Chapter 13

1859-60

At this point in Mrs. Browning's correspondence we reach the first allusion to the political crisis which had now become acute, and of which the letters that follow are full, almost to excess. On January 1 Napoleon had astounded Europe by his language to the Austrian ambassador at Paris, in which he spoke of the bad relations unfortunately subsisting between their States. On the 10th Victor Emmanuel declared that he must listen to the cry of pain which came up to him from all Italy. After this it was clear that there was nothing to do but to prepare for war. It was in vain that England pressed for a European Congress, with the view of arranging a general disarmament. Sardinia professed willingness to accept it, but Austria declined, and on April 23 sent an ultimatum to Victor Emmanuel, demanding unconditional disarmament, which was naturally refused. On the 29th Austria declared war, and her troops crossed the Ticino--an act which Napoleon had already announced would be considered as tantamount to a declaration of war with France.

With regard to the tone of Mrs. Browning's letters during this period of politics and war, there are a few considerations to be borne in mind. Her two deepest political convictions were here united in one--her faith in the honesty of Louis Napoleon, and her enthusiasm for Italian freedom and unity. There were many persons in England, and some in Italy itself, who held the latter of these faiths without the former; but for such she had no tolerance. Hence not only those who sympathised, as no doubt some Englishmen did sympathise, with Austria, but also those who, while wishing well to Italy, looked with suspicion upon Napoleon's interference, incurred her uncompromising wrath; and not even the conference of Villafranca, not even the demand for Nice and Savoy, could lead her to question Napoleon's sincerity, or to look with patience on the English policy and English public opinion of that day. The instinct of Italians has been truer. They have recognised the genuine sympathy and support which England extended to them on many occasions during the long struggle for Italian unity, and the friendship between the two countries to-day has its root in the events of forty and fifty years ago.

That Robert Browning did not entirely share his wife's views will be clear to all readers of 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau;' but there is not the smallest sign that this caused the least shadow of disagreement between them. Indeed for the moment the difference was practically annulled, since Robert Browning believed, what was very probably the case, that the Emperor's friendship for Italy was genuine, so far as it went. But it may be believed that he was less surprised than she when Napoleon's zeal for Italian independence stopped short at the frontiers of Venetia, and was transformed into an anxiety to get out of the war without further risk, and with an eye to material compensation in Savoy and Nice.

It is also right to bear in mind the failing condition of Mrs. Browning's health. The strain of anxiety unquestionably overtaxed her strength, and probably told upon her mental tone in a way that may account for much that seems exaggerated, and at times even hysterical, in her expressions regarding those who did not share her views. Her errors were noble and arose from a passionate nobility of character, to which much might be forgiven, if there were much to forgive.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

Rome: [about February 1, 1859].

I am sure Robert has been too long about writing this time, dearest Sarianna. It did not strike either of us till this morning that it was so long. We have all been well; and Robert is whirled round and round so, in this most dissipated of places (to which Paris is really grave and quiet), that he scarcely knows if he stands on his feet or his head....

Since Christmas Day I have been out twice, once to see Mr. Page's gorgeous picture (just gone to Paris), and once to run back again before the wind; but I am too susceptible. The weather has been glorious to everybody with some common sense in their lungs. And to-day it is possible even to _me_, they say, and I am preparing for an effort.

Pen is quite well and rosy. Still we hear of illness, and I am very particular and nervous about him. All Mr. Hawthorne's family have been ill one after another, and now he is struck himself with the fever.

Let me remember to say how the professor's letter seemed to say so much--too much.

Particularly just now. I for one can receive no compliments about 'English honesty' &c., after the ignoble way we are behaving about Italy. I dare say dear M. Milsand (who doesn't sympathise much with our Italy) thinks it 'imprudent' of the Emperor to make this move, but that it is generous and magnanimous he will admit. The only great-hearted politician in Europe--but chivalry always came from France. The emotion here is profound--and the terror, among the priests.

Always I expected this from Napoleon, and, if he will carry out his desire, Peni and I are agreed to kneel down and kiss his feet. The pamphlet which proceeds from him is magnificent. I said it long ago--to Jessie White I said it, 'You would destroy,' said I, 'the only man who has it in his heart and head to do anything for Italy.'

Most happily Robert's and my protestation went to America in time; just before the present contingency. Yes, Jessie should not have permitted our names to be used so. Being passive even was a fault--yes, and more than a fault. Robert is in great spirits and very well indeed....

Ever your most affectionate, BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

[Rome]: 43 Bocca di Leone: March 27, [1859].

My ever dearest Isa,--You don't write, not you! I wrote last, remember, and though you may not have liked all the politics of the same, you might have responded to some of the love, you naughty Isa; so I think I shall get up a 'cause célèbre' for myself (it shall be my turn now), and I shall prove (or try) that nobody has loved me (or can) up to this date of the 26th of March, 1859. Dearest Isa, seriously speaking, you must write, for I am anxious to know that you are recovering your good looks and proper bodily presence as to weight. Just now I am scarcely of sane mind about Italy. It even puts down the spirit-subject. I pass through cold stages of anxiety, and white heats of rage. Robert accuses me of being 'glad' that the new 'Times' correspondent has been suddenly seized with Roman fever. It is I who have the true fever--in my brain and heart. I am chiefly frightened lest Austria yield on unimportant points to secure the vital ones; and Louis Napoleon, with Germany and England against him, is in a very hard position. God save us all!

Massimo d' Azeglio[62] has done us the real honor of coming to see us, and seldom have I, for one, been more gratified. A noble chivalrous head, and that largeness of the political _morale_ which I find nowhere among statesmen, except in the head of the French Government. Azeglio spoke bitterly of English policy, stigmatised it as belonging to a past age, the rags of old traditions. He said that Louis Napoleon had made himself great simply by comprehending the march of civilisation (the true Christianity, said Azeglio) and by leading it. Exactly what I have always thought. Azeglio disbelieves in any aim of territorial aggrandisement on the part of France. He is full of hope for Italy. It is '48 over again, said he, but with matured actors. He finds a unity of determination among the Italians wherever he goes.

Well, Azeglio is a man. Seldom have I seen a man whom I felt more sympathy towards. He has a large, clear, attractive 'sphere,' as we Swedenborgians say.

The pamphlet Collegno never reached us. The Papal Government has snatched it on the way. Farini's is very good. Thank you for all your kindness as to pamphlets (not letters, Isa! I distinguish in my gratitude). We lent Mr. Trollope's to Odo Russell,[63] the English plenipotentiary, and to Azeglio, so that it has produced fruit in our hands.

Did I write since Robert dined with the Prince of Wales? Col. Bruce called here and told me that though the budding royalty was not to be exposed to the influences of mixed society, the society of the most eminent men in Rome was desired for him, and he (Col. Bruce) knew it would 'gratify the Queen that the Prince should make the acquaintance of Mr. Browning.' Afterwards came the invitation, or 'command.' I told Robert to set them all right on Italian affairs, and to eschew compliments, which, you know, is his weak point. (He said the other day to Mrs. Story: 'I had a delightful evening yesterday at your house. I _never spoke to you once_,' and encouraged an artist, who was 'quite dissatisfied with his works,' as he said humbly, by an encouraging--'But, my dear fellow, if you were satisfied, you would be so _very easily_ satisfied!' Happy! wasn't it?) Well, so I exhorted my Robert to eschew compliments and keep to Italian politics, and we both laughed, as at a jest. But really he had an opportunity, the subject was permitted, admitted, encouraged, and Robert swears that he talked on it higher than his breath. But, oh, the English, the English! I am unpatriotic and disloyal to a _crime_, Isa, just now. Besides which, as a matter of principle, I never put my trust in princes, except in the parvenus.

Not that the little prince here talked politics. But some of his suite did, and he listened. He is a gentle, refined boy, Robert says....

May God bless you, dearest Isa. I am, your very loving

BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

Rome: [about April 1859].

Dearest Sarianna,--People are distracting the 'Athenæums,' Robert complains, as they distract other things, but in time you will recover them, I hope. Mr. Leighton has made a beautiful pencil-drawing, highly finished to the last degree, of him;[64] very like, though not on the poetical side, which is beyond Leighton. Of this you shall have a photograph soon; and in behalf of it, I pardon a drawing of me which I should otherwise rather complain of, I confess.

We are all much saddened just now (in spite of war) by the state of Una Hawthorne, a lovely girl of fifteen, Mr. Hawthorne's daughter, who, after a succession of attacks of Roman fever, has had another, complicated with gastric, which has fallen on the lungs, and she only lives from hour to hour. Homoeopathic treatment persisted in, which never answers in these fevers. Ah--there has been much illness in Rome. Miss Cushman has had an attack, but you would not recognise other names. We are well, however, Pen like a rose, and Robert still expanding. Dissipations decidedly agree with Robert, there's no denying that, though he's horribly hypocritical, and 'prefers an evening with me at home,' which has grown to be a kind of dissipation also.

We are in great heart about the war, as if it were a peace, without need of war. Arabel writes alarmed about our funded money, which we are not likely to lose perhaps, precisely because we are _not_ alarmed. The subject never occurred to me, in fact. I was too absorbed in the general question--yes, and am.

So it dawns upon you, Sarianna, that things at Rome and at Naples are not quite what they should be. A certain English reactionary party would gladly make the Pope a _paratonnerre_ to save Austria, but this won't do. The poor old innocent Pope would be paralytically harmless but for the Austrian, who for years has supported the corruptions here against France; and even the King of Naples would drop flat as a pricked bubble if Austria had not maintained that iniquity also. We who have lived in Italy all these years, know the full pestilent meaning of Austria everywhere. What is suffered in Lombardy _exceeds what is suffered elsewhere_. Now, God be thanked, here is light and hope of deliverance. Still you doubt whether the French are free enough themselves to give freedom! Well, I won't argue the question about what 'freedom' is. We shall be perfectly satisfied here with French universal suffrage and the ballot, the very same democratical government which advanced Liberals are straining for in England. But, however that may be, the Italians are perfectly contented at being liberated by the French, and entirely disinclined to wait the chance of being more honorably assisted by their 'free' and virtuous friend on the other side of the hedge (or Channel), who is employed at present in buttoning up his own pockets lest peradventure he should lose a shilling: giving dinners though, and the smaller change, to 'Neapolitan exiles,' whom only this very cry of 'war' has freed.

Robert and I have been of one mind lately in these things, which comforts me much. But the chief comfort is--the state of facts.

Massimo d' Azeglio came to see us, and talked nobly, with that noble head of his. I was far prouder of his coming than of another personal distinction you will guess at, though I don't pretend to have been insensible even to that. 'It is '48 over again,' said he, 'with matured actors.' In fact, the unity throughout Italy is wonderful. What has been properly called 'the crimes of the Holy Alliance' will be abolished this time, if God defends the right, which He will, I think. I have faith and hope.

But people are preparing to run, and perhaps we shall be forced to use the gendarmes against the brigands (with whom the country is beset, as in all cases of general disturbance) when we travel, but this is all the difference it will make with us. Tuscany is only restraining itself out of deference to France, and not to complicate her difficulties. War must be, if it is not already.

