Volume 2 — CHAPTER XI 1860-1861 (continued 2)

Robert has taken to modelling under Mr. Story (at his studio) and is making extraordinary progress, turning to account his studies on anatomy. He has copied already two busts, the Young Augustus and the Psyche, and is engaged on another, enchanted with his new trade, working six hours a day. In the evening he generally goes out as a bachelor—free from responsibility of crinoline—while I go early to bed, too happy to have him a little amused. In Florence he never goes anywhere, you know; even here this winter he has had too much gloom about him by far. But he looks entirely well—as does Penini. I am weak and languid. I struggle hard to live on. I wish to live just as long as and no longer than to grow in the soul.

May God bless you, dearest Fanny. Write.

America is making me very anxious just know. If they compromise in the north it is a moral death, but a merely physical dissolution of the States would be followed by a resurrection 'in honor,' and I should not fear. What are you painting?

Your affectionate as ever

Ba.

Did you see Lacordaire received? Those are things I care to see in Paris, wishing, however, to Guizot, the king of Prussia, and all prigs, the contempt they deserve.

To Miss I. Blagden

126 Via Felice, [Rome]: Monday, [November December 1860].

Ever dearest Isa,—How you grieve me by this news of your being unwell. Dear, I wondered at having no letter, and now with the letter and all the proofs of your remembering me (newspaper and pens) comes the bad word of your being ill....

I myself am not very well. I thought I was going to have a bad attack of the oppression, but this morning it seems to have almost gone, and without a blister! I had one night very bad. Probably a sudden call from the tramontana brought it; even frost we had. Only, on the whole, and considering accounts from other places, Rome has distinguished itself for mildness this year; and I hope I shall keep from bad attacks, having not much strength in body, nerve, or spirit to bear up resistingly against them....

Sir John Bowring has been to see us. Yes, he speaks with great authority and conviction, and it carries the more emphasis because he is not without Antigallican prejudice, I observed. He told me that the panic in England about invasion had reached, at one time, a point of phrenzy which would be scarcely credible to anyone who had not witnessed it. People were in terrors, expecting their houses to be burnt and sacked directly. Placards of the most inflammatory character, calling passionately on the riflemen to arm, arm, arm! He himself was hissed at Edinburgh for venturing to say that the rifle-locks would be very rusty if only used against invading Napoleons.

He told me that the Emperor's intentions towards Italy had been undeviatingly ignored, and that whatever had seemed equivocal had been misunderstood, or was the consequence of misunderstanding, or of the press of some otherwise great difficulty. The Italian question was only beginning to be understood in England. I said (in my sarcastic way) that at first they had seemed to understand it upside down. To which he replied that when, at the opening of the Revolution, he came over with several English officers from India, they were all prepared (in case England didn't fight on the Hapsburg side) to enter the Austrian army as volunteers to help them to keep down Italy.

But men like Mr. Trollope find it easy to ignore all this. It is we who have done the most for Italy—we who did nothing! Yes, I admit so far. We abstained from helping the Austrians with an open force.

That now we wish well to the Italian cause is true, I hope, but, at best, it is a noble inconsistency; and that we should set up a claim to a nation's gratitude on these grounds seems to me worse than absurd. The more we are in earnest now, the more ashamed we should be for what has been.

I have been sorry about Gaeta;[93] but there is somewhere a cause, and, perhaps, not hard to find. That the Emperor is ready to do for Italy whatever will not sacrifice France, I am convinced more than ever. And even the Romans (who have benefited least) think so. One of the patriots here, a watchmaker, was saying to Ferdinando the other day that he had subscribed to Garibaldi's fund, and had given his name for Viterbo,[94] but that there was one man in whom he believed most, and never ceased to believe—Louis Napoleon. And this is the common feeling. Mr. Trollope said that they only ventured to unbosom themselves to the English. Now my belief is that the Italians seldom do this to the English, as far as Napoleon is concerned. The Italians are furbi assai, and wish to conciliate us, and are perfectly aware of our national jealousies. I myself have observed the difference in an Italian when speaking to my own husband before me and speaking to me alone.

Since we came here I have had a letter from Ruskin, written in a very desponding state about his work, and life, and the world....

Life goes on heavily with me, but it goes on: it has rolled into the ruts again and goes....

Write to me, my Isa, and love me.

I am your ever loving Ba.

To Miss I. Blagden

[Rome: November-December 1860.]

... Now while I remember it let me tell you what I quite forgot yesterday. If through Kate's dealing with American papers you get to hear of a lyric of mine called 'De Profundis,'[95] you are to understand that it was written by me nearly twenty years ago, before I knew Robert; you will observe it is in my 'early manner,' as they say of painters. It is a personal poem, of course, but was written even so, in comparatively a state of retrospect, catching a grief in the rebound a little. (You know I never can speak or cry, so it isn't likely I should write verses.) The poem (written, however, when I was very low) lay unprinted all those years, till it turned up at Florence just when poor Mrs. Howard's bereavement and Mr. Beecher's funeral sermon in the 'Independent' suggested the thought of it—on which, by an impulse, I enclosed it to the editor, who wanted more verses from me. Now you see it comes out just when people will suppose the motive to be an actual occasion connected with myself. Don't let anyone think so, dear Isa. In the first place, there would be great exaggeration; and in the second, it's not my way to grind up my green griefs to make bread of. But that poem exaggerates nothing—represents a condition from which the writer had already partly emerged, after the greatest suffering; the only time in which I have known what absolute despair is.

Don't notice this when you write.

Write. Take the love of us three. Yes, I love you, dearest Isa, and shall for ever.

Ba.

To Mrs. Martin

126 Via Felice, Rome: Friday, [about December 1860].

I have not had courage to write, my dearest friend, but you will not have been severe on me. I have suffered very much—from suspense as well as from certainty. If I could open my heart to you it would please me that your sympathy should see all; but I can't write, and I couldn't speak of that. It is well for those who in their griefs can speak and write. I never could.

But to you after all it is not needful. You understand and have understood.

My husband has been very good to me, and saved me all he could, so that I have had solitude and quiet, and time to get into the ruts of the world again where one has to wheel on till the road ends. In this respect it has been an advantage being at Rome rather than Florence. Now I can read, and have seen a few faces. One must live; and the only way is to look away from oneself into the larger and higher circle of life in which the merely personal grief or joy forgets itself.

