world as not of it, in a painful sense; she was cut off from the cheerful, natural development of ordinary human beings; and if, as was probable, the conviction of this dreary fact had fastened on her mind, the result would have been perhaps demoralising, certainly depressing, more and more. Rather praise God for her therefore, dearest Isa, that she is gone above the cloud, gone where she can exercise active virtues and charities, instead of being the mild patient object of the charities and virtues of her friends. Perhaps she ministers to _you_ now instead of being ministered to by you, while the remembrance of her life on earth is tenderly united to you ever, a proof before men and angels that _your_ life (whatever you may please to say of yourself) has not been useless, nor barren of good and tender deeds....

In this letter and the last (such depressed letters!) you compare your own fate with that of some others with an injustice which God measures, and which I too have knowledge of. Isa, you speak you know not what. Be sure of one thing, however, that God has not been niggardly towards you, and that He never made a creature for which He did not make the work suited to its hand. He never made a creature necessarily useless, nor gave a life which it was not sin on the creature's part to hold unthankfully and throw back as a poor gift. Your excellent understanding will work clear your spirits presently. Some of those whom you think enviable, if they showed you their secret griefs, unsuspected by you, would leave tears in your eyes for _them_, not _you_. Every heart knows its own bitterness, and God knows when the bitterest drop is necessary for the heart's health. May He bless you, love you, teach you, strengthen you, make you serene and bright in Him, dear, dear Isa. I have spoken as to a sister; I have spoken as to my own soul in an hour of faintness. Let us take courage, Isa.

Dear, I had just folded up your parcel for Miss Alexander that my brother George should take it to-morrow. It has been my first opportunity for England--at least, for London. But now I will carry it back to you....

Arabel stays with me till we go, which will be in a fortnight perhaps from now. We have an apartment in an exquisite situation, two paces from the Tuileries Gardens, first floor, three best bedrooms and two servants' rooms, a closet of a dining-room, a salon--all small, but exquisitely comfortable and Parisian, looking into a court though, and we are not tempted to stay the winter. No; we return to Florence faithfully. Write again, and be happy, Isa; it is as if I said _be good_. Tell me, can it be true that Lytton is in Florence with his mother, as Father Prout assures us on the authority of Lady Walpole?...

Write to your ever, in word and deed, loving

BA.

* * * * *

In October the travellers were back in Florence, but this time only for a short stay of some six weeks, since it was decided that Rome would be more suitable to Mrs. Browning's failing health during the winter. On November 24 they reached Rome, and for the next six months were quartered, as in the winter of 1853-4, at No. 43 Via Bocca di Leone. Here it was that they heard the first mutterings of the storm which was to burst during the following year and to result in the making of Italy.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Casa Guidi: Saturday [about October 1858].

You do not come, dearest Fanny, though I am here waiting, and I begin to be uneasy about you. Do at least write, do. We have been here since Tuesday, and here is Saturday, and every morning there has been an anxious looking forward for you....

Miss ---- wrote to me in Paris to propose travelling with us, which Robert lacked chivalry to accede to; and, in fact, our ways of journeying are too uncertain to admit of arrangements with anyone beyond our circle. For instance, we took nine days to get here from Paris, spending only one day at Chambéry, for the sake of Les Charmettes and Rousseau. Robert played the 'Dream' on the old harpsichord, the keys of which rattled in a ghastly way, as if it were the bones of him who once so 'dreamed.' Then there was the old watch hung up, without a tick in it. At St. Jean de Maurienne we got into difficulties with diligences, and submitted to being thrown out for the night at Lanslebourg, I more dead than alive, and indeed I suffered much in passing the mountain next morning. Then again, on the sea, we had a _burrasca_, and the captain had half a mind when half-way to Leghorn to turn back to Genoa. Passengers much frightened, including me, a little. A wretched Neapolitan boat, with a machine 'inclined to go to the devil every time the wind went anywhere,' as I heard a French gentleman on board say afterwards. Altogether we were so done up after eighteen hours of it, that we stayed at Leghorn instead of going on straight to Florence. Still, now I seem to have got over fatigue and the rest--and we keep our faces turned undeviatingly to Rome. Mdme. du Quaire having carefully apprised M. Mignaty that we left Paris on the thirteenth, our friends here seem to have made up their minds that we had perished by land or water, and Annunziata's poor sister had passed three days in tears, for instance.