Yes, I was 'not insensible,' democratical as I am, and un-English as I am said to be. Col. Bruce told me that 'he knew it would be gratifying to the Queen that the Prince should make Robert's acquaintance.' 'She wished him to know the most eminent men in Rome.' It might be a weakness, but I was pleased.

Pen's and my love to the dearest Nonno and you.

Your affectionate BA.

* * * * *

In May, shortly after the outbreak of war, the Brownings returned to Florence, whither a division of French troops had been sent, under the command of Prince Napoleon. The Grand Duke had already retired before the storm, and a provisional government had been formed. It was here that they heard the news of Magenta (June 4) and Solferino (June 24), with their wholly unexpected sequel, the armistice and the meeting of the two Emperors at Villafranca. The latter blow staggered even Mrs. Browning for the moment, but though her frail health suffered from the shock, her faith in Louis Napoleon was proof against all attack. She could not have known the good military reasons he had for not risking a reversal of the successes which he had won more through his enemy's defects than through the excellence of his own army or dispositions; but she found an explanation in the supposed intrigues of England and Germany, which frustrated his good intentions.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

Florence: [about May 1859].

My dearest Sarianna,--You will like to hear, if only by a scratch, that we are back in Tuscany with all safety, after a very pleasant journey through an almost absolute solitude. Florence is perfectly tranquil and at the same time most unusually animated, what with the French troops and the passionate gratitude of the people. We have two great flags on our terrace, the French flag and the Italian, and Peni keeps a moveable little flag between them, which (as he says) 'he can take out in the carriage sometimes.' Pen is enchanted with the state of things in general, and the French camp in particular, which he came home from only in the dusk last night, having 'enjoyed himself so very much in seeing those dear French soldiers play at blindman's buff.' They won't, however, remain long here, unless the Austrians threaten to come down on us, which, I trust, they will be too much absorbed to do. The melancholy point in all this is the dirt eaten and digested with a calm face by England and the English. Now that I have exhausted myself with indignation and protestation, Robert has taken up the same note, which is a comfort. I would rather hear my own heart in his voice. Certainly it must be still more bitter for him than for me, seeing that he has more national predilections than I have, and has struggled longer to see differently. Not only the prestige, but the very respectability of England is utterly lost here--and nothing less is expected than her ultimate and open siding with Austria in the war. If she does, we shall wash our hands like so many Pilates, which will save us but not England.

We are intending to remain here as long as we can bear the heat, which is not just now too oppressive, though it threatens to be so. We must be somewhere near, to see after our property in the case of an Austrian approach, which is too probable, we some of us think; and I just hear that a body of the French will remain to meet the contingency. Our Italians are fighting as well as soldiers can.

Tell M. Milsand, with my love, that if I belonged to his country, I should feel very proud at this time. As to the Emperor, he is sublime. He will appear so to all when he comes out of this war (as I believe) with clean and empty hands....

Robert gives ten scudi a month (a little more than two guineas) to the war as long as it lasts, and Peni is to receive half a paul every day he is good at his lessons, that he also may give to the great cause. I must write a word to the dear nonno. May God bless both of you, says your

Affectionate Sister, BA.

* * * * *

_To Mr. Browning, Senior_

[Same date.]

Yes, indeed, I missed the revolution in Tuscany, dearest Nonno, which was a loss--but perhaps, in compensation (who knows?), I shall be in for an Austrian bombardment or brigandage, or something as good or bad. But, after all, you are not to be anxious about us because of a jest of mine. We have Tuscan troops on the frontier, and French troops in the city, and although the Duchess of Parma has graciously given leave, they say, to the Austrians to cross her dominions in order to get into Tuscany, we shall be well defended. We are all full of hope and calm, and never doubt of the result. If ever there was a holy cause it is this; if ever there was a war on which we may lawfully ask God's blessing, it is this. The unanimity and constancy of the Italian people are beautiful to witness. The affliction of ten years has ripened these souls. Never was a contrast greater than what is to-day and what was in '48. No more distrust, nor division, nor vacillation, and a gratitude to the French nation which is quite pathetic.

Peni is all in a glow about Italy, and wishes he was 'great boy enough' to fight. Meantime he does his lessons for the fighters--half a paul a day when he is good.

Mr. del Bene thought him much improved in his music, and I hope he gets on in other things, and that when we bring him back to you (crowned with Italian laurels), you will think so too. Meanwhile think of us and love us, dearest Nonno. I always think of your kindness to me.

Your ever affectionate Daughter, BA.

* * * * *

_To Mr. Ruskin_

Casa Guidi: June 3, [1859].

My dear Mr. Ruskin,--We send to you every now and then somebody hungry for a touch from your hand; we who are famished for it ourselves. But this time we send you a man whom you will value perfectly for himself and be kind to from yourself, quite spontaneously. He is the American artist, Page, an earnest, simple, noble artist and man, who carries his Christianity down from his deep heart to the point of his brush. Draw him out to talk to you, and you will find it worth while. He has learnt much from Swedenborg, and used it in his views upon art. Much of it (if new) may sound to you wild and dreamy--but the dream will admit of logical inference and philosophical induction, and when you open your eyes, it is still there.

He has not been successful in life--few are who are uncompromising in their manner of life. When I speak of life, I include art, which is life to him. I should like you to see what a wonder of light and colour and space and breathable air, he put into his Venus rising from the sea--refused on the ground of nudity at the Paris Exhibition this summer. The loss will be great to him, I fear.

You will recognise in this name _Page_, the painter of Robert's portrait which you praised for its Venetian colour, and criticised in other respects. In fact, Mr. Page believes that he has discovered Titian's secret--and, what is more, he will tell it to you in love, and indeed to anybody else in charity. So I don't say that to bribe you.

Dear, dear Mr. Ruskin, we thank you and love you more than ever for your good word about our Italy. Oh, if you knew how hard it is and has been to receive the low, selfish, ignoble words with which this great cause has been pelted from England, not from her Derby government only, but from her parliament, her statesmen, her reformers, her leaders of the Liberal party, her free press--to receive such words full in our faces, nay, in the quick of our hearts, till we grow sick with loathing and hot with indignation--if you knew what it was and is, you would feel how glad and grateful we must be to have a right word from John Ruskin. Dear Mr. Ruskin, England has done terribly ill, ignobly ill, which is worse. That men of all parties should have spoken as they have, proves a state of public morals lamentable to admit. What--not even our poets with clean hands? Alfred Tennyson abetting Lord Derby? That to me was the heaviest blow of all.

Meanwhile we shall have a free Italy at least, for everything goes well here. Massimo d' Azeglio came to see us in Rome, and he said then, 'It is '48 with matured actors.' Indeed, there is a wonderful unanimity, calm, and resolution everywhere in Italy. All parties are broken up into the one great national party. The feeling of the people is magnificent. The painful experience of ten years has borne fruit in their souls. No more distrust, no more division, no more holding back, no more vacillation. And Louis Napoleon--well, I think he is doing me credit--and you, dear Mr. Ruskin--for _you_, too, held him in appreciation long ago. A great man.

I beseech you to believe on my word (and we have our information from good and reliable sources), that the 'Times' newspaper built up its political ideas on the broadest foundation of _lies_. I use the bare word. You won't expel it, in the manner of the Paris Exhibition, for its nudity--lies--not mistakes. For instance, while the very peasants here are giving their crazie, the very labourers their day's work (once in a week or so)--while everyone gives, and every man almost (who can go) goes--the 'Times' says that Piedmont had derived neither paul nor soldier from Tuscany. Tell me what people get by lying so? Faustus sold himself to the Devil. Does Austria pay a higher price, I wonder?

Such things I could tell you--things to moisten your eyes--to wring that burning eloquence of yours from your lips. But Robert waits to take this letter. Penini has adorned our terrace with two tricolour flags, the Italian tricolour and the French. May God bless you, dear friend. Speak again for Italy. If you could see with what _eyes_ the Italian speaks of the 'English.' Our love to you, Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin--if we may--because we must. Write to us, do.

Ever affectionately yours, R.B. and E.B.B.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

Florence: [about June 1859.]

My dearest Sarianna,--There is a breath of air giving one strength to hold one's pen at this moment. How people can use swords in such weather it's difficult to imagine. We have been melting to nothing, like the lump of sugar in one's tea, or rather in one's lemonade, for tea grows to be an abomination before the sun. The heat, which lingered unusually, has come in on us with a rush of flame for some days past, suggesting, however, the degree beyond itself, which is coming. We stay on at Florence because we can't bear to go where the bulletin twice a day from the war comes less directly; and certainly we shall stay till we can't breathe here any more. On which contingency our talk is to go somewhere for two months. Meanwhile we stay.

You can't conceive of the intense interest which is reigning here, you can't realise it, scarcely. In Paris there is vivid interest, of course, but that is from less immediate motives, except with persons who have relations in the army. Here it is as if each one had a personal enemy in the street below struggling to get up to him. When we are anxious we are pale; when we are glad we have tears in our eyes. This 'unnecessary' and 'inexcusable' war (as it has been called in England) represents the only hope of a nation agonising between death and life. You _talk_ about our living or dying, but _we live or die_. That's the difference between you and us.

We shall live, however. The hope is rising into triumph. Nobody any more will say that the Italians fight ill. Remember that Garibaldi has with him simply the _volunteers_ from all parts of Italy, not the trained troops. He and they are heroic (as with such conviction and faith they were sure to be), and the trained troops not less so. 'Worthy of fighting side by side with the French,' says the Emperor; while the French are worthy of their fame. 'The great military power' crumbles before them, because souls are stronger than bodies always. There is no such page of glory in the whole history of France. Great motives and great deeds. The feeling of profound gratitude to Napoleon III., among this people here, is sublime from its unanimity and depth....

All this excitement has made Florence quite unlike its quiet self, in spite of the flight of many residents and nearly all travellers. Even we have been stirred up to wander about more than our custom here. There's something that forbids us to sit at home; we run in and out after the bulletins, and to hear and give opinions; and then, in the rebound, we have been caught and sent several times to the theatre (so unusual for us) to see the great actor, Salvini, who is about to leave Florence. We saw him in 'Othello' and in 'Hamlet,' and he was very great in both, Robert thought, as well as I. Only his houses pine, because, as he says, the 'true tragedies spoil the false,' and the Italians have given up the theatres for the cafés at this moment of crisis....

In best love, BA.

* * * * *

After Villafranca the immediate anxiety for news from the seat of war naturally came to an end, and the Brownings were able to escape from the heat of Florence to Siena, where they remained about three months.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

Siena: [July-August 1859].

Dearest Sarianna,--This to certify that I am alive after all; yes, and getting stronger, and intending to be strong before long, though the sense left to me is of a peculiar frailty of being; no very marked opinion upon my hold of life. But life will last as long as God finds it useful for myself and others--which is enough, both for them and me.