For the rest even I ought to have comfort, I know. I believe that love in its most human relations is an eternal thing. I do believe it, only through inconsistency and much weakness I falter.

Also there are other beliefs with me with regard to the spiritual world and the measuring of death, which ought, if I had ordinary logic, to rescue me from what people in general suffer in circumstances like these. Only I am weak and foolish; and when the tender past came back to me day by day, I have dropped down before it as one inconsolable.

Dearest Mr. Martin—give him my grateful love for every kind thought, and to yourself.

Now that page is turned.

I wish I knew that you were stronger, and at Pau. It is unfortunate that just on this bitter winter you have been unable to get away from England.

Here, though there was snow once, we have fared mildly as to climate. And our rooms are very warm. Penini has his pony and rides, and studies with his Abbé, and looks very rosy and well. I help him to prepare his lessons, but that is all, except hearing him read a little German now and then, and Robert sees to the music, and the getting up of the arithmetic. For the first time I have had pain in looking into his face lately—which you will understand.

I saw a man from Naples two days since, an Englishman of intelligence and impartiality, who has resided there for months in the heart of the politics. He told me that the exaggeration of evils was great. Evils there were certainly; and no government succeeding Garibaldi's could have satisfied a public trained to expect the impossible. Our poor Garibaldi, hero as he is, and an honest hero, is in truth the weakest and most malleable of men, and had become at last the mere mouthpiece of the Mazzinians. If the Bourbons' fall had not been a little delayed, north and south Italy would have broken in two. So I was assured by my friend, who gave reasons and showed facts.

That the Neapolitans are not equal to the other Italians is too plain; and if corrupt governments did not corrupt the government they would be less hateful to all of us, of course. But a little time will give smoothness to the affairs of Italy, and none of my old hopes are in the meanwhile disturbed.

The design as to Rome seems to be to starve out the Pope by the financial question; to let the rotten fruit fall at last as much by its own fault as possible, and by the gentlest shake of the tree. I hear of those who doubted most in the Emperor's designs beginning to confess that he can't mean ill by Italy.

Possibly you and dear Mr. Martin think more just now of America than of this country, which I can understand. The crisis has come earlier than anyone expected. It is a crisis; and if the north accepts such a compromise as has been proposed the nation perishes morally, which would be sadder than the mere dissolution of States, however sad. It is the difference between the death of the soul and of the body.

There might and ought to be a pecuniary compromise; but a compromise of principle would be fatal.

I am anxious that before we go too far with the Minghetti project here (separate administration of provinces) we should learn from America that a certain degree of centralisation (not carried out too far) is necessary to a strong and vital government. And Italy will want a strong government for some years to come. There is much talk of war in the spring, and if Austria will not cede Venetia war must be, even if she should satisfy her other provinces, which she will probably fail to do.

This is a dull lecture, but you will pardon it and me.

I know all your goodness and sympathy. Do not think that I think that any bond is broken, or that anything is lost. We have been fed on the hillside, and now there are twelve baskets full of fragments remaining.

May God bless you and love you both!

Your ever affectionate and grateful

Ba.

To Miss I. Blagden

126 Via Felice, Rome: Tuesday, [January 1861].

Ever dearest Isa,—I wrote a long letter, which you have received, I do hope, and am waiting for a long one from you to tell me that you are not suffering any more. This is on business merely—that is, it is merely to give you trouble, the customary way for me to do business in these latter days. Will you, dear, without putting yourself to too much inconvenience by overhaste, direct the 'Nazione' people to send the journal, to which we must subscribe for three months, to S.E. le Général Comte de Noue, Comandante della piazza di Roma. No other name. The General, who can do what he pleases, pleases to receive our paper (our kind Abbé mediating) on condition that we do not talk of it, and so at last I shall attain to getting out of this dark into the free upper air. It is insufferable to be instructed by the 'Giornale di Roma' as to how Cialdini writes to Turin that his Piedmontese are perfectly demoralised, and that the besieged dance for triumph each time an Italian cannon is fired into the vague. On the other hand, I hear regularly every morning from the Romans that Gaeta is taken,[96] with the most minute particulars, which altogether is exasperating. The last rumour is of typhus fever in the fortress, but I have grown sceptical, and believe nothing on either side now. One thing is clear, that it wasn't only the French fleet which prevented our triumph....

Robert came home this morning between three and four. A great ball at Mrs. Hooker's—magnificent, he says. All the princes in Rome (and even cardinals) present. The rooms are splendid, and the preparations were in the best taste. The Princess Ruspoli (a Buonaparte) appeared in the tricolor. She is most beautiful, Robert says.

So you see our Americans can dance even while the Republic goes to pieces. I think I would not do it. Not that I despair of America—God forbid! If the North will be faithful to its conscience there will be only an increase of greatness after a few years, even though it may rain blood betwixt then and now. Mr. Story takes it all very quietly. He would be content to let the South go, and accept the isolation of the North as final. 'We should do better without the South,' said he. I don't agree in this. I think that the unity of the State should be asserted with a strong hand, and the South forced to pay taxes and submit to law.

Mdme. Swab [Schwabe] told me that a friend of hers had travelled with Klapka from Constantinople, and that K. had said, 'there would not be war till next year,—diplomacy would take its course for the present year.' Perhaps he did not speak sincerely. I can't understand how the Austrian provinces will hold out in mere talk for twelve months more. Do you mark the tone of the 'Opinion Nationale' on Austria, and about Hungary being a natural ally of France, and also what is said in the 'Morning Chronicle,' which always more or less reflects the face of the French Government? Then it seems to me that the Emperor's speech is not eminently pacific, though he 'desires peace.' I hear from rather good authority what I hope is possible, that Teliki accepted as a condition of his liberation, not simply that he would not personally act against Austria, but that he would use his endeavours to prevent any action on the part of his compatriots. Men are base.

Mr. Prinsep[97] is here. Last autumn he made a walking tour into Cornwall with Alfred Tennyson, to tread in the steps of King Arthur. Tennyson was dreadfully afraid of being recognised and mobbed, and desired to be called 'the other gentleman,' which straightway became convertible now and then into 'the old gentleman,' much to his vexation. But Mr. Prinsep is in the roses and lilies of youth, and comparatively speaking, of course, the great Laureate was an ancient. He is in considerable trouble, too by their building a fort in front of his house on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. I couldn't help saying that he deserved it for having written 'Riflemen, arm!' It's a piece of pure poetical justice, really.