Now, dearest Fanny, let me confess to you. I have not brought the bonnet. A bonnet is a personal matter, and I would not let anyone choose one for _me_. Still, as you had more faith in man (or woman), I would have risked even displeasing you, only Robert would not let me. He said it was absurd--I 'did not know your size;' I 'could not know your taste;' in fact, he would not let me. Perhaps after all it is better. You shall see mine, which is the last novelty, and I will tell you the results of having investigated the bonnet question generally. I was told at a fashionable shop that hats might be worn out of one's teens; but in Paris, let me hasten to add, you don't see hats walking about except on the heads of small girls. In Rome it may be otherwise, as at the seaside it was. Bonnets are a great deal larger, but you shall see.

Oh, so glad I am to be back--so glad, so glad!

And so happy I shall be to see you, dearest Fanny, whom, till now, I have not thanked for the pretty, pretty sketch. I recognised the persons at a glance, you threw into them so much character....

Your ever most affectionate E.B.B.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence: about November 1858.]

Robert's uncertainty about Rome, my dearest Sarianna, has led him into delay of writing. We dropped here upon summer, and a few days afterwards, just as suddenly, the winter dropped upon _us_. Such wonderful weather, such cold, such snow--enough to strangle one. The rain has come, however, to-day, and though everything feels wretched enough, and I am languid about schemes of travelling, we talk of going next week, should nothing hinder.

'If it be possible After much grief and pain.'

Peni would rather stay, I believe. His Florence is in his heart still.

Robert will have told you about his bust,[59] which is exquisite in the clay, and will be exhibited in London in the marble next May. The likeness, the poetry, the ideal grace and infantile reality are all there. I am so happy to have it. I set about teasing Robert till he gave it to me, and, as he really loses nothing thereby, I accepted at once, as you may suppose. I would rather have given up Rome and had the bust; but the artist was generous, and would only accept what would cover the expenses, twenty-five guineas. He said he 'would not otherwise do it for us, as he asked in the first place to be allowed to make the sketch in clay, and would not appear to have laid a trap for an order.' So we are all three very happy and grateful to one another--which is pleasant. I feel the most obliged perhaps of the three--obliged to the other two--and ought to be, after the napoleons dropt in Paris, Sarianna!

Oh no; the sea was necessary from Genoa. The expense of the journey would have been very much increased if we had taken the whole way by land, and it was a great thing to escape that rough Gulf of Lyons. The journey to Rome will be rendered easy to Robert's pocket by the extraordinary chance of Mr. Eckley's empty carriage, otherwise the repeated pulls might have pulled us down too low.

Peni will write to you. He loves his nonno and you very much--tell nonno; and my love goes with my message.

May God bless both of you! Love to M. Milsand.

Your affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_Robert Browning to Miss Browning_

Rome, 43 Bocca di Leone: Friday, November 26, 1858 [postmark].