So well I was with all the advantages of Rome in me looking so well, that I was tired of hearing people say so. But, though it may sound absurd to you, it was the blow on the _heart_ about the peace after all that excitement and exultation, that walking on the clouds for weeks and months, and then the sudden stroke and fall, and the impotent rage against all the nations of the earth--selfish, inhuman, wicked--who forced the hand of Napoleon, and truncated his great intentions. Many young men of Florence were confined to their beds by the emotion of the news. As for me, I was struck, couldn't sleep, talked too much, and (the intense heat rendering one more susceptible, perhaps) at last this bad attack came on. Robert has been perfect to me. For more than a fortnight he gave up all his nights' rest to me, and even now he teaches Pen. They are well, I thank God. We stay till the end of September. Our Italians have behaved magnificently, steadfast, confident, never forgetting (except in the case of individuals, of course) their gratitude to France nor their own sense of dignity. Things must end well with such a people. Few would have expected it of the Italians. I hear the French ambassador was present at the opening of the Chambers the other day at Florence, which was highly significant.

I suppose you are by the sea, and I hope you and the dearest nonno are receiving as much good from air and water as you desired. May God bless you both.

Your ever affectionate Sister, BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

Villa Alberti, Siena: Wednesday [July-August 1859].

My ever dearest, kindest Isa,--I can't let another day go without writing just a word to you to say that I am alive enough to love you. In fact, dear, I am a great deal better; no longer ground to dust with cough; able to sleep at nights; and preparing to-day to venture on a little minced chicken, which I have resisted all the advances of hitherto. This proves my own opinion of myself, at least. I am extremely weak, reeling when I ought to walk, and glad of an arm to steer by. But the attack is over; the blister to the side, tell Dr. Gresonowsky, conquered the uneasiness there, and did me general good, I think. Now I have only to keep still and quiet, and do nothing useful, or the contrary, if possible, and not speak, and not vex myself more than is necessary on politics. I had a letter from Jessie Mario, dated Bologna, the other day, and feel a little uneasy at what she may be about there. It was a letter not written in very good taste, blowing the trumpet against all Napoleonists. Most absurd for the rest. Cavour had promised L.N. Tuscany for his cousin as the price of his intervention in Italy; and Prince Napoleon, finding on his arrival here that it 'wouldn't do,' the peace was made in a huff.

Absurd, certainly.

Robert advises me not to answer, and it may be as well, perhaps.

I dreamed lately that I followed a mystic woman down a long suite of palatial rooms. She was in white, with a white mask, on her head the likeness of a crown. I knew she was Italy, but I couldn't see through the mask. All through my illness political dreams have repeated themselves, in inscrutable articles of peace and eternal provisional governments. Walking on the mountains of the moon, hand in hand with a Dream more beautiful than them all, then falling suddenly on the hard earth-ground on one's head, no wonder that one should suffer. Oh, Isa, the tears are even now in my eyes to think of it!

And yet I have hope, and the more I consider, the more I hope.

There will be no intervention to interfere with us in Tuscany, and there is something _better behind_, which we none of us see yet.

We read to-day of the Florence elections. May God bless my Florence!

Dearest Isa, don't you fancy that you will get off with a day and night here. No, indeed. Also, I would rather you waited till I could talk, and go out, and enjoy you properly; and just now I am a mere rag of a Ba hung on a chair to be out of the way.

Robert is so very kind as to hear Pen's lessons, which keeps me easy about the child.

Heat we have had and have; but there's a great quantity of air--such blowings as you boast of at your villa--and I like this good open air and the quiet. I have seen nobody yet....

Dearest Isa, I miss you, and love you. How perfect you are to me always.

Robert's true love, with Pen's. And I may send my love to Miss Field, may I not?

Yours, in tender affection, BA.

Do write, and tell me everything.

Yes, England will do a little dabbling about constitutions and the like where there's nothing to lose or risk; and why does Mrs. Trollope say 'God bless them' for it? _I_ never will forgive England the most damnable part she has taken on Italian affairs, never. The pitiful cry of 'invasion' is the continuation of that hound's cry, observe. Must we live and bear?

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Villa Alberti, Siena: August 24, 1859 [postmark].

Dearest Fanny,--This is only to say that I wrote to you before your letter reached me, directing mine simply to the post-office of Cologne, and that I write now lest what went before should miss for want of the more specific address. Thank you, dear friend, for caring to hear of my health; _that_, at least, _is_ pleasant. I keep recovering strength by air, quiet, and asses' milk, and by hope for Italy, which consolidates itself more and more.

You will wonder at me, but these public affairs have half killed me. You know I _can't_ take things quietly. Your complaint and mine, Fanny, are just opposite. For weeks and weeks, in my feverish state, I never closed my eyes without suffering 'punishment' under eternal articles of peace and unending lists of provisional governments. Do you wonder?

Observe--I believe entirely in the Emperor. He did at Villafranca what he could not help but do. Since then, he has simply changed the arena of the struggle; he is walking under the earth instead of on the earth, but _straight_ and to unchanged ends.

This country, meanwhile, is conducting itself nobly. It is worthy of becoming a great nation.

And God for us all!

So you go to England really? Which I doubted, till your letter came.

It is well that you did not spend the summer here, for the heat has been ferocious; hotter, people from Corfu say, than it was ever felt there. Italy, however, is apt to be hottish in the summer, as we know very well.

The country about here, though not romantic like Lucca, is very pretty, and our windows command sunsets and night winds. I have not stirred out yet after three weeks of it; you may suppose how reduced I must be. I could scarcely _stand_ at one time. The active evil, however, is ended, and strength comes somehow or other. Robert has had the perfect goodness not only to nurse me, but to teach Peni, who is good too, and rides a pony just the colour of his curls, to his pure delight. Then we have books and newspapers, English and Italian--the books from Florence--so we do beautifully.

Mr. Landor is here. There's a long story. Absolute revolution and abdication from the Florence villa. He appeared one day at our door of Casa Guidi, with an oath on his soul never to go back. The end of it all is, that Robert has accepted office as Landor's guardian (!!) and is to 'see to him' at the request of his family in England; and there's to be an arrangement for Wilson to undertake him in a Florence apartment, which she is pleased at. He visited the Storys, who are in a villa here (the only inhabitants), and were very kind to him. Now he is in rooms in a house not far from us, waiting till we return to Florence. I have seen him only once, and then he looked better than he did in Florence, where he seemed dropping into the grave, scarcely able to walk a hundred yards. He longs for England, but his friends do not encourage his return, and so the best that can be done for him must be. Now he is in improved spirits and has taken to writing Latin alcaics on Garibaldi, which is refreshing, I suppose.

Ask at the post-office for my letter, but don't fancy that it may be a line more lively than this. No alcaics from me! One soul has gone from me, at least, the soul that writes letters.

May God bless you, dearest, kindest Fanny. Love me a little. Don't leave off feeling 'on private affairs' too much for _that_.

Robert's best love with that of your loving BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Villa Alberti, Siena: August 26 [1859].

Dearest friend, what have you thought of me?

I was no more likely to write to you about the 'peace' than about any stroke of personal calamity. The peace fell like a bomb on us all, and for my part, you may still find somewhere on the ground splinters of my heart, if you look hard. But by the time your letter reached me we had recovered the blow _spiritually_, had understood that it was necessary, and that the Emperor Napoleon, though forced to abandon one arena, was prepared to carry on the struggle for Italy on another.

Therefore I should have answered your letter at once if I had not been seized with illness. Indeed, my dear, dear friend, you will hear from me no excuses. I have not been unkind, simply incapable.

I believe it was the violent mental agitation, the reaction from a state of exultation and joy in which I had been walking among the stars so many months; and the grief, anxiety, the struggle, the talking, all coming on me at a moment when the ferocious heat had made the body peculiarly susceptible; but one afternoon I went down to the Trollopes, had sight of the famous Ducal orders about bombarding Florence, and came home to be ill. Violent palpitations and cough; in fact, the worst attack on the chest I ever had in Italy. For two days and two nights it was more like _angina pectoris_, as I have heard it described; but this went off, and the complaint ran into its ancient pattern, thank God, and kept me _only_ very ill, with violent cough all night long; my poor Robert, who nursed me like an angel, prevented from sleeping for full three weeks. When there was a possibility I was lifted into a carriage and brought here; stayed two days at the inn in Siena, and then removed to this pleasant airy villa. Very ill I was after coming, and great courage it required to come; but change of air was absolutely a condition of living, and the event justified the risk. For now I am quite myself, have done crying 'Wolf,' and end this lamentable history by desiring you to absolve me for my silence. We have been here nearly a month. My strength, which was so exhausted that I could scarcely stand unsupported, is coming back satisfactorily, and the cough has ceased to vex me at all. Still, I am not equal to driving out. I hope to take my first drive in a very few days though, and the very asses are ministering to me--in milk. All the English physicians had found it convenient (the beloved Grand Duke being absent) to leave Florence, and Zanetti was attending the Piedmontese hospitals, so that I had to attend me none of the old oracles--only a Prussian physician (Dr. Gresonowsky), a very intelligent man, of whom we knew a little personally, and who had a strong political sympathy with me. (He and I used to sit together on Isa Blagden's terrace and relieve ourselves by abusing each other's country; and whether he expressed most moral indignation against England or I against Prussia, remained doubtful.) Afterwards he came to cure me, and was as generous in his profession as became his politics. People are usually very kind to us, I must say. Think of that man following us to Siena, uninvited, and attending me at the hotel two days, then refusing recompense.

Well, now let me speak of our Italy and the peace. 'Immoral,' you say? Yes, immoral. But not immoral on the part of Napoleon who had his hand forced; only immoral on the part of those who by infamies of speech and intrigue (in England and Germany), against which I for one had been protesting for months, brought about the complicated results which forced his hand. Never was a greater or more disinterested deed intended and almost completed than this French intervention for Italian independence; and never was a baser and more hideous sight than the league against it of the nations. Let me not speak.

For the rest, if it were not for Venetia (Zurich[65] keeps its secrets so far) the peace would have proved a benefit rather than otherwise. We have had time to feel our own strength, to stand on our own feet. The vain talk about Napoleon's intervening militarily on behalf of the Grand Duke has simply been the consequence of statements without foundation in the English and German papers; and also in some French Ultramontane papers. Napoleon with his own lips, _after the peace_, assured our delegates that no force should be used. And he has repeated this on every possible occasion. At Villafranca, when the Emperor of Austria insisted on the return of the Dukes, he acceded, on condition they were recalled. He 'did not come to Italy to dispossess the sovereigns,' as he had previously observed, but to give the power of election to the people. Before we left Rome this spring he had said to the French ambassador, 'If the Tuscans like to recall their Grand Duke, _qu'est-ce que cela me fait_?' He simply said the same at Villafranca.

Count de Reiset was sent to Florence, Modena, and Parma, to '_constater_,' not to '_impose_,' and the whole policy of Napoleon has been to draw out a calm and full expression of the popular mind. Nobly have the people of Italy responded. Surely there is not in history a grander attitude than this assumed by a nation half born, half constituted, scarcely named yet, but already capable of self-restraint and dignity, and magnanimous faith. We are full of hope, and should be radiant with joy, except for Venetia.