Here I end.

Write to me, my Isa, and do me good with your tender, warm thoughts. Do you think I have no comfort in feeling them stroke me softly through the dark and distance?

May God love you, dearest Isa!

Always your loving

Ba.

Robert's true love, and Pen's.

The weather is wonderfully warm. In fact, the winter has been very mild—milder than usual for even Rome.

To Miss E.F. Haworth

126 Via Felice, Rome: Tuesday, [about January 1861].

You really astonish me, dearest Fanny, so much by your letter, that I must reply to it at once. I ask myself under what new influence (strictly clerical) is she now, that she should write so? And has she forgotten me, never read 'Aurora Leigh,' never heard of me or from me that, before 'Spiritualism' came up in America, I have been called orthodox by infidels, and heterodox by church-people; and gone on predicting to such persons as came near enough to me in speculative liberty of opinion to justify my speaking, that the present churches were in course of dissolution, and would have to be followed by a reconstruction of Christian essential verity into other than these middle-age scholastic forms. Believing in Christ's divinity, which is the life of Christianity, I believed this. Otherwise, if the end were here—if we were to be covered over and tucked in with the Thirty-nine Articles or the like, and good-night to us for a sound sleep in 'sound doctrine'—I should fear for a revealed religion incapable of expansion according to the needs of man. What comes from God has life in it, and certainly from all the growth of living things, spiritual growth cannot be excepted. But I shun religious controversy—it is useless. I never 'disturb anybody's mind,' as it is called—let those sleep who can. If I had not known that your mind was broken up rather broadly by truths out of Swedenborg, I should not have mooted the subject, be sure. (Have you given up Swedenborg? this by the way.) Having done so, I am anxious to set you right about Mrs. Stowe. As the author of the most successful book printed by man or woman, perhaps I a little under-rated her. The book has genius, but did not strike me as it did some other readers. Her 'Sunny Memories,' I liked very little. When she came to us in Florence some years ago, I did not think I should like her, nor did Robert, but we were both of us surprised and charmed with her simplicity and earnestness. At Rome last year she brought her inner nature more in contact with mine, and I, who had looked for what one usually finds in women, was startled into much admiration and sympathy by finding in her a largeness and fearlessness of thought which, coming out of a clerical and puritan cul-de-sac, and combined with the most devout and reverent emotions, really is fine. So you think that since 'Uncle Tom' she has turned infidel, because of her interest in Spiritualism. Her last words to me when we parted, were, 'Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ never see one another for the last time.' That's the attitude of the mind which you stigmatise as corrupting.

With regard to 'Spiritualism,' so called, you might as well say 'books' are dangerous, without specifying the books. Surely you know that every sort of doctrine is enjoined by these means, from Church of Englandism to Free Love. A lady was with me this very morning, who was converted from infidelity to Christianity solely by these means, and I am told that thousands declare the same. As far as I am concerned, I never heard or read a single communication which impressed me in the least: what does impress me is the probability of there being communications at all. I look at the movement. What are these intelligences, separated yet relating and communicating? What is their state? what their aspiration? have we had part or shall we have part with them? is this the corollary of man's life on the earth? or are they unconscious echoes of his embodied soul? That anyone should admit a fact (such as a man being lifted into the air, for instance), and not be interested in it, is so foreign to the habits of my mind (which can't insulate a fact from an inference, and rest there) that I have not a word to say. Only I see that if this class of facts, however grotesque, be recognised among thinkers, our reigning philosophy will modify itself; scientific men will conceive differently from Humboldt (for instance) of the mystery of life; the materialism which stifles the higher instincts of men will be dislodged, and the rationalism which divides Oxford with Romanism (nothing between, we hear!) will receive a blow.

No truth can be dangerous. What if Jesus Christ be taken for a medium, do you say? Well, what then? As perfect man, He possessed, I conclude, the full complement of a man's faculties. But if He walked on the sea as a medium, if the virtue went out of Him as a mesmeriser, He also spoke the words which never man spoke, was born for us, and died for us, and rose from the dead as the Lord God our Saviour. But the whole theory of spiritualism, all the phenomena, are strikingly confirmatory of revelation; nothing strikes me more than that. Hume's argument against miracles (a strong argument) disappears before it, and Strauss's conclusions from a priori assertion of impossibility fall in pieces at once.

Now I have done with this subject. Upon the whole, it seems to me better really that you should not mix yourself up with it any more. Also I wish you joy of the dismissal of M. Pierart. There was no harm that he took away your headache, if he did not presume on that. You tell me not to bid you to beware of counting on us in Paris. And yet, dearest Fanny, I must. The future in this shifting world, what is it? As for me, whom you recognise as 'so much myself,' dear, I have a stout pen, and till its last blot, it will write, perhaps, with its 'usual insolence' (as a friend once said), but if you laid your hand on this heart, you would feel how it stops, and staggers, and fails. I have not been out yet, and am languid in spirits, I gather myself up by fits and starts, and then fall back. Do you know, I think with positive terror sometimes, less of the journey than of having to speak and look at people. If it were possible to persuade Robert, I should send him with Pen; but he wouldn't go alone, and he must go this year. Oh, I daresay I shall feel more up to the friction of things when once I have been out; it's stupid to give way. Also my sister Arabel talks of meeting me in France, though I might have managed that difficulty, but that Robert should see his father is absolutely necessary. Meanwhile we don't talk of it, and by May or June I shall be feeling another woman probably....

So you are going to work hard in Germany: that is well. Only beware of the English periodicals. There's a rage for new periodicals, and because the 'Cornhill' answers, other speculations crowd the market, overcrowd it: there will be failures presently.

I have written a long letter when I meant to write a short one. May God keep you, and love you, and make you happy! Your ever affectionate

Ba.

I am anxious about America, fearing a compromise in the North. All other dangers are comparatively null.