Dearest Sis,--You received a letter written last thing on Wednesday, 18th. We started next day with perfectly fine mild weather and every sort of comfort, and got to our first night's stage, Poggio Bagnoli, with great ease; with the same advantages next day, we passed Arezzo and reached Camuscia, and on Saturday slept at Perugia, having found the journey delightful. Sunday was rainy, but just as mild, so Ba did not suffer at all; we slept at Spoleto. Rain again on Monday. We reached Terni early in the day in order to go to the Falls, but the thing was impossible for Ba. Eckley, his mother-in-law, and I went, however, getting drenched, but they were fine, the rain and melted snow having increased the waters extraordinarily. On Tuesday we had fine weather again to Cività Castellana; there we found that on the previous day, while we were staying at Terni, a carriage was stopped and robbed in the road we otherwise should have pursued. They said such a thing had not happened for years. On Wednesday afternoon, four o'clock, we reached Rome, with beautiful weather; so it had been for some four out of our seven days. Ba bore the journey irregularly well; of course she has thus had a week of open air, beside the change, which always benefits her. We always had the windows of the carriage open. We passed Wednesday night at an hotel in order to profit by any information friends might be able to furnish, but we ended by returning to the rooms here we occupied before, of which we knew the virtues--a blaze of sun on the front rooms--and absolute healthiness. Rents are enormous; we pay only ten dollars a month more than before, in consideration of the desire the old landlady had to get us again. To anybody else the price would have been 20 more--60 in all--for which we are to pay 40. The Eckleys took _good rooms_ and pay 1,000 (£210 or 15) for six months! One can't do _that_. The best is that they have thoroughly cleaned and painted the place, and everything is very satisfactorily arranged. We take the apartment for four months, meaning to be at liberty to go to Naples if we like. We have no fire this morning while I write, but it is before breakfast and Ba may like the sight of one, tho' I rather think she will not. Rome looks very well, and I hope we shall have a happier time of it than before. Many friends are here and everybody is very kind. The Eckleys were extravagantly good to us, something beyond conception almost. We have seen Miss Cushman, Hatty,[60] Leighton, Cartwright, the Storys, Page and his new (third) wife, Gibson, beside the Brackens and Mrs. Mackenzie; and there are others I shall see to-day. Ferdinando was sent on by sea with the luggage, and met us at the gate. It has been an expensive business altogether, but I think we shall not regret it. I daresay you have mild weather at Paris also. These premature beginnings of cold break down and leave the rest of the year the warmer, if not the better for them. Dearest Sis, write and tell me all the news of your two selves. Do you hear anything about Reuben's leaving London? Anything of Lady Elgin? How is Madame Milsand? I will send you the last 'Ath.' I have received, but break off here rather abruptly, in order to let Ba write. Good-bye. God bless you both. Kindest love to Milsand.

Yours ever affectionately R.B.

* * * * *

_E.B. Browning to Miss Browning_

My dearest Sarianna,--I don't know whether this letter from Rome will surprise you, but we have done it at last. Our journey was most prosperous, the wonderful inrush of winter which buried all Italy in snow, and for some days rendered the possibility of any change of quarters so more than doubtful (I myself gave it up for days), having given way to an inrush of summer as wonderful. The change was so pleasant that I bore with perfect equanimity the lamentations of certain English acquaintances of ours in Florence, who declared it was the most frightful and dangerous climate that could be, that now one was frozen to death and the next day burnt and melted, and that people couldn't be healthy under such transitions. But all countries of the south are subject to the same of course wherever there is a southern sun, and mountains to retain snow. Even in Paris you complain of something a little like it, because of the sun. We left Florence in a blaze of sunshine accordingly, and there and everywhere found the country transfigured back into summer, except for two days of April rain. Of the kindness of our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Eckley I am moved when I try to speak. They humiliate me by their devotion. Such generosity and delicacy, combined with so much passionate sentiment (there is no other word), are difficult to represent. The Americans are great in some respects, not that Americans generally are like these, but that these could scarcely be English--for instance, that mixture of enthusiasm and simplicity we have not. Our journey was delightful and not without some incidents, which might have been accidents. We were as nearly as possible thrown once into a ditch and once down a mountain precipice, the spirited horses plunging on one side, but at last Mr. Eckley lent us his courier, who sate on the box by the coachman and helped him to manage better. Then there was a fight between our oxen-drivers, one of them attempting to stab the other with a knife, and Robert rushing in between till Peni and I were nearly frantic with fright. No harm happened, however, except that Robert had his trousers torn. And we escaped afterwards certain banditti, who stopped a carriage only the day before on the very road we travelled, and robbed it of sixty-two scudi.

Here at Rome we are still fortunate, for with enormous prices rankling around us we get into our old quarters at eleven pounds a month. The rooms are smaller than our ambition would fain climb to (one climbs, also, a little too high on the stairs), but on the whole the quiet healthfulness and sunshine are excellent things, particularly in Rome, and we are perfectly contented....