Dearest friend, the war did more than 'give a province to Piedmont.' The first French charge _freed Italy potentially_ from north to south. At this moment Austria cannot stir anywhere. Here 'we live, breathe, and have our national being.' Certainly, if Napoleon did what the 'Times' has declared he would do--intervene with armed force against the people, prevent the elections, or _tamper_ with the elections by means of--such means as he was 'familiar' with; if he did these things, I should cry aloud, 'Immoral, vile, a traitor!' But the facts deny all these imputations. He has walked steadily on along one path, and the development of Italy as a nation is at the end of it.

Of course the first emotion on the subject of the peace was rage as well as grief. For one day in Florence all his portraits and busts disappeared from the shop windows; and I myself, to Penini's extreme disgust (who insisted on it that his dear Napoleon couldn't do anything wrong, and that the fault was in the telegraph), wouldn't let him wear his Napoleon medal. Afterwards--as Ferdinando said--'Siamo stati un po' troppo furiosi davvero, signora;' _that_ came to be the general conviction. Out came the portraits again in the sun, and the Emperor's bust, side by side with Victor Emanuel's, adorns the room of our 'General Assembly.' There are individuals, of course, who think that through whatever amount of difficulty and complication, he should have preserved his first programme. But these are not the wiser thinkers. He had to judge for France as well as for Italy. As Mr. Trollope said to me in almost the first fever, 'It is upon the cards that he has acted in the wisest and most conscientious manner possible for all,--or it is on the cards etc.'

The difficulty now is at Naples.

There will be a Congress, of course. A Congress was in the first programme; after the war, a Congress.

But, dearest Mona Nina, if you want to get calumniated, hated, lied upon, and spat upon (in a spiritual sense), try and do a good deed from disinterested motives in this world. That's my lesson.

I have been told upon rather good authority that Cavour's retirement is simply a feint, and that he will recover his position presently.

What weighs on my heart is Venetia. Can they do anything at Zurich to modify that heavy fact?

You see I am not dead yet, dear, dearest friend. And while alive at all, I can't help being in earnest on these questions. I am a Ba, you know. Forgive me when I get too much 'riled' by your England.

You will know by this time that the 'proposition' you approved of was French.

What made the very help of Prussia unacceptable to Austria was the circumstance of Prussia's using that opportunity of Austria's need to wriggle herself to the military headship of the Confederation. Austria would rather have lost Lombardy (and more) than have accepted such a disadvantage. Hence the coldness, the cause of which is scarcely avowable. Selfish and pitiful nations!

Dear Isa Blagden writes me all the political news of Florence. She is well, and will come to pay us a visit before long. We remain here till September ends, and then return to Casa Guidi.

I had a letter from Bologna from Jessie, which threw me into a terror lest the Mazzinians should come to Italy just in time to ruin us. The letter (not unkind to me) was as contrary to facts and reason as possible. I was too ill to write at the time, and Robert would not let me answer it afterwards.

[_The remainder of this letter is missing._]

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

Villa Alberti, Siena: September [1859].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--As you talk of palpitations and the newspapers, and then tell me or imply that you are confined for light and air to the 'Times' on the Italian question, I am moved with sympathy and compassion for you, and anxious not to lose a post in answering your letter. My dear, dear friends, I beseech you to believe _nothing_ which you have read, are reading, or are likely to read in the 'Times' newspaper, unless it contradicts all that went before. The criminal conduct of that paper from first to last, and the immense amount of injury it has occasioned in the world, make me feel that the hanging of the Smethursts and Ellen Butlers would be irredeemable cruelty while these writers are protected by the Law....

Of course you must feel perplexed. The paper takes up different sets of falsities, quite different and contradictory, and treats them as facts, and writes 'leaders' on them, as if they were facts. The reader, at last, falls into a state of confusion, and sees nothing clearly except that somehow or other, for something that he has done or hasn't done, has intended or hasn't intended, Louis Napoleon is a rascal, and we ought to hate him and his.

Well, leave the 'Times'--though from the 'Times' and the like base human movements in England and Germany resulted, more or less directly, that peace of Villafranca which threw us all here into so deep an anguish, that I, for one, have scarcely recovered from it even to this day.

Let me tell you. We were living in a glow of triumph and gratitude; and for me, it seemed to me as if I walked among the angels of a new-created world. All faces at Florence shone with one thought and one love. You can scarcely realise to yourself what it was at that time. Friends were more than friends, and strangers were friends. The rapture of the Italians--their gratitude to the French, the simple joy with which the French troops understood (down to the privates) that they had come to deliver their brothers, and to go away with empty hands; all these things, which have been calumniated and denied, were wonderfully beautiful. Scarcely ever in my life was I so happy. I was happy, not only for Italy, but for the world--because I thought that this great deed would beat under its feet all enmities, and lift up England itself (at last) above its selfish and base policy. Then, on a sudden, came the peace. It was as if a thunderbolt fell. For one day, every picture and bust of the Emperor vanished, and the men who would have died for him, before that sun, half articulated a curse on his head. But the next day we were no longer mad, and as the days past, we took up hope again, and the more thoughtful among our politicians began to understand the situation. There was, however, a painful change. Before, difference of opinion was unknown, and there was no sort of anxiety (a doubt of the result of the war never crossing anyone's mind). Napoleon in the thickest of the fire, with one epaulette shot off, was a symbol intelligible to the whole population. But when he disappeared from the field and entered the region of spirits and diplomats--when he walked under the earth instead of on the surface--though he walked with equal loyalty and uprightness, then people were sanguine or fearful according to their temperament, and the English and Austrian newspapers, attributing the worst motives and designs, troubled the thoughts of many. Still, both the masses (with their blind noble faith), and the leaders with their intelligence, held fast their hopes, and the consequence has been the magnificent spectacle which this nation now offers to Europe, and which for dignity, calm, and unanimous determination may seek in vain for its parallel in history. Now we are very happy again, full of hope and faith....

We shall probably go to Rome again for the winter, as Florence is considered too cold. There will be disturbances that way in all probability; but we are bold as to such things. The Pope is hard to manage, even for the Emperor. It is hard to cut up a feather bed into sandwiches with the finest Damascus blade, but the end will be attained somehow. I wish I could see clearly about Venetia. There are intelligent and thoughtful Italians who are hopeful even for Venetia, and certainly, the Emperor of Austria's offer to Tuscany (not made to the Assembly, as the 'Times' said, but murmured about by certain agents) implies a consciousness on his part of holding Venetia, with a broken _wrist_ at least.

As to the Duchies never for a moment did I believe in armed intervention. Napoleon distinctly with his own lips promised our delegates, after the peace, and before he left Italy, that he would neither do it nor permit it. And afterwards, in Paris, again and again. He accepted the Austrian proposition under the condition simply that the Dukes were recalled by the people, not in defiance of the popular will. He has been loyal throughout both to Austria and to Italy, and to his own original programme, which did not contemplate dispossessing sovereigns but freeing peoples.

Italy for the Italians--and so it will be. For Prince Napoleon, when he was in Florence he might have remained there and delighted everybody. I _know_ even that a person high in office felt the way towards a proposal of the kind, and that he answered in a manner considered too '_tranchant_,' 'No, no, _that_ would suit neither the Emperor nor England; et pour moi, je ne le voudrais pas.' He used every opportunity at that time of advising the fusion, about which people were much less unanimous than they are now.

But calumny never dies (_like me_!). Mr. Russell, Lord John's nephew, the quasi-minister at Rome, very acute, and liberal too (by the English standard) being on his road to Rome from London last week proposed paying us a visit, and we had him here two days (in a valuable spare room!). He told me that Napoleon had been too _fin_ for the English Government. He had _induced them to acknowledge the Tuscan vote_--(observe that fact, dearest friends) induced them to acknowledge the Tuscan vote; and now here was his game. He had forbidden Piedmont to accept the fusion,[66] and therefore Piedmont must refuse. The consequence of which would be that there must be another vote in Tuscany, which would favor Prince Napoleon, and that we, having accepted the first vote, must accept the second, the Emperor throwing up his hands and crying, '_Who would have thought it?_'

We told him that he and the English Government were so far out in their conclusions, that Piedmont, instead of refusing, would accept conditionally; but he sighed, 'hoped it might be so,' in the way in which preposterous opinions are civilly put away.

Scarcely was he gone, when the conditional acceptance was known.

How much more I could tell you. But one can't write all. The first battle in the north of Italy freed Italy _potentially_ from north to south. Our political life here in the centre is a proof of this. The conduct of the Italians is admirable, but last year they _could not_ have assumed this attitude. They were a bound people. And even now, if the Emperor removed his hand from Austria, we should have the foreign intervention, and no hope.

We are ready and willing to fight, observe. The 'Times' may take back its words. But to oppose the whole Austrian Empire with our unorganised, however heroic, forces, is impossible. We might _die_, indeed....

May God bless both of you always! I have pretty good letters from home. Home! what's home?

Your ever affectionate and grateful BA.

Read 'La Foi des Traités'; it is from the hand of Louis Napoleon. So that I was prepared for the amnesty and for what follows.

* * * * *

The following letters to Mr. Chorley relate to Mrs. Browning's poem 'A Tale of Villafranca,' which was published in the 'Athenæum' for September 24, and subsequently included in the volume of 'Poems before Congress' (_Poetical Works_, iv. 195).

* * * * *

_To Mr. Chorley_

Villa Alberti, Siena: September 12, [1859].

My dear Mr. Chorley,--This isn't a _letter_, as you will see at a glance. I should have written to you long since, and have also sent this poem (which solicits a place in the 'Athenæum') if I had not been very ill and been very slow in getting well. We wanted to answer your kind letter, and shall. As for my poem, be so good as to see it put in, in spite of its good and true politics, which you 'Athenæum' people (being English) will dissent from altogether. Say so, if you please, but let me in. 'Strike, but hear me.' I have been living and dying for Italy lately. You don't know how vivid these things are to us, which serve for conversation at London dinner parties.

Ah--dear Mr. Chorley. The bad news about poor Lady Arnould will have affected you as it did Robert a few days ago. I do pity so our unhappy friend, Sir Joseph. Tell us, if you can and will, what you hear.

We came here from Florence five or six weeks since, when I was very unfit for moving, but change of air and a cooler air and repose had grown necessary. We are at a villa two miles from Siena, where we look at scarlet sunsets, over purple hills, and have the wind nearly all day. Mr. and Mrs. Story are half a mile off in another villa, and Mr. Landor at a stone's cast. Otherwise the solitude is absolute. Mr. Russell spent two days with us on his way to resume office at Rome. I should remember that....

* * * * *

_To Mr. Chorley_

Siena: Sunday [September-October 1859].