To Miss E.F. Haworth

126 Via Felice, Rome: Saturday, [about January 1861].

Ah, dearest Fanny, I can't rest without telling you that I am sorry at your receiving such an impression from my letter. May God save me from such a sin as arrogance! I have not generally a temptation to it, through knowing too well what I am myself. At the same time, I do not dispute my belief in what you have so often confessed, that you don't hold your attainments and opinions sufficiently 'irrespectively of persons.' Believing which of you, I said, 'under what new influence?' and if I said anything with too much vivacity, forgive me with that sweetness of nature which is at least as characteristic of you as the intellectual impressionability. Really I would not wound you for the world—but I myself perhaps may have been over-excitable, irritable just then, who knows? and, in fact, I was considerably vexed at the moment that, from anything said by me, you would infer what was so injurious and unjust to a woman like Mrs. Stowe. I named her in this relation because she struck me as a remarkable example of the compatibility of freedom of thought with reverence of sentiment. You generally get one or the other; the one excluding the other. I never considered her a deep thinker, but singularly large and unshackled, considering the associations of her life, she certainly is. When I hinted at her stepping beyond Swedenborg in certain of her ideas, I referred to her belief that the process called 'regeneration,' may commence in certain cases beyond the grave, and in her leaning to universal salvation views, which you don't get at through Swedenborg.

For the rest, I don't think, if you will allow of my saying so, that you apprehend Swedenborg's meaning very accurately always. If Swedenborg saw sin and danger in certain communications, for instance, why did he consider it privilege on his own part to live in the world of spirits as he did. True, he spoke of 'danger,' but it was to those who, themselves weak and unclean, did not hold 'by the Lord.' He distinctly said that in the first unfallen churches there was incessant communion, and that the 'new church, as it grew, would approximate more and more to that earlier condition. There is a distinct prospect given in Swedenborg of an increasing aptitude in the bodies and souls of men towards communication with the Disembodied. I consider that he foresaw not only what we are seeing (if these manifestations be veritable) but greater and more frequent phenomena of the same class,—which does not in any way exclude considerable danger to some persons in the meanwhile. And do you think I doubt that? No indeed. Unsettled minds, especially when under affliction, will lose their balance at moments,—there is danger. It is not the occasion for passion and fanaticism of sentiment, but for calm and reasonable inquiry into facts. Let us establish the facts first, and then 'try the spirits' as the apostle directs; afterwards remains the difficulty of assuring oneself of the personalities. I don't think you should complain of the subject being unsatisfactory to you, because you don't get 'a sublime communication,' or a characteristic evidence of some spirit known to you. Much less would satisfy me. But it seemed to me that the consideration of the subject disturbed you, made you uncomfortable, and that you didn't approach any conclusion, and with that impression and not because of 'contempt,' be sure, I advised you to let it rest. Why should we beat our heads against an obstacle which we can't walk through? Then your liability to influence is against you here as much as your attraction towards such high speculations is in your favour. You have an 'open mind,' yes, but you leave all the doors open, and you let people come in every now and then, and lock them, and keep them locked as long as said people stand by. The teachings of Spiritualism are much like the teachings in the world. There are excellent things taught, and iniquitous things taught. Only the sublime communications are, as far as I know, decidedly absent. Swedenborg directs you to give no more weight to what is said by a spirit-man than by a man in the body, and there's room for the instruction. 'Heralds of Progress' on one side, 'Heralds of Light' on the other, if a right thing is said, 'judge ye.' If infidels are here, there are devout, yes, and very orthodox Christians there.

I beg to say that when I speak of 'old cerements' being put off, I pre-suppose a living body in resurrection. Also, I don't call marriage, for instance, an old cerement. We must distinguish. With regard to the common notion of a 'hell,' as you ask me, I don't believe in it. I don't believe in any such thing as arbitrary reward or punishment, but in consequences and logical results. That seems to me God's way of working. The Scriptural phrases are simply symbolical, it seems to me, and Swedenborg helps you past the symbol. Then as to the Redemption and its mode—let us receive the thing simply. Dr. Adam Clarke, whose piety was never doubted, used to say, 'Vicarious suffering is vicarious nonsense.' Which does not hinder the fact that the suffering of the Lord was necessary, in order that we should not suffer, and that through His work and incarnation His worlds recovered the possibility of good. It comes to the same thing. The manner in which preachers analyse the Infinite, pass the Divine through a sieve, has ceased to be endurable to thinking men. You speak of Luther. We all speak of Luther. Did you ever read any of his theological treatises. He was a schoolman of the most scholastic sect; most offensive, most absurd, presenting my idea of 'old cerements' to the uttermost. We are entering on a Reformation far more interior than Luther's; and the misfortune is, that if we don't enter we must drop under the lintel. Do you hear of the storms in England about 'Essays and Reviews'? I have seen the book simply by reviews in abstract and extract. I should agree with the writers in certain things, but certainly not in all. I have no sort of sympathy with what is called 'rationalism,' which is positivism in a form. The vulgar idea of miracles being put into solution, leaves you with the higher law and spiritual causation; which the rationalists deny, and which you and I hold faithfully. But whatever one holds, free discussion has become necessary. That it is full of danger; that, in consequence of it, many minds will fall into infidelity, doubt, and despair, is certain; but through this moral crisis men must pass, or the end will be worse still. That's my belief, I have seen it coming for years back.

'The hungry flock looks up and is not fed,' except with chopped hay of the schools. Go into any church in England, or out of England, and you hear men preaching 'in pattens,' walking gingerly, lest a speck of natural moisture touch a stocking; seeking what's 'sound,' not what's 'true.' Now if only on theology they must not think, there will be soon a close for theologians. Educated men disbelieve to a degree quite unsuspected. That, I know of knowledge.

No! Swedenborg does not hold the existence of devils in the ordinary meaning. Spiritual temptation comes, he says, through disembodied corrupt spirits, out of this or other earths. The word Satan, remember, he conceives to represent a company of such evil spirits.

Now in what spirit have I written all this? Gently, this time, I do hope. If you knew in what an agonised state of humiliation I am sometimes, you would not suspect me of 'despising' you? Oh no, indeed. But I am much in earnest, and can't 'prophesy smooth things,' at moments of strong conviction. Who can?

Indeed, indeed, yes. I am very anxious about what passes in Paris. Do you know that Keller's infamous discourse was corrected by Guizot's own hand? Mr. Pentland (who was with the Prince of Wales) knows G. and this. He (P.) has just come from Paris. He knows the 'sommités' there, and considers that, though there is danger, yet on the whole the Emperor dominates the situation. Prince N.'s speech, in its general outline, was submitted to the E. and had his full sympathy, Persigny said to P. or in his presence. Let no one ever speak ill of Prince N. before me; I read all the seventeen columns in the 'Moniteur,' and most magnificent was the discourse. Rome is greatly excited, but hopeful. There may be delay, however.