Rome is so full that I am proceeding to lock up my doors throughout the day. I can't live without some use of life. Here must come the break. May God bless you both! Pen's love with mine to the dear nonno and yourself.

BA.

* * * * *

_To Mr. Ruskin_

Rome, 43 Bocca di Leone: January 1, 1859.

My dear Mr. Ruskin,--There is an impulse upon me to write to you, and as it ought to have come long ago, I yield to it, and am glad that it comes on this first day of a new year to inaugurate the time. It may be a good omen for _me_. Who knows?

We received your letter at Florence and very much did it touch me--us, I should say--and then I would have written if you hadn't bade us wait for another letter, which has not come to this day. Shall I say one thing? The sadness of that letter struck me like the languor after victory, for you who have fought many good fights and never for a moment seemed to despond before, write this word and this. After treading the world down in various senses, you are tired. It is natural perhaps, but this evil will pass like other evils, and I wish you from my heart a good clear noble year, with plenty of work, and God consciously over all to give you satisfaction. What would this life be, dear Mr. Ruskin, if it had not eternal relations? For my part, if I did not believe so, I should lay my head down and die. Nothing would be worth doing, certainly. But I am what many people call a 'mystic,' and what I myself call a 'realist,' because I consider that every step of the foot or stroke of the pen here has some real connection with and result in the hereafter.

'This life's a dream, a fleeting show!' no indeed. That isn't my '_doxy_.' I don't think that nothing is worth doing, but that everything is worth doing--everything good, of course--and that everything which does good for a moment does good for ever, in _art_ as well as in morals. Not that I look for arbitrary punishment or reward (the last least, certainly. I would no more impute merit to the human than your Spurgeon would), but that I believe in a perpetual sequence, according to God's will, and in what has been called a 'correspondence' between the natural world and the spiritual.

Here I stop myself with a strong rein. It is fatal, dear Mr. Ruskin, to write letters on New Year's day. One can't help moralising; one falls on the metaphysical vein unaware.

Forgive me.

We are in Rome you see. We have been very happy and found rooms swimming all day in sunshine, when there is any sun, and yet not ruinously dear. I was able to go out on Christmas morning (a wonderful event for me) and hear the silver trumpets in St. Peter's. Well, it was very fine. I never once thought of the Scarlet Lady, nor of the Mortara case, nor anything to spoil the pleasure. Yes, and I enjoyed it both æsthetically and devotionally, putting my own words to the music. Was it wise, or wrong?

But we have had and are having some cold, some tramontana, and I have kept house ever since. Only in Rome there's always hope of a good warm scirocco. We talk of seeing Naples before we turn home to our Florence, to keep feast for Dante.

It is delightful to hear of all you are _permitted_ to do for England meanwhile in matters of art, and one of these days we shall go north to take a few happy hours of personal advantage out of it all. Not this year, however, I think. We have done duty to the north too lately. Now it seems to me we have the right (of virtue, in spite of what I said on another page, or rather, _because_ I said it in good human inconsistency), the right to have and hold our Italy in undisturbed possession. I never feel at home anywhere else, or to _live_ rightly anywhere else at all. It's a horrible want of patriotism, of course, only, if I were upon trial, I might say in a low voice a few things to soften the judgment against me on account of that sin. Ah! we missed you at Havre! If you had come it would have been something pleasant to remember that detestable place by, besides the salt-water which profited one's health a little. We were in Paris too some six weeks in all (besides eight weeks at Havre!) and Paris has a certain charm for me always. If we had seen you in Paris! But no, you must have floated past us, close, close, yet we missed you.