Thank you, my dear Mr. Chorley, I submit gratefully to being snubbed for my politics. In return I will send to your private ear an additional stanza which should interpose as the real _seventh_ but was left out. I did not send it to you the day after my note, though sorely tempted to do so, because it seemed to me likely to annul any small chance of 'Athenæum' tolerance which might fall to me. Would it have done so, do you think?

'A great deed in this world of ours! Unheard of the pretence is. It plainly threatens the Great Powers; Is fatal in all senses. A just deed in the world! Call out The rifles! ... be not slack about The National Defences.'

Certainly if I don't guess 'the Sphinx' right, some of your English guessers in the 'Times' and elsewhere fail also, as events prove. The clever 'Prince-Napoleon-for-Central-Italy' guess,[67] for instance, has just fallen through, by declaration of the 'Moniteur.' Most absurd it was always. At one time the Prince might have taken the crown by acclamation. He was almost _rude_ about it when he was in Tuscany. And even after the peace, members of the present Government were not averse, were much the contrary indeed. At that time the autonomy was still dear, we had not made up our minds to the fusion. Now, _è altra cosa_, and to imagine that a man like the French Emperor would have waited till now, producing, by the opportunities he has given, the present complication, _in order_ to impose the Prince, is absurd on the very face of it.

While standers-by guess, the comfort is that circumstances ripen. We are in spirits about our Italy. The dignity, the constancy, the calm, are admirable, as the unanimity of the people is wonderful. Even the contadini have rallied to the Government, and the cry of enthusiasm to which the cross of Savoy was uncovered in the market place of Siena yesterday was a thrilling thing. Also we will fight, be it understood, whenever fighting shall be necessary. At present, the right arm of Austria is broken; she cannot hold the sword since Solferino, at least in central Italy. Let those who doubt our debt to France remember where we were last year, and see what our political life is now--real, vivid, unhindered! Our moral qualities are our own, but our practical opportunities come from another; we could not have made them by force of moral qualities, great as those are allowed to be. And how striking the growth of this people since 1848. Massimo d' Azeglio said to Robert and me, 'It is '48 over again with matured actors.' But it is even more than that: it is '48 over again with regenerated actors. All internal jealousies at an end, all suspicions quenched, all selfish policies dissolved. Florence forgets herself for Italy. This is grand. Would that England, that pattern of moral nations, would forget herself for the sake of something or someone beyond. _That_ would be grand.

I wish you were here, my dear Mr. Chorley, since I am wishing in vain, though we are almost at the close of our stay in this pretty country. We have a villa with beautiful sights from all the windows; and there, on the hill opposite, live Mr. and Mrs. Story, and within a stone's throw, in a villino, lives the poor old lion Landor, who, being sorely buffeted by his family at Fiesole, far beyond 'kissing with tears' (though Robert did what he could), took refuge with us at Casa Guidi one day, broken-hearted and in wrath. He stays here while we stay, and then goes with us to Florence, where Robert has received the authorisation of his English friends to settle him in comfort in an apartment of his own, with my late maid, Wilson (who married our Italian man-servant), to take care of him; and meanwhile the quiet of this place has so restored his health and peace of mind that he is able to write awful Latin alcaics, to say nothing of hexameters and pentameters, on the wickedness of Louis Napoleon. Yes, dear Mr. Chorley, poems which might appear in the 'Athenæum' without disclaimer, and without injury to the reputation of that journal.

Am I not spiteful? I assure you I couldn't be spiteful a short time ago, so very ill I have been. Now it is different, and every day the strength returns. What remains, however, is a certain necessity of not facing the Florence wind this winter, and of going again to Rome, in spite of probable revolutions there. We talk of going in the early part of November. Why won't you come to Rome and give us meeting? Foolish speech, when I know you won't. We shall be in Florence probably at the end of the present week, to stay there until the journey further south begins. I shall regret this silence. And little Penini too will have his regrets, for he has been very happy here, made friends with the contadini, has helped to keep the sheep, to run after straggling cows, to play at '_nocini_' (did you ever hear of that game?) and to pick the grapes at the vintage--driving in the grape-carts (exactly of the shape of the Greek chariots), with the grapes heaped up round him; and then riding on his own pony, which Robert is going to buy for him (though Robert never spoils him; no, not he, it is only _I_ who do that!), galloping through the lanes on this pony the colour of his curls. I was looking over his journal (Pen keeps a journal), and fell on the following memorial which I copy for you--I must.

'This is the happiest day of my hole (_sic_) life, for now dearest Vittorio Emanuele is really _nostro re_.'

Pen's weak point does not lie in his politics, Mr. Chorley, but in his spelling. When his contadini have done their day's work he takes it on him to read aloud to them the poems of the revolutionary Venetian poet Dall' Ongaro, to their great applause. Then I must tell you of his music. He is strong in music for ten years old--and plays a sonata of Beethoven already (in E flat--opera 7) and the first four books of Stephen Heller; to say nothing of various pieces by modern German composers in which there is need of considerable execution. Robert is the maestro, and sits by him two hours every day, with an amount of patience and persistence really extraordinary. Also for two months back, since I have been thrown out of work, Robert has heard the child all his other lessons. Isn't it very, very good of him?

Do write to us and tell me how your sister is, and also how you are in spirits and towards the things of the world? Give her my love--will you?

I had a letter some time ago from poor Jessie Mario, from Bologna. Respect her. She hindered her husband from fighting with Garibaldi for his country, because Garibaldi fought under L.N., which was so highly improper. Her letter was not unkind to me, but altogether and insanely wrong as I considered. (Not more wrong though, and much less wicked, than the 'Times.') I was too ill at the time to answer it, and afterwards Robert would not let me, but I should have liked to do it; it's such a comfort to a woman (and a man?) to _sfogarsi_, as we say here. Also, I was really uneasy at what might be doing at Bologna; so, in spite of friendship, it was a relief to me to hear of the police taking charge of all overt possibilities in that direction.

Is it really true that 'Adam Bede' is the work of Miss Evans? The woman (as I have heard of her) and the author (as I read her) do not hold together. May God bless you, my dear friend! Robert shall say so for himself.

Ever affectionately yours, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

My dear Mr. Chorley,--Reading over what I have written I find that I have been so basely ungrateful as not to say the thing I would when I would thank you. Your _Dedication_ will be accepted with a true sense of kindness and honor together; I shall be proud and thankful. But perhaps you have changed your mind in the course of this long silence.

And now where's room for Robert?

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

Villa Alberti, [Siena]: Tuesday [September-October, 1859].

Ever dearest Isa,--Yes, I am delighted.

Evviva il nostro re! It isn't a very distinct acceptance, however, but as distinct as could be expected reasonably.[68] Under conditions, of course.

On Friday morning before noon up to our door came Mr. Russell's carriage. He had closed with Robert's proposition at once, and we made room for him without much difficulty, and were very glad to see him. I didn't go in to dinner, and he and Robert went to the Storys in the evening--so that it wasn't too much for me--and then I really like him--he is refined and amiable, and acute and liberal (as an Englishman can be), full of 'traditions' or prejudices, to use the right word. To my surprise he _knew_ scarcely anything; and, as I modestly observed to Robert, 'didn't understand the Italian question half as well as I understand it.' Of course there was a quantity of gossip in the anti-Napoleon sense; how the Emperor told the King of the peace over the soup, twirling his moustache; and how the King swore like a trooper at the Emperor in consequence; and how the Emperor took it all very well--didn't mind at all and how, and how--things which are manifestly impossible and which Robert tells me I ought not to repeat, in order not to multiply such vain tales. There is Metternich the younger (ambassador in Paris), a personal friend of Odo Russell's, in whose bosom Louis Napoleon seems to pour the confidences of his heart about that '_coquin de Cavour_ who led him into the Italian war,' &c., &c., but it simply proves to you and me how an Austrian can lie, which we could guess before.

My _facts_ are these: First, Ferdinando IV.[69] has an ambassador in Rome, who has been received officially by the Pope (!!) ('The coolest thing that ever was'), and is paid out of the private purse of the Royal Highness. There is another ambassador at Naples, and another at Vienna--on the same terms; so let no one talk of 'Déchéance.'

Then let me tell you what Mr. Russell said to me. 'Napoleon,' said he, 'has been too _fin_ for the English Government. He made us acknowledge the Tuscan vote. Now he has strictly forbidden Piedmont to accept, and Piedmont must therefore refuse. The consequences of which will be that there must be another vote in Tuscany, by which Prince Napoleon will be elected; and we, having acknowledged the first vote, must acknowledge the second.'

Of course I protested; disbelieved in the forbidding, and believed in the accepting. He 'hoped it might be so'--in the civil way with which people put away preposterous opinions--and left us on Saturday night at ten, just too late to hear of the 'fait accompli.'

Out of all _that_, I rescue my fact that _Napoleon made the English Government acknowledge the Tuscan vote_.

Don't let Kate put any of this into American papers, because Mr. Russell was our guest, observe, and spoke trustingly to us. He had just arrived from England, and went on to Rome without further delay.

The word _Venice_ makes my heart beat. Has Guiducci any grounds for hope about Venice? If Austria could be _bought_ off at any price! Something has evidently been promised at Villafranca on the subject of Venice; and evidently the late strengthening of the hands of Piedmont will render the Austrian occupation on any terms more and more difficult and precarious.

I should agree with you on Prince Napoleon, if it were not that I want the Emperor's disinterestedness to remain in its high place. We can't spare great men and great deeds out of the honour of the world. There are so few.

For the rest, the Prince would have been a popular and natural choice at one time, and as far as central Italy was concerned. Also he is very liberal in opinion, and full of ideas, I have been told.

But the fusion is a wiser step _now,_ and altogether--even if we could spare the Emperor's fame. Do you remember the obloquy he suffered for Neufchâtel? and how it came out that, if he pressed his conditions, it was simply because he meant to fight for the independence of the State? and how at last the Swiss delegates went to Paris to offer their gratitude for the deliverance he had attained for the people? His loyalty will come out clean before the eyes of his enemies now as then. We agree absolutely. And Robert does not dissent, I think. Facts begin to be conclusive to him.

You are an angel, dearest Isa, with the tact of a woman of the world. This in reference to the note you sent me, and your answer. You could not have done better--not at all.

Our kind love to Kate--and mind you give our regards to Dr. Gresonowsky. Also to Mr. Jarves--poor Mr. Jarves--how sorry I am about the pictures!

Robert will write another time, he says, 'with kindest love.'

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Siena: September-October, 1859.]