Surely you don't think the large head of Robert bad. Why, it is exquisite.... I can't read over, and send this scratch that you may pardon me before you go (not to lose the post).

Sarianna says that Squires carries about his own table. In which case, I give him up. Don't you write.

To Miss I. Blagden

126 Via Felice, [Rome: early in 1861].

Dearest dear Isa,—We don't get the paper. Will you ask why? Here's a special address enclosed.

I have just heard from what seems excellent authority (F.P. Zanetti has been here) that a French company is to be withdrawn from Rome to-day, and that all the troops will be immediately withdrawn from the R.S., except Rome and Cività Vecchia. The French generals, however, were not aware of this yesterday morning, though prepared for much, and thus I can't help a certain scepticism. There is an impression in French quarters, that the delay arises from a fear of a 'coup' on the part of Austria, if she didn't see France hereabouts. But Gorgon means to try to get away before the crisis, which isn't in his tastes at all. De Noue has gone—went yesterday.

I heard yesterday of Sir John Bowring telling somebody that the time had resolved itself now into an affair of days. Still, there are people I suppose who hold fast their opinions of the antique form, like Mr. Massy Dawson, for instance, who called on me yesterday with moustaches and a bride, but otherwise unchanged. He still maintains that Napoleon will perish in defence of the Papacy, and that (from first to last) he has been thwarted in Italy. 'I know that Sir John Bowring, Diomed Pantaleone, Mrs. Browning' (bowing graciously to me in that complimentary frame of body which befits disputants with female creatures), 'and other persons better informed than I am, think differently. And, in fact, if I looked only at facts and at the worldly circumstances of the case, I should agree with you all. But reading the "Apocalypse" as I do, I find myself before a fixed conclusion!' Imagine this, dearest Isa mine, his bride sitting in a delicate dove-coloured silk on the sofa, as tame as any dove, and not venturing to coo even. I suppose she thought it quite satisfactory. What a woman with a brain could be made to suffer under certain casualties! He quoted simply St. John and Mr. Kinglake! Mr. Kinglake plainly running a little with St. John. 'Wasn't he (Kinglake) a member of Parliament, and a lawyer?' And if his allegation wasn't true, and if Napoleon did not propose to Francis Joseph to swap Lombardy for the Rhine provinces, why was there no contradiction on the part of the French Emperor?

Now do mark the necessity of Napoleon's saying, 'I didn't really pick Mr. Jones's pocket of his best foulard last Monday—no, though it hung out a tempting end. Pray don't let the volunteers think so ill of me.'

That would have been 'like' our Emperor—wouldn't it?

By the way, I had yesterday a crowd of people, and all at once, so that I was in a flutter of weakness, and didn't get over it quickly. Mrs. Bruen brought Miss Sewell (Amy Herbert) and Lady Juliana Knox, whom Annunziata takes in as a homœopathic dose, 'È molto curioso questo cognome, precisamente come la medicina—nux (tale quale).' She (Lady Juliana) had just been presented to the Pope, just before his illness, and was much touched, when at the close of the reception of indiscriminately Catholics and Protestants, he prayed a simple prayer in French and gave them all his benediction, ending in a sad humble voice, 'Priez pour le pape.'

It was touching—was it not? Poor old man! When you feel the human flesh through the ecclesiastical robe, you get into sympathy with him at once.

Miss Sewell will come and see me again, she promised, and then I shall talk with her more. I couldn't get at her through the people yesterday. She is very nice, gentle-looking, cheerful, respectable sort of—single-womanish person (decidedly single) of the olden type; very small, slim, quiet, with the nearest approach to a poky bonnet possible in this sinful generation. I, in my confusion, did not glance at her petticoats, but, judging a priori, I should predicate a natural incompatibility with crinoline. But really I liked her, liked her. There were gentleness, humility, and conscience—three great gifts. Of course we can touch only on remote points; but I hope (for my own sake) we may touch on these, and another day I mean to try. She said one thing which I liked. Speaking of convents, she 'considered that women must deteriorate by any separation from men.' Now that's not only true, but it is not on the surface of things as seen from her standpoint.

I had a visit a day ago from M. Carl Grün, a Prussian, with a letter of introduction from Dall' Ongaro. I feel a real regard and liking for Dall' Ongaro, and would welcome any friend of his. No—my Isa. I would prefer him as my translator to any 'young lady of twenty.' Heavens, never whisper it to the Marchesa, but I confide to you that my blood ran cold at that thought. I know what poets of twenty must in all probability be—Dall' Ongaro is a poet, and has a remarkable command of language.

I have tried my hand at turning into literal Italian prose (only marking the lines) a lyric on Rome sent lately to America; and I may show it to you one of these days.

Now I must send off this. In tender love.

Your Ba.

To Miss I. Blagden

[Rome,] 126 Via Felice: March 20, [1861].

... Let me answer your questions concerning Non Pio V.E. Se non vero, ben trovato. Very happy, and I hope true. Probably enough it may be true, though I never heard it but from you. There was a banner with 'Viva Pio IX.' on one side, and 'Viva V.E. re d'Italia' on the other—that's true. And various devices we have had, miraculous rains of revolutionary placards among the rest. The French have taken to 'protect' our demonstrations here, half by way of keeping them under, perhaps—although the sympathy between the people and the troops (Gorgon apart) has been always undeniable. You know there was to be a gigantic demonstration to meet the declaration in the North. It was fixed to spread itself over three days. The French politely begged the 'papalini' to keep out of sight, and then they marched with the Roman demonstration for two days—twenty thousand Romans gathered together, I hear from those who were there, the greatest order observed—tricolors insinuated into the costume of all the women. After a certain time, French officer turns round and addresses the populace 'Gioventù Romana, basta cosí. Adesso bisogna andare a casa, poichè mi farebbe grandissimo dispiacere d' aprire ad alcuno la strada delle carceri.' The last words said smiling—as words to the wise. 'Grazie, grazie, grazie' were replied on all sides, and the people dispersed in the best humour possible. Yesterday (San Giuseppe) we were to have had it repeated, but it rained hard, which was fortunate, perhaps; and I hear something of cannons being placed in evidence, and of Gorgon saying 'de haute voix' that he couldn't allow it to go on. But everybody understands Gorgon. He has certainly, up to a point, Papal sympathies, and is as tender as he dares be to the Holy Father, and the irritation and wrath of the priestly party is naturally great. On the other hand, the whole body of French troops and their officers are as much vexed by Gorgon as Gorgon can vex me, and there's fraternisation with the Romans to an extraordinary degree.