A good happy new year we wish to Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin, as to yourself, and, dear Mr. Ruskin, to your mother I shall say that my child is developing in a way to make me very contented and thankful. Yes, I thank God for him more and more, and _she_ can understand that, I know. His musical faculty is a decided thing, and he plays on the piano quite remarkably for his age (through his father's instruction) while I am writing this. He is reading aloud to me an Italian translation of 'Monte Cristo,' and with a dramatic intelligence which would strike you, as it does perhaps, that I should select such a book for a child of nine years old to read at all. It's rather young to be acclimated to French novels, is it not? But the difficulty of getting Italian books is great, and there's a good deal in the early part of 'Monte Cristo,' the prison part, very attractive. His voice was full of sobs when poor Dantes was consigned to the Château d'If. "Do you mean to say, mama, that _that boy_ is to stay there all his life?" He made me tell him 'to make him happy,' as he said.

For the rest he reads French and German, and we shall have to begin Latin in another year I suppose. Do you advise that, you, Mr. Ruskin? He has not given up the drawing neither. Ah! but there is a weight beyond the post, whatever your goodness may bear, and I must leave a little space for Robert.

May God bless you, my dear friend! Dare I say it? it _came_.

Affectionately yours always, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

_Robert Browning to Mr. Ruskin_

I am to say something, dear Ruskin; it shall be only the best of wishes for this and all other years; go on again like the noble and dear man you are to us all, and especially to us two out of them all. Whenever I chance on an extract, a report, it lights up the dull newspaper stuff wrapt round it and makes me glad at heart and clearer in head. We, for our part, have just sent off a corrected 'Aurora Leigh,' which is the better for a deal of pains, we hope, and my wife deserves. There will be a portrait from a photograph done at Havre without retouching--good, I think. Truest love to you and yours--your father and mother. Do help us by a word every now and then.

Affectionately yours, R.B.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

[Rome]: 43 Bocca di Leone: January 7 [1859].

My dearest Isa,--Your letter seemed long in coming, as this will seem to you, I fear. I ought to have answered mine at once, and put off doing so from reason to reason, and from day to day. Very busy I have been, sending off seven of the nine books of 'Aurora,'[61] having dizzied myself with the 'ifs' and 'ands,' and done some little good I hope at much cost....

As to the Roman climate, we have had some beautiful weather, but Robert was calling his gods to witness (the goddess Tussis among them) that he never felt it so cold in Florence--never. Fountains frozen, Isa, and the tramontana tremendous. But it can't last--that's the comfort at Rome; and meantime we are housed exquisitely in our lion's mouth; the new _portiere_ and universal carpeting keeping it snugger than ever, and the sun over-streaming us through six windows. I have just been saying that whenever I come to Rome I shall choose to come here. The only fault is, the height and the smallness of the rooms; and, in spite of the last, we have managed to have and hold twenty people and upwards through a _serata_. Peni has had a bad cold, from over-staying the time on the Pincio one afternoon, and I have kept him in the house these ten days. Such things one may do by one's lion-cubs; but the lions are harder to deal with, and Robert caught cold two or three days ago; in spite of which he chose to get up at six every morning as usual and go out to walk with Mr. Eckley. Only by miracle and nux is he much better to-day. I thought he was going to have a furious grippe, as last year and the year before. I must admit, however, that he is extremely well just now, to speak generally, and that this habit of regular exercise (with occasional homoeopathy) has thrown him into a striking course of prosperity, as to looks, spirits and appetite. He eats 'vulpinely' he says--which means that a lark or two is no longer enough for dinner. At breakfast the loaf perishes by Gargantuan slices. He is plunged into gaieties of all sorts, caught from one hand to another like a ball, has gone out every night for a fortnight together, and sometimes two or three times deep in a one night's engagements. So plenty of distraction, and no Men and Women. Men and women from without instead! I am shut up in the house of course, and go to bed when he goes out--and the worst is, that there's a difficulty in getting books. Still, I get what I can, and stop up the chinks with Swedenborg; and in health am very well, for me, and in tranquillity excellently well. Not that there are not people more than enough who come to see me, but that there is nothing vexatious just now; life goes smoothly, I thank God, and I like Rome better than I did last time. The season is healthy too (for Rome). I have only heard of one English artist since we came, who arrived, sickened, died, and was buried, before anyone knew who he was. Besides ordinary cases of slight Roman fever among the English, Miss Sherwood (who with her father was at Florence) has had it slightly, and Mrs. Marshall who came to us from Tennyson. (A Miss Spring-Rice she was.) But the poor Hawthornes suffer seriously. Una is dissolved to a shadow of herself by reiterated attacks, and now Miss Shepherd is seized with gastric fever. Mr. Hawthorne is longing to get away--where, he knows not.