My dearest Sarianna,--We are on the verge of returning to Florence, for a short time--only to pack up, I believe, and go further south--to 'meet the revolution,' tell the dearest Nonno, with my love. The case is that though I am really convalescent and look well (Robert has even let me take to Penini a little, which is conclusive), it is considered dangerous for me to run the risk of even a Florence winter. You see I have been _very_ ill. The physician thought there was pressure of the lungs on the _heart_, and, under those circumstances, that I _must_ avoid irritation of the lungs by any cold. Say nothing which can reach my sisters and frighten them; and after all I care very little about doctors, except that I do know myself how hard renewals of the late attack would go with me. But I mean to take care, and use God's opportunities of getting strong again. Also it seems to me that I have taken a leap within these ten days, and that the strength comes back in a fuller tide. After all, it is not a cruel punishment to us to have to go to Rome again this winter, though it will be an undesirable expense, and though we did wish to keep quiet this winter, the taste for constant wanderings having passed away as much for me as for Robert. We begin to see that by no possible means can one spend as much money to so small an end. And then we don't work so well--don't live to as much use, either for ourselves or others. Isa Blagden bids us observe that we pretend to live at Florence, and are not there much above two months in the year, what with going away for the summer and going away for the winter. It's too true. It's the drawback of Italy. To live in one place here is impossible for us almost, just as to live out of Italy at all is impossible for us. It isn't caprice--that's all I mean to say--on our part.

Siena pleases us very much. The silence and repose have been heavenly things to me, and the country is very pretty, though no more than pretty--nothing marked or romantic, no mountains (did you fancy us on the mountains?) except so far off as to be like a cloud only, on clear days, and no water. Pretty, dimpled ground, covered with low vineyards; purple hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them. But I like the place, and feel loth to return to Florence from this half-furnished villa and stone floors. The weather is still very hot, but no longer past bearing, and we are enjoying it, staying on from day to day. Robert proposed Palermo instead of Rome, but I shrink a little from the prospect of our being cut up into mincemeat by patriotic Sicilians, though the English fleet (which he reminds me of) might obtain for you and for England the most 'satisfactory compensation' of the pecuniary kind. At Rome I shall not be frightened, knowing my Italians. Then there will be more comfort, and, besides, no horrible sea-voyage. Some Americans have told us that the Mediterranean is twice as bad as the Atlantic. I always thought it _twice as bad as anything_, as people say elegantly. We shall not leave Florence till November. Robert must see W. Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartment, with Wilson for a duenna. It's an excellent plan for him, and not a bad one for Wilson. He will pay a pound (English) a week for his three rooms, and she is to receive twenty-two pounds a year for the care she is to take of him, besides what is left of his rations. Forgive me if Robert has told you this already. Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his 'gentleness and sweetness.' A most courteous and refined gentleman he is, of course, and very affectionate to Robert (as he ought to be), but of self-restraint he has not a grain, and of suspiciousness many grains. Wilson will run certain risks, and I for one would rather not meet them. What do you say to dashing down a plate on the floor when you don't like what's on it? And the contadini at whose house he is lodging now have been already accused of opening desks. Still, upon that occasion (though there was talk of the probability of Landor's throat being 'cut in his sleep'), as on other occasions, Robert succeeded in soothing him, and the poor old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring softly, to beguile the time, in Latin alcaics against his wife and Louis Napoleon. He laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one of these days he will have to write an ode in honour of the Emperor, to please _me_.

Little Pen has been in the utmost excitement lately about his pony, which Robert is actually going to buy for him. I am said to be the spoiler, but mark! I will confess to you that, considering how we run to and fro, it never would have entered into the extravagance of my love to set up a pony for Penini. When I heard of it first, I opened my eyes wide, only no amount of discretion on my part could enable me to take part against both Pen and Robert in a matter which pleases Pen. I hope they won't combine to give me an Austrian daughter-in-law when Peni is sixteen. So I say 'Yes,' 'Yes,' 'Certainly,' and the pony is to be bought, and carried to Rome (fancy that!), and we are to hunt up some small Italian princes and princesses to ride with him at Rome (I object to Hatty Hosmer, who has been thrown thirty times[70]). In fact, Pen has been very coaxing about the pony. He has beset Robert in private and then, as privately, entreated me, 'if papa spoke to me about the pony, not to _discourage_ him.' So I discouraged nobody, but am rather triumphantly glad, upon the whole, that we have done such a very foolish, extravagant thing.

Robert will have told you, I am sure, what a lovely picture Mr. Wilde, the American artist (staying with the Storys), has made of Penini on horseback, and presented to me. It is to be exhibited in the spring in London, but before then, either at Rome or Florence, we will have a photograph made from it to send you. By the way, Mr. Monroe failed us about the photograph from the bust. He said he had tried in vain once, but would try again. The child is no less pretty and graceful than he was, and he rides, as he does everything, with a grace which is striking. He gallops like the wind, and with an absolute fearlessness--he who is timid about sleeping in a room by himself, poor darling. He has had a very happy time here (besides the pony) having made friends with all the contadini, who adore him, and helped them to keep the sheep, catch the stray cows, drive the oxen in the grape-carts, and to bring in the vintage generally, besides reading and expounding revolutionary poems to them at evening. The worst of it was, while it lasted, that he ate so many grapes he could eat nothing else whatever. Still, he looks rosy and well, and there's nothing to regret....

Robert has let his moustache and beard grow together, and looks very picturesque. I thought I should not like the moustache, but I do. He is in very good looks altogether, though, in spite of remonstrances, he has given up walking before breakfast, and doesn't walk at any time half enough. _I_ was in fault chiefly, because he both sate up at night with me and kept by me when I was generally ill in the mornings. So I oughtn't to grumble--but I do.... Love to dear M. Milsand. We are in increasing spirits on Italian affairs.

Your very affectionate BA.

* * * * *

In October they returned to Florence, though only for about six weeks, before moving on to Rome for the winter.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[Florence]: Casa Guidi: Friday [October 1859].

Ever dearest Mona Nina,--Here we are at our Florence, very thankful for the advantages of our Siena residence. God has been kind. When I think how I went away and how I came back, it seems to me wonderful. For the latter fortnight the tide of life seemed fairly to set in again, and now I am quite well, if not as strong--which, of course, could not be in the time. My doctor opened his eyes to see me yesterday so right in looks and ways. But we spend the winter in Rome, because the great guns of the revolution (and even the small daggers) will be safer to encounter than any sort of tramontana. To tell you the truth, dearest friend, there have been moments when I have 'despaired of the republic'--that is, doubted much whether I should ever be quite well again; I mean as tolerably well as it is my normal state to be. So severe the attack was altogether.

As to political affairs, I will use the word of Penini's music-master when asked the other day how they went on--'_Divinamente_,' said he. Things are certainly going _divinamente_. I observe that, while politicians by profession, by the way, have various opinions, and hope and fear according to their temperaments, _the people_ here are steadily sanguine, distrusting nobody if it isn't a Mazzinian or a codino, and looking to the end with a profound interest, of course, but not any inquietude. '_Divinamente_' things are going on.

There is an expectation, indeed, of fighting, but only with the Pope's troops (and we all know what a '_soldato del papa_' means), or with such mongrel defenders as can be got up by the convicts of Modena or Tuscany to give us an occasion of triumph presently. The expected outburst in Sicily and the Neapolitan States will simply extend the movement. That's _our_ way of thinking and hoping. May God defend the right!

Mr. Probyn, a Liberal M.P., has come out here to appreciate the situation, and said last night that, after visiting the north of Italy and speaking with the chiefs, he is full of hope. Not quite so is Cartwright, whom you know, and who came to us at Siena. But Mr. Cartwright exceeds Dr. Cumming in the view of Napoleon, who isn't Antichrist to him, but is assuredly the devil. I like Mr. Cartwright, observe, but I don't like his modes of political thinking, which are 'after the strictest sect' and the reddest-tape English. He and his family are gone to Rome, and find the whole city 'to be hired.' Family men in general are not likely to go there this winter, and we shall find the coast very clear. And _you_--dearest friend, you seem to have given up Italy altogether this winter. Unless you come to Rome, we shall not be the better for your crossing the Alps. The Eckleys have settled in Florence till next year. The Perkinses also. Isa Blagden is at her villa, which, if she lets, she may pay Miss Cushman a visit in Rome towards the spring, but scarcely earlier.

After the dreary track of physical discomfort was passed, I enjoyed Siena much, and so did Robert, and the next time we have to spend a summer in Tuscany we shall certainly turn our faces that way. When able to drive, I drove about with Robert and enjoyed the lovely country; and once, on the last day, I ventured into the gallery and saw the divine Eve of Sodoma for the second time. But I never entered the cathedral--think of that! There were steps to be mounted. But I have the vision of it safe within me since nine years ago. The Storys, let me remember to tell you gratefully, were very kind and very delicate, offering all kindnesses I could receive, and no other....

Did I tell you that Jessie Mario had written to me from Romagna? You know, in any case, that she and her husband were arrested subsequently and sent into Switzerland. The other day I had two printed letters from the newspaper 'Evening Star,' enclosed to me by herself or her brother, I suppose--one the production of her husband, and one of Brofferio the advocate. I thought both were written in a detestable spirit, attempting to throw an odium on the governments of central Italy, which they should all three have rather died in their own poor personal reputations than have wished to hazard under present circumstances. Mazzini and his party have only to keep still, if _indeed_ they do _not_ desire to swamp the great Italian cause. Every movement made by them is a gain to Austria--a clear gain. Every word spoken by them, even if it applaud us, goes against the cause! Whoever has a conscience among them, let him consider this and be still....

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Casa Guidi: November 2 [1859].

My dearest Fanny,--I this moment receive your letter, and hasten to answer it lest I should be too late for you in Paris. Dear Fanny, you seem in a chronic transitional state; it's always _crisis_ with you. I can't _advise_; but I do rather _wonder_ that you don't go at once to England and see your friends till you can do your business.... You can get at pictures in England and at artistic society also if you please; and making a _slancio_ into Germany or to Paris would not be impossible to you occasionally.

Does this advice sound _too_ disinterested on my part? Never think so. We only stand ourselves on one foot in Florence--forced to go away in the summer; forced to go away in the winter. Robert was so persuaded even last winter (before my illness) of my being better at Rome that he would have taken an apartment there and furnished it, except that I prevented him. Then we have calls from the north, and on most summers we must be in England and Paris. To stay on through the summer in Florence is impossible to us at least. Think of thermometers being a hundred and two in the shade this year! So I consider your case dispassionately, and conclude _we_ are not worth your consideration in reference to prospects connected with any place. We are rolling stones gathering no moss. There's no use for anyone to run after us; but we may roll anyone's way. I say this, penetrated by your affectionate feeling for us. May God bless you and keep you, my dear friend.

As for me, I have been nearly as ill as possible--that's the truth--suffering so much that the idea of the evil's recurrence makes me feel nervous. All the Italians who came near me gave me up as a lost life; but God would not have it so this time, and my old vitality proved itself strong still. At present I am remarkably well; I had a return of threatening symptoms a fortnight ago, but they passed. I think I had been talking too much. Now I feel quite as free and well as usual about the chest, and 'buoyant' as to general spirits. Affairs in Italy seem going well, and Napoleon does not forget us, whatever his townsfolk of a certain class may do. The French newspapers remember us well, I am happy to see, also. But, my dear Fanny, who am I to give letters to Garibaldi? I don't know him, nor does he know _me_. Have you acquaintance with Madame Swartz? _She_ could help Mr. Spicer. But she has just gone to Rome. And _we_ are going to Rome. Did not Sarianna tell you that? We go on my account to avoid the tramontana here. People say we are foolhardy on account of the state of the country; but you are aware we are no more frightened of revolutions than M. Charles is of the tiger. Prices at Rome will be more reasonable at any rate. Nobody pays high for a probability of being massacred. What I'm most afraid of after all is lest the 'Holiness of our Lord' should agree to reform at the last moment. It's too late; it must be too late--it ought to be too late....