Penini came home three days ago in a state of ecstasy. 'No—he never had been so happy in all his life. Oh mama, I am so happy!' What had happened, I asked. Why, Pen, being on the Pincio, had fallen on the French troops, had pushed through, and heard 'l'ordre du jour' read, had made friends with 'ever so many captains,' had marched in the ranks round the Pincio and into the caserne, had talked a great deal about Chopin, Stephen Heller, &c., with musical officers, and most about politics, and had been good-naturedly brought back to our door because he was 'too little to come alone through the crowd.' What had they not told him? Such things about Italy. 'They hoped,' said Pen, 'that I would not think they were like the Papalini. No indeed. They hoped I knew the French were different quite; and that, though they protected the Holy Father, they certainly didn't mean to fight for him. What they wanted was V.E. King of Italy. Napoléon veut l'Italie libre. I was to understand that, and remember it.' The attention, and the desire to conciliate Pen's good opinion, had perfectly turned the child's head. It will be 'dearest Napoleon' more than ever. Of course, he had invited the officers to 'come in and see mama,' only they were too discreet for this.

Pantaleone is exiled—ordered to go in eight days, three of which are passed. He is still in hopes of gaining more time, but the Pope is said to be resolutely set against him. I am very sorry, not surprised. He told Robert yesterday, that nothing can be surer than that Napoleon has been throughout a true friend to Italy. Which is a good deal for a man to admit who began with all the irritation against Napoleon of a Roman of 1849. Even after the war, through Villafranca, the bad feeling returned, and as he lives so much among the English, it was only natural that he should receive certain influences. He is with Odo Russell (who calls him Pant) nearly every day, and Mr. Cartwright is very intimate with him besides. But P. is above all things Italian, and the Italian of the most incisive intellect I ever talked with. He praises Lord John.

To Miss Browning

[Rome,] [end of March] 1861 [postmark].

We take ourselves to be dismally aggrieved, ever dearest Sarianna, by your criticisms on our photographs. After deep reflection I can't help feeling sure (against Robert's impression) that he sent you—not the right one, but one which has undeniably a certain 'grin.' I prevail with him to let you have the two-third likeness this time, in order to decide the point. If you keep your opinion, why then all artistic Rome is against you without exception. Nobody likes the sepia-coloured thing of last year in comparison. Every album in Rome gives up its dead and insists on the new likeness—not only is it considered more like, but so infinitely superior in expression and poetical convenance, that it ought to be more like. So everybody thinks. With regard to the head, I am of opinion that the head is beautiful, and the eyes singularly full of expression for photographed eyes, but there may be more difference of opinion about the head. The two-third view you certainly can't have seen. Why, we had even resolved (as we couldn't hope to grow younger) to stand or fall with posterity by this production. 'Ecco!'

As to age—no! it's cruel of you to talk so. Robert's beard was tolerably white when he was in Paris last, and, in fact, his moustache is less so than the rest, therefore there can't be, and isn't in this respect, so rapid a 'decline and fall' in his appearance. The clipping of the side whiskers, which are very grey, is an advantage, and as to the hair, it is by no means cut short. 'Like an épicier?' No indeed. The épicier is bushy and curly about the ears (see an example in 'Galignani'), and moreover will keep the colour of the curl 'if he dyes for it'—an extremity to which Robert and I will never be driven—having too much the fear of attentive friends and affectionate biographers before our eyes—as suggested by poor Balzac's. But Robert is looking remarkably well and young—in spite of all lunar lights in his hair. Though my hair keeps darker with a certain sprinkle however, underneath which forces its way outwards, I would willingly change on the whole with him, if he were not my own Robert. He is not thin or worn, as I am—no indeed—and the women adore him everywhere far too much for decency. In my own opinion he is infinitely handsomer and more attractive than when I saw him first, sixteen years ago—which does not mean as much as you may suppose, that I myself am superannuated and wholly anile, and incompetent therefore for judgment. No, indeed, I believe people in general would think the same exactly. And as to the modelling—well, I told you that I grudged a little the time from his own particular art—and that is true. But it does not do to dishearten him about his modelling. He has given a great deal of time to anatomy with reference to the expression of form, and the clay is only the new medium which takes the place of drawing. Also, Robert is peculiar in his ways of work as a poet. I have struggled a little with him on this point—for I don't think him right—that is to say, it wouldn't be right for me—and I heard the other day that it wouldn't be right for Tennyson. Tennyson is a regular worker, shuts himself up daily for so many hours. And we are generally so made that a regular hour is good, even for so uncertain an influence as mesmerism. But Robert waits for an inclination—works by fits and starts—he can't do otherwise he says.[98] Then reading hurts him. As long as I have known him he has not been able to read long at a time—he can do it now better than in the beginning of time. The consequence of which is that he wants occupation and that an active occupation is salvation to him with his irritable nerves, saves him from ruminating bitter cud, and from the process which I call beating his dear head against the wall till it is bruised, simply because he sees a fly there, magnified by his own two eyes almost indefinitely into some Saurian monster. He has an enormous superfluity of vital energy, and if it isn't employed, it strikes its fangs into him. He gets out of spirits as he was at Havre. Nobody understands exactly why—except me who am in the inside of him and hear him breathe. For the peculiarity of our relation is, that even when he's displeased with me, he thinks aloud with me and can't stop himself. And I know ultimately that whatever takes him out of a certain circle (where habits of introvision and analysis of fly-legs are morbidly exercised), is life and joy to him. I wanted his poems done this winter very much—and here was a bright room with three windows consecrated to use. But he had a room all last summer, and did nothing. Then, he worked himself out by riding for three or four hours together—there has been little poetry done since last winter, when he did much. He was not inclined to write this winter. The modelling combines body-work and soul-work, and the more tired he has been, and the more his back ached, poor fellow, the more he has exulted and been happy—'no, nothing ever made him so happy before'—also the better he has looked and the stouter grown. So I couldn't be much in opposition against the sculpture—I couldn't, in fact, at all. He has the material for a volume, and will work at it this summer, he says. His power is much in advance of 'Strafford,' which is his poorest work of all. Oh, the brain stratifies and matures creatively, even in the pauses of the pen.