My Peni has conquered his cold, and when the weather gets milder I shall let him out. Meanwhile he has taken to--what do you suppose? I go into his room at night and find him with a candle regularly settled on the table by him, and he reading, deeply rapt, an Italian translation of 'Monte Cristo.' Pretty well for a lion-cub, isn't it? He is enchanted with this book, lent to him by our padrona; and exclaims every now and then, 'Oh, magnificent, magnificent!' And this morning, at breakfast, he gravely delivered himself to the following effect: 'Dear mama, for the future I mean to read _novels_. I shall read all Dumas's, to begin. And then I shall like to read papa's favourite book, "Madame Bovary."' Heavens, what a lion-cub! Robert and I could only answer by a burst of laughter. It was so funny. That little dot of nine and a half full of such hereditary tendencies.

And 'Madame Bovary' in a course of education!...

May God bless you, my much-loved Isa, for this and other years beyond also! I shall love you all that way--says the genius of the ring.

Your ever loving BA.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Ferdinando Romagnoli. He died at Venice, in the Palazzo Rezzonico, January 1893. His widow (who, as the following letters show, continued to be called Wilson in the family) is still living with Mr. R.B. Browning.

[47] This refers to a note from Mrs. Browning to Miss Haworth, inquiring whether it was true that she was engaged to be married.

[48] The notorious medium, prototype of Mr. Browning's 'Sludge.' He subsequently changed his name to Home.

[49] An attempted revision of the poem, subsequently abandoned, as explained in the preface addressed to M. Milsand in 1863.

[50] Mr. Browning and the boy had been suffering from sore throats.

[51] For the substance of this information I am indebted to Mr. Charles Aldrich, to whom the letter was presented by Mrs. Kinney, and through whose kindness it is here printed. The original now forms part of the Aldrich collection in the Historical Department of Iowa, U.S.A.

[52] The husband of Wilson, Mrs. Browning's maid.

[53] An odd commentary on this 'poem' may be found in Mrs. Orr's _Life of Robert Browning_, p. 219.

[54] See _Aurora Leigh_, p. 276:

'I found a house at Florence on the hill Of Bellosguardo. 'Tis a tower which keeps A post of double observation o'er That valley of Arno (holding as a hand The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole And Mount Morello and the setting sun, The Vallombrosan mountains opposite, Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups Turned red to the brim because their wine is red. No sun could die nor yet be born unseen By dwellers at my villa: morn and eve Were magnified before us in the pure Illimitable space and pause of sky, Intense as angels' garments blanched with God, Less blue than radiant. From the outer wall Of the garden drops the mystic floating grey Of olive trees (with interruptions green From maize and vine), until 'tis caught and torn Upon the abrupt black line of cypresses Which signs the way to Florence. Beautiful The city lies along the ample vale, Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street, The river trailing like a silver cord Through all, and curling loosely, both before And after, over the whole stretch of land Sown whitely up and down its opposite slopes With farms and villas.'

Miss Blagden's villa was the Villa Bricchieri, which is alluded to elsewhere in the letters.

[55] A line or two has been cut off the bottom of the sheet at this place.

[56] The _Elements of Drawing_.

[57] Orsini's attempt on the life of the Emperor Napoleon on January 14, 1858.

[58] Referring to the Conspiracy Bill introduced by Lord Palmerston after the Orsini conspiracy against Napoleon in January 1858, and to the outcry against it, as an act of subservience to France, which led to Palmerston's fall. Count Walewski was the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his despatch, alluded to below, called the attention of the English Government to the shelter afforded by England to conspirators of the type of Orsini.

[59] A bust of the child, by Monroe.

[60] Miss Hosmer.

[61] The fourth edition, in which several alterations were made.