Poor Mr. Landor is in perfect health and in rather good spirits, seeming reconciled to his fate of exile. In the summer he moaned over it sadly, 'never could be happy except in England'; and I rather leant to sending him back, I confess. But Mr. Forster and other friends seemed to think that if he went back he could never be kept from the attack, all would come over again; and really that was probable. Still, I feared for him before he went to Siena. It does not do to shake hour-glasses at his age, and though he had been acclimated here by an eleven years' residence, still--well; there was nothing for it but to keep him here. He sighs a little still that it 'does not agree with him,' and that Florence is a 'very ugly town,' and so on; but still he is evidently much stronger than when he went to Siena, can walk for an hour together (instead of failing at the end of the street), and looks quite vigorous with his snow-white beard and moustache, through which the carnivorous laugh runs and rings. He doesn't know yet we are going away. He will miss Robert dreadfully. Robert's goodness to him has really been apostolical. And think of the effect of a goodness which can quote at every turn of a phrase something from an author's book! Isn't it more bewitching than other goodnesses? To certain authors, that is....

Dearest Fanny, keep up your spirits, _do_. Write to me to say you are less sad. And love not less your

Affectionate BA.

* * * * *

_To Mr. Chorley_

Casa Guidi: November 25 [1859].

My dear Friend,--I thank you with all my heart for your most graceful and touching dedication,[71] and do assure you that I feel it both as honour and as pleasure.

And yet, do you know, Robert says that you might peradventure, by the dedication of your book to me, mean a covert lecture, or sarcasm, who knows? Even if you did, the kindness of the personal address would make up for it. Who wouldn't bear both lecture and sarcasm from anyone who begins by speaking _so_? Therefore I am honoured and pleased and grateful all the same--yes, and _will_ be.

But, dear Mr. Chorley, you don't silence me, notwithstanding. The spell of your dedication hasn't fastened me up in an oak for ever. Your book is very clever; your characters very incisively given; princess and patriots admirably cut out (and up!); half truths everywhere, to which one says 'How true!' But one might as well (and better) say 'How false!' seeing that, dear Mr. Chorley, it does really take two halves to make a whole, and we know it. The whole truth is not here--not even suggested here--and let me add that the half truth on this occasion is cruel.

One thing is ignored in the book. Under all the ridiculousness, under all the wickedness even of such men and women, lies _a cause_, a right inherent, a wrong committed. The cant presupposes a doctrine, and the pretension a real heroism. Your best people (in your book) seem to have no notion of this. Your heroine deserves to be a victim, not because she was rash and ignorant, but because she was selfish and foolish. The world wasn't lost for her because she loved--either a cause or a man--but because she wanted change and excitement. If she had felt on the abstract question as I have known women to feel, even when they have acted like fools, I should pity her more. As it is, the lesson was necessary. If she had not married rashly an Italian _birbante_ she would have married rashly an English blackguard, and I myself see small difference in the kinds. With _you_, however, to your mind, it is different; and in this view of yours seems to me to lie the main fault of your book. You evidently think that God made only the English. The English are a peculiar people. Their worst is better than the best of the exterior nations. Over the rest of the world He has cast out His shoe. Even supposing that a foreigner does, by extraordinary exception, some good thing, it's only in reaction from having murdered somebody last year, or at least left his children to starve the year before. Truth, generosity, nobleness of will and mind, these things do not exist beyond the influence of the 'Times' newspaper and the 'Saturday Review.' (By the way, it would be extraordinary if it _were so_.')

Well, I have lived thirteen years on the Continent, and, far as England is from Italy, far as the heavens are from the earth, I dissent from you, dissent from you, dissent from you.

I say so, and there is an end. It is relief to me, and will make no impression on you; but for my sake you permit me to say it, I feel sure.

Dear Mr. Chorley, Robert and I have had true pleasure (in spite of all this fault-finding) in feeling ourselves close to you in your book. Volume after volume we have exchanged, talking of you, praising you here, blaming you there, but always feeling pleasure in reading your words and speaking your name. Don't say it's the last novel. You, who can do so much. Write us another at once rather, doing justice to our sublime Azeglios and acute Cavours and energetic Farinis. If I could hear an English statesman (Conservative or Liberal) speak out of a large heart and generous comprehension as I did Azeglio this last spring, I should thank God for it. I fear I never shall. My boy may, perhaps. Red tape has garrotted this political generation....

I persist in being in high hopes for my Italy.

Ever affectionately yours ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

* * * * *

Early in December the move to Rome took place, and they found rooms at 28 Via del Tritone. During the winter Mrs. Browning was preparing for the press her last volume, the 'Poems before Congress,' while her husband, in a fit of disinclination to write poetry, occupied himself by trying his hand at sculpture.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Rome: December 1859.]

Dearest Sarianna,--Robert will have told you of the success of our journey, which the necessities of Mr. Landor very nearly pushed back into the cold too late. We had even resolved that if the wind changed before morning we would accept it 'as a sign' and altogether give up Rome. We were all but run to ground, you see. Happily it didn't end so; and here we are in a very nice sunny apartment, which would have been far beyond our means last year or any year except just now when the Pope's obstinacy and the rumoured departure of the French have left Rome a solitude and called it peace--very problematical peace. (Peni, in despair at leaving Florence, urged on us that 'for mama to have cold air in her chest would be better than to have a cannon-ball in her stomach'; but she was unreasonably more afraid of one than of the other.) Apartments here for which friends of ours paid forty pounds English the month last winter are going for fifteen or under--or rather not going--for nobody scarcely comes to take them. The Pope's 'reforms' seem to be limited, in spite of his alarming position, which is breaking his heart, he told a friend of Mrs. Stowe's the other day, and out of which he looks to be relieved only by some special miracle (the American was quite affected to hear the old man bewail himself!), to an edict against crinolines, the same being forbidden to sweep the sacred pavement of St. Peter's. This is _true_, though it sounds like a joke.

Even Florence has very few English. A crisis is looked for everywhere. Prices there are rising fast; but one is prepared to pay more for liberty. Carriages are dearer than in Paris by our new tariff, which is an item important to me. We left Mr. Landor in great comfort. I went to see his apartment before it was furnished. Rooms small, but with a look out into a little garden; quiet and cheerful; and he doesn't mind a situation rather out of the way. He pays four pound ten (English) the month. Wilson has _thirty_ pounds a year for taking care of him, which sounds a good deal; but it _is_ a difficult position. He has excellent, generous, affectionate impulses, but the impulses of the tiger every now and then. Nothing coheres in him, either in his opinions, or I fear, affections. It isn't age; he is precisely the man of his youth, I must believe. Still, his genius gives him the right of gratitude on all artists at least, and I must say that my Robert has generously paid the debt. Robert always said that he owed more as a writer to Landor than to any contemporary. At present Landor is very fond of him; but I am quite prepared for his turning against us as he has turned against Forster, who has been so devoted for years and years. Only one isn't kind for what one gets by it, or there wouldn't be much kindness in this world.

I keep well; and of course, at Rome there is more chance for me than there was in Florence; but I hated to inflict an unpopular journey, of which the advantage was solely mine. Poor Peni said that if he had to leave his Florence he would rather go to Paris than to Rome. I dare say he would. Then his Florentines frightened him with ideas of the awful massacre we were to be subjected to here. The pony travelled like a glorified Houyhnhnm and we have brought a second male servant to take care of him. It was an economy; for the wages of Rome are inordinate. Pen's tender love to his nonno and you with that of

Your ever affectionate sister, BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

[Rome]: 28 Via Tritone: Friday [winter 1859].

My dearest Fanny,--Set me down as a wretch, but hear me. I have been ill again, in the first place; then as weak as a rag in consequence, and then with business accumulated on impotent hands; proofs to see to, and the like. You may have heard in the buzz of newspapers of certain presentation _swords_, subscribed for by twenty thousand Romans, at a franc each, and presented in homage and gratitude to Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel. Castellani[72] of course was the artist, and the whole business had to be huddled up at the end, because of his Holiness denouncing all such givers of gifts as traitors to the See. So just as the swords had to be packed up and disappear, some one came with a shut carriage to take me for a sight of these most exquisite works of art. It was five o'clock in the evening and raining, but not cold, so that the whole world here agreed it couldn't hurt me. I went with Robert therefore; we were received at Castellani's most flatteringly as poets and lovers of Italy; were asked for autographs; and returned in a blaze of glory and satisfaction, to collapse (as far as I'm concerned) in a near approach to mortality. You see I can't catch a simple cold. All my bad symptoms came back. Suffocations, singular heart-action, cough tearing one to atoms. A gigantic blister, however, let me crawl out of bed at the end of a week, and the advantage of a Roman climate _told_, I dare say, for the attack was less violent and much less long than the one in the summer. Only I feel myself brittle, and become aware, of increased susceptibility. Dr. Gresonowsky warns me against Florence in the winter. I must be warm, they say. Well, never mind! Now I am well again, and I don't know why I should have whined so to you. I am well, and living on asses' milk by way of sustaining the mental calibre; yes, and able to have _tête-à-têtes_ with Theodore Parker, who believes nothing, you know, and has been writing a little Christmas book for the young just now, to prove how they should keep Christmas without a Christ, and a Mr. Hazard, a spiritualist, who believes everything, walks and talks with spirits, and impresses Robert with a sense of veracity, which is more remarkable. I like the man much. He holds the subject on high grounds, takes the idea and lives on it above the earth. For years he has given himself to investigation, and has seen the Impossible. Certainly enough Robert met him and conversed with him, and came back to tell me what an intelligent and agreeable new American acquaintance he had made, without knowing that he was Hazard the spiritualist, rather famous in his department.... Don't fall out of heart with investigation. It takes patient investigation to establish the number of legs of a newly remarked fly. Nothing _riles_ me so much as the dogmatism of the people who pronounce on there being nothing to see, because in half a dozen experiments, perhaps, they have seen nothing conclusive.

'Yet could not all creation pierce Beyond the bottom of his eye.'

Mediums cheat certainly. So do people who are not mediums. I congratulate you on liking anybody better. That's pleasant for _you_ at any rate. My changes are always the other way. I begin by seeing the beautiful in most people, and then comes the disillusion. It isn't caprice or unsteadiness; oh no! it's merely _fate_. _My_ fate, I mean. Alas, my bubbles, my bubbles!