At the same time his treatment in England affects him naturally—and for my part I set it down as an infamy of that public—no other word. He says he has told you some things you had not heard, and which, I acknowledge, I always try to prevent him from repeating to anyone. I wonder if he has told you besides (no, I fancy not) that an English lady of rank, an acquaintance of ours (observe that!), asked, the other day, the American Minister whether 'Robert was not an American.' The Minister answered 'Is it possible that you ask me this? Why, there is not so poor a village in the United States where they would not tell you that Robert Browning was an Englishman, and that they were very sorry he was not an American.' Very pretty of the American Minister—was it not?—and literally true besides.

I have been meditating, Sarianna, dear, whether we might not make our summer out at Fontainebleau in the picturesque part of the forest. It would be quiet, and not very dear. And we might dine together and take hands as at Havre—for we will all insist on Robert's doing the hospitality. I confess to shrinking a good deal about the noise of Paris—we might try Paris later. What do you say? The sea is so very far—it is such a journey—it looks so to me just now. And the south of France is very hot—as hot as Italy—besides making you pay greatly 'for your whistle.' Switzerland would increase both expenses and journey for everybody. Fontainebleau is said to be delicious in the summer, and if you don't mind losing your sea bathing, it might answer. Arabel wants me to go to England, but as I did not last year my heart and nerves revolt from it now. Besides, we belong to the nonno and you this summer. Arabel can and, I dare say, will join us. And Milsand? You say 'once in three years.' Not quite so, I think. In any case, it has been far worse with some of mine. All the days of the three times of meeting in fourteen years, can only be multiplied together into three weeks; and this after a life of close union! Also, it was not her fault—she had not pecuniary means. I am bitter against myself for not having gone to England for a week or two in the Havre year. I could have done it, Robert would have let me. But now, no more. It was the war the year before last, and my unsteadiness of health last year, which kept us from our usual visit to you. This time we shall come.

Only we shall avoid the Alps, coming and going, out of prudence. Then, for next winter, we return to Rome....

Why do you believe all the small gossip set in movement by the Emperor's enemies, in Paris, against his friends, as in foreign countries against himself? It's a league of lies against him and his. 'Intriguing lacqueys.' That's a sweeping phrase for all persons of distinction in France, except members of the Opposition. That men like De Morny and Walewski may speculate unduly I don't doubt, but even the 'Times' says now that these things have been probably exaggerated. I have heard great good of both these men. As to Prince Napoleon, he has spoken like a man and a prince. We are at his feet here in Italy. Tell our dear friend Milsand that I read the seventeen columns of the speech in the 'Moniteur.' Robert said 'magnificent.' I had tears in my eyes. There may have been fault in the P.'s private life—and may be still. Where is a clean man? But for the rest, he has done and spoken worthily—and what is better, we have reason to believe here that the Emperor sympathises with him wholly. Odo Russell knows the Prince—says that he is 'pétillant d'esprit' and has great weight with the Emperor.

[The remainder of this letter is missing]

To Mrs. Martin

[Rome,] 126 Via Felice: [April 1861].

[My] very dear friends, how am I to thank [you] both? I receive the photograph with a heart running over. It is perfect. Never could a likeness be more satisfactory. It is himself. Form, expression, the whole man and soul, on which years cannot leave the least dint of a tooth. The youthfulness is extraordinary. We are all crying out against our 'black lines' (laying them all to the sun of course!) and even pretty women of our acquaintance in Rome come out with some twenty years additional on their heads, to their great dissatisfaction. But my dear Mr. Martin is my dear Mr. Martin still, unblacked, unchanged, as when I knew him in the sun long ago, when suns were content to make funny places, instead of drawing pictures! How good of dearest Mrs. Martin (it was she, I think!) to send this to me! I wish she (or he) had sent me hers besides. (How grasping some of us are!)

Then she sent me a short time since a book for my Peni, which he seized on with blazing eyes and an exclamation, 'Oh, what fun!' A work by his great author, Mayne Reid, who outshines all other authors, unless it's Robinson Crusoe, who, of course, wrote his own life. It was so very very good of you. Robert had repeatedly tried in Rome to buy a new volume of Mayne Reid for the child, and never could get one. Our drawback in Rome relates to books. We subscribe to a French library (not good) and snatch at accidental 'waifs,' and then the newspapers (which I intrigue about, and get smuggled through the courteous hands of French generals) are absorbing enough.

I had a letter from George yesterday with good news of dearest Mrs. Martin. May it be true. But I can't understand whether you have spent this winter in Devonshire or Worcestershire, or where. The thick gloom of it is over now, yet I find myself full of regrets. It's so hard to have to get out into the workday world, daylight, open air and all, and there's a duty on me to go to France, that Robert may see his father. You would pity me if you could see how I dread it. Arabel will meet me, and spend at least the summer with us, probably in the neighbourhood of Paris, and after just the first, we—even I—may be the happier. Don't tell anyone that I feel so. I should like to go into a cave for the year. Not that I haven't taken to work again, and to my old interests in politics. One doesn't quite rot in one's selfishness, after all. In fact, I think of myself as little as possible; it's the only way to bear life, to throw oneself out of the personal.

And my Italy goes on well in spite of some Neapolitan troubles, which are exaggerated, I can certify to you. Rome, according to my information as well as my instincts, approaches the crisis we desire. In respect to Venetia, we may (perhaps must) have a struggle for it, which might have been unnecessary if England had frankly accepted co-action with France, instead of doing a little liberalism and a great deal of suspicion on her own account. As it is, there's an impression in Europe that considerations about the East (to say nothing of the Ionian Islands) will be stronger than Vattel, and forbid our throwing over our 'natural ally' for the sake of our 'natural enemy.'

I am sure you must have been anxious lately on account of America. There seems to be a good deal of weakness, even on the part of Lincoln, who, if he had not the means of defending Fort Sumter and maintaining the Union, should not have spoken as he did. Not that it may not be as well to let the Southern States secede. Perhaps better so. What I feared most was that the North would compromise; and I fear still that they are not heroically strong on their legs on the moral question. I fear it much. If they can but hold up it will be noble.

We remain here (where we have had the mildest of winters) till somewhat late in May, when we go to Florence for a week or two on our way to Paris.