But I'm growing too original, and will break off. My Emperor at least has not deceived me, and I'm going into the fire for him with a little 'brochure' of political poems, which you shall take at Chapman's with the last edition of 'Aurora' when you go to England. Thank you a hundred times from both Robert and me for the interesting relation of Cobden's sayings on him. If Cobden had not rushed beyond civilisation, I should like to offer him my little book. I should like it. Self-love is the great malady of England, and immortal would the statesman be who could and would tear a wider horizon for the popular mind. As to the rifle cry, _I_ never doubted (for one) that it had its beginning with 'interested persons.' Never was any cry more ignoble. A rescues B from being murdered by C, and E cries out, 'What if _A_ should murder _me_!' That's the logic of the subject. And the sentiment is worthy of the logic.

I expect to be torn to pieces by English critics for what I have ventured to write....

Write me one of your amusing letters, and take our love, especially

Your ever affectionate BA'S.

There is no Roman news, people are so scarce. The Storys have given a ball, Italians chiefly. We think of little but politics.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

28 Via del Tritone, Rome: December 29 [1859].

It was pleasant to have news of you, dearest friends, and to know of your being comfortably established at Pau this cold winter, as it seems to be in the north. We came here, flying from the Florence tramontana, at the very close of November, on the Perugia road, after having been weather-bound at Casa Guidi till we almost gave up our Roman plan. Most happily the cold spared us during our six days' journey, which was very pleasant. I like travelling by vetturino. The fatigue is small, and if you take a supply of books with you the time does not hang fire. We had some old Balzacs, which came new (he is one of our gods--heathen, you will say) and we had, besides, Charles Reade's 'Love me Little, Love me Long,' which is full of ability. Then Peni had his pony as a source of interest. The pony was fastened to the vettura horses, and came into Rome, not merely fresh, but fat. And we have fallen into pleasant places by way of lodgings here, our friends having prepared a list to choose from, so that I had only to drop out of the hotel into bright sunny rooms, which do not cost too much on account of the comparative desertion of this holy city this year. We arrived on December 3, and here it is nearly January 1--almost a month. The older one grows the faster time passes. Do you observe that? You catch the wind of the wheels in your face, it seems, as you get nearer the end. I observe it strongly.

Let me say of myself first that I am particularly well, and feel much more sure and steady than since my illness. How are you both? I do hope and trust you can give me good news of yourselves. Do you read aloud to one another or each alone? Robert and I do the last always. May God bless you both in health of body and soul, and every source of happiness for the coming and other years! I wish and pray it out of my heart....

And you are studying music? I honour you for it. Do tell me, dearest Mrs. Martin, did you know nothing of music before, and have you taken up the piano? I hold a peculiar heresy as to the use hereafter of what we learn here. When there is no longer any growth in me, I desire to die--for one. And at present I by no means desire to die.

So you and others upbraid me with having put myself out of my 'natural place.' What _is_ one's natural place, I wonder? For the Chinese it is the inner side of the wall. For the red man it is the forest. The natural place of everybody, I believe, is within the crust of all manner of prejudices, social, religious, literary. That is as men conceive of 'natural places.' But, in the highest sense, I ask you, how _can_ a man or a woman leave his or her natural place. Wherever God's universe is round, and God's law above, there is a natural place. Circumstances, the force of natural things, have brought me here and kept me; it is my natural place. And, intellectually speaking, having grown to a certain point by help of certain opportunities, my way of regarding the world is also natural to me, my opinions are the natural deductions of my mind. Isn't it so? Still I do beg to say both to you and to others accusing that Italy is not my 'adopted country.' I love Italy, but I love France, too, and certainly I love England. Because I have broken through what seems to me the English 'Little Pedlingtonism,' am I to be supposed to take up an Italian 'Little Pedlingtonism'? No, indeed. I love truth and justice, or I try to love truth and justice, more than any Plato's or Shakespeare's country.[73] I certainly do not love the egotism of England, nor wish to love it. I class England among the most immoral nations in respect to her foreign politics. And her 'National Defence' cry fills me with disgust. But this by no means proves that I have adopted another country--no, indeed! In fact, patriotism in the narrow sense is a virtue which will wear out, sooner or later, everywhere. Jew and Greek must drop their antagonisms; and if Christianity is ever to develop it will not respect frontiers.

As to Italy, though I nearly broke my heart over her last summer, and love the Italians deeply, I should feel passionately any similar crisis anywhere. You cannot judge the people or the question out of the 'Times' newspaper, whose sole policy is, it seems to me, to get up a war between France and England, though the world should perish in the struggle. The amount of fierce untruth uttered in that paper, and sworn to by the 'Saturday Review,' makes the moral sense curdle within one. You do not _know_ this as we do, and you therefore set it down as matter of Continental prejudice on my part. Well, time will prove. As to Italy, I have to put on the rein to prevent myself from hoping into the ideal again. I am on my guard against another fall from that chariot of the sun. But things look magnicently, and if I could tell you certain facts (which I can't) you would admit it. Odo Russell, the English Minister here (in an occult sense), who, with a very acute mind, is strongly Russell and English, and was full of the English distrust of L.N., when with us at Siena last September, came to me two days ago, and said, 'It is plain now. The Emperor is rather Italian than French. He has worked, and is working, only for Italy; and whatever has seemed otherwise has been forced from him in order to keep on terms with his colleagues, the kings and queens of Europe. Everything that comes out proves it more and more.' In fact, he has risked everything for the Italians except _their cause_. I am delighted, among other things, at Cavour's representation of Italy at the Congress. Antonelli and his party are in desperation, gnashing their teeth at the Tuileries. The position of the Emperor is most difficult, but his great brain will master it. We are rather uneasy about the English Ministry--its work in Congress; it might go out for me (falling to pieces on the pitiful Suez question or otherwise), but we do want it at Congress.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

28 Via del Tritone, Rome: February 22 [1860].

Dearest, naughtiest Mona Nina,--Where is the place of your soul, your body abiding at Brighton, that never, no, never, do I hear from you? It seems hard. Last summer I was near to slipping out of the world, and then, except for a rap, you might have called on me in vain (and said rap you wouldn't have believed in). Also, even this winter, even in this Rome, the city of refuge, I have had an attack, less long and sharp, indeed, but weakening, and, though I am well now, and have corrected the proofs of a very thin and wicked 'brochure' on Italian affairs (in verse, of course), yet still I am not too strong for cod-liver oil and the affectionateness of such friends as you (I speak as if I had a shoal of such friends--povera mi!). Write to me, therefore. Especially as the English critics will worry me alive for my book and you will have to say, 'Well done, critics!' so write before you read it, to say, 'Ba, I love you.' That makes up for everything. Oh, I know you did write to me in the summer. And then I wrote to you; and then there came a _pause_, which is hard on me, I repeat.

Geddie has come here, lamenting also. Besides, we have been somewhat disappointed by your not coming to Italy. Never will you come to Rome as Geddie expects, late in the spring, to take an apartment close to her, looking charmingly on the river. I told her quite frankly that you would not be so unwise. Rome is empty of foreigners this year, a few Americans standing for all. Then, in the midst of the quiet, deeply does the passion work: on one side, with the people, on the other in the despair and rage of the Papal Government. The Pope can't go out to breakfast, to drink chocolate and talk about 'Divine things' to the 'Christian youth,' but he stumbles upon the term 'new ideas,' and, falling precipitately into a fury, neither evangelical nor angelical, calls Napoleon a _sicario_ (cut-throat), and Vittorio Emanuele an _assassino_. The French head of police, who was present, whispered to acquaintances of ours, 'Comme il enrage le saint père!' In fact, all dignity has been repeatedly forgotten in simple _rage_. Affairs of Italy generally are going on to the goal, and we look for the best and glorious results, perhaps _not without more fighting_. Certainly we can't leave Venetia in the mouth of Austria by a second Villafranca. We cannot and will not. And, sooner or later, the Emperor is prepared, I think, to carry us through. Odo Russell told me (without my putting any question to him) that everything, as it came out, proved how true he had been to Italy--that, in fact, he had 'rather acted as an Italian than as a Frenchman.' And Mr. Russell, while liberal, is himself very English, and free from Buonaparte tendencies from hair to heel.

We often have letters from dear Isa Blagden, who sends me the Florence news, more shining from day to day. Central Italy seems safe.

But let me tell you of my thin slice of a wicked book. Yes, I shall expect you to read it, and I send you an order for it to Chapman, therefore. Everybody will hate me for it, and so _you must_ try hard to love me the more to make up for that. Say it's mad, and bad, and sad; but _add_ that somebody did it who meant it, thought it, felt it, throbbed it out with heart and brain, and that she holds it for truth in conscience and not in partisanship. I want to tell you (oh, I can't help telling you) that when the ode was read before Peni, at the part relating to Italy his eyes overflowed, and down he threw himself on the sofa, hiding his face. The child has been very earnest about Italian politics. The heroine of that poem called 'The Dance'[74] was Madame di Laiatico. The 'Court Lady' is an individualisation of a general fashion, the ladies at Milan having gone to the hospitals in full dress and in open carriages. Macmahon taking up the child[75] is also historical. I believe the facts to be in the book: 'He has done it all,'[76] were Cavour's words. When you see an advertisement and have an opportunity to apply at Chapman's, do so 'by this sign' enclosed. I read of you in the papers, stirring up the women.

Write and say how you are, and where you are.

[_Part of this letter is missing._]

Your ever very affectionate BA.

I hope you liked the article on the immorality of luncheon-rooms in your high-minded 'Saturday Review.'

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Prime Minister of Piedmont from 1849-52, and one of the most honourable and patriotic of Italian statesmen.

[63] Subsequently English ambassador at Berlin, and one of the plenipotentiaries at the Berlin Congress of 1878. Created Lord Ampthill in 1881, and died in 1884.

[64] Now in the possession of Mr. R. Barrett Browning.

[65] The conferences for the arrangement of the final treaty of peace were held at Zurich.

[66] Of Tuscany with Piedmont, which was voted by Tuscany in August. Modena, Parma, and Romagna did the same, and so made the critical step towards the creation of a united Italy.

[67] It was supposed that Napoleon contemplated constituting Central Italy, or at least Tuscany, into a kingdom for his brother Jerome, and that it was for this reason that the latter had been sent to Florence with a French corps at the beginning of the war.

[68] Napoleon being opposed to the idea of a united Italy, Victor Emmanuel did not consider it wise to accept the proffered crown of Central Italy while a French army was still in the country and the terms of peace were not finally settled.

[69] The new Duke of Tuscany. He had succeeded to this now very shadowy throne on July 21 of this year.

[70] Not on account of bad riding, be it observed, but of daring and venturesome riding.

[71] Mr. Chorley had dedicated his last novel, _Roccabella_, to Mrs. Browning.

[72]

'Do you see this ring? 'Tis Rome-work, made to match (By _Castellani's_ imitative craft) Etrurian circlets,' etc.

(_The Ring and the Book_, i. 1-4.)

[73] Mrs. Browning is here quoting from her own preface to _Poems before Congress_.

[74] _Poetical Works_, iv. 190.

[75] See 'Napoleon III. in Italy,' stanza 11, _ibid._ p. 181. The incident occurred at Macmahon's entry into Milan, three days after Magenta.

[76] _Ibid._ stanza 12.