You see my Emperor is 'crowning the edifice';[99] it is the beginning. Sir John Bowring says that the more liberty he can give, the better he will like it. He told Sir John so.

Is it right and loyal meanwhile of Guizot and his party to oppose the Empire by upholding the enemies of Italy? I ask you. Such things I hear from Paris! Guizot corrected Keller's speech with his own hand.

May God bless you! Pen's love and gratitude. If Robert were here he would be named. Love me and think of me a little.

Your ever affectionate and grateful

Ba.

To Miss Browning

[Rome]: May 11, 1861 (postmark).

Your account of the dearest nonno was very pleasant on the whole, only, of course, you will be very careful with him. And then, dearest Sarianna, you yourself have not been well. The grippe seems to have been bitter against you. This is the time of year when it generally rages, and even Pen has had a small cough, which makes me austere about hours. In fact, the weather in the north has reverberated here, and we have paid for our mild winter by a considerable lingering of cold wind, from snow on the mountains, they say. As for me, it's much to my disadvantage in getting air and strength. I hope you are quite well again, as is Pen, and that the loved nonno is as strong as he ever was. Do you get good wine for him? The vintages are said to have suffered (which grieves me for poor dear Milsand) from the frost. We hear of travellers in snowstorms through England, where the cold has been great, and that in Paris, too, there has been snow. I do hope the opening summer will not copy the last.

Dearest Sarianna, try to find out if Fontainebleau is damp, because I was assured the other day that it was, besides being subject to intense heats. Also, will you see if there is a completed railroad to Trouville? Robert denies that sea-air ever disagrees with him (sea-bathing does), and it may be good for you and for Pen, to say nothing of Arabel, who is coming in the course of the summer. The objection is the journey, but if the railroad is there, it would not prolong the journey (in relation to Fontainebleau) more than two or three hours, if so much, would it? We ought to inquire a little beforehand. We shall get to you as early as we can. The weather is against us everywhere. We shall cut Florence quite short. By the way, we have the satisfaction of seeing a precipitation of the Tuscan funds down, down, which only makes Robert wish for more power of 'buying in,' causing the eyes of a Florentine Frescobaldi to open in wonder at so much audacity. But Robert, generally so timid in such things, has caught a flush of my rashness, and is alarmed by neither sinking funds nor rising loans. We have a strong faith in Italy—Italia fatta—particularly since that grand child, Garibaldi, has turned good again. The troubles in the Neapolitan States are exaggerated, are perilous even so, and I dare say Milsand thinks we are all going to pieces, but we shall not; there are great men here, and there will be a great nation presently. An Australian Englishman, very acute, and free from the political faults (as I see them) of England, did all he could to prepare me for failure in Italy, 'to save my heart from breaking,' as he said. And we have had drawbacks since then, yet my hope remains as strong.

The Duchesse de Grammont (French Embassy) sent us a card for Penini—'matinée d'enfants'—and he went, and was rather proud of being received under a full-length portrait of Napoleon, who is as dear as ever to him. It was a very splendid affair, quite royal. Pen wore a crimson velvet blouse, and was presented to various small Italian princes, Colonnas, Dorias, Piombinos, and had the honor of talking ponies and lessons and playing leap-frog with them. The ambassador's own boy, the little Grammont, has a pony 'tale quale' like Pen's, only superannuated rather, which gives us the advantage....

I wonder if he will confide to you his tender admiration for the young queen of Naples, whom, between you and me, he pursues, and receives in return ever so many smiles from that sad lovely face. When charged with a love affair, Pen answered gravely, that he 'did feel a kind of interest.' He told us that two days since she stood up in her carriage three times to smile at him. Something, it may be for the pony's sake; but also, Pen confessed, to an impression that his new jacket attracted! Fancy little Pen! Robert says she is very pretty, and for Pen (who makes it a point of conscience to consider the whole 'razza' of Bourbons and Papalini as 'questi infami birboni') to be so drawn, there must be a charm. After all, poor little creature, she acted heroically from her point of sight, and if the king had minded her, he would have made liberal concessions in time perhaps. The wretched queen-mother and herself were at daggers drawn from the beginning.

I hear that Jessie Mario and her husband have been taken up at Ferrara. They were only going to begin the war with Austria on their own account. Mazzini deserves what I should be sorry to inflict. He is a man without conscience. And that's no reason why Jessie and her party should use him for theirs. Mario is only the husband of his wife.

Robert has brought me home a most perfect copy of a small torso of Venus—from the Greek—in the clay. It is wonderfully done, say the learned. He says 'all his happiness lies in clay now'; that was his speech to me this morning. Not a compliment, but said so sincerely and fervently, that I could not but sympathise and wish him a life-load of clay to riot in. It's the mixture of physical and intellectual effort which makes the attraction, I imagine. Certainly he is very well and very gay.

I am happy to see that the 'North British Quarterly' has an article on him. That gives hope for England. Thackeray has turned me out of the 'Cornhill' for indecency, but did it so prettily and kindly that I, who am forgiving, sent him another poem. He says that plain words permitted on Sundays must not be spoken on Mondays in England, and also that his 'Magazine is for babes and sucklings.' (I thought it was for the volunteers.)

May God bless you, dearest Sarianna and nonno! Pen's love.

The incident alluded to in the last paragraph deserves fuller mention, for the credit it does to both parties concerned in it. The letters that passed between Thackeray and Mrs. Browning on the subject have been given by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie in the 'Cornhill Magazine' for July 1896, from which I am allowed to quote them. Mrs. Browning, in reply to a request from Thackeray for contributions to the then newly established 'Cornhill,' had sent him, among other poems, 'Lord Walter's Wife,'[100] of which, though the moral is unimpeachable, the subject is not absolutely virginibus puerisque. The editor, in this difficulty, wrote the following admirable letter:—

W.M. Thackeray to Mrs. Browning.

36 Onslow Square: April 2, 1861.

My dear, kind Mrs. Browning,—Has Browning ever had an aching tooth which must come out (I don't say Mrs. Browning, for women are much more courageous)—a tooth which must come out, and which he has kept for months and months away from the dentist? I have had such a tooth a long time, and have sate down in this chair, and never had the courage to undergo the pull.

This tooth is an allegory (I mean this one). It's your poem that you sent me months ago, and who am I to refuse the poems of Elizabeth Browning and set myself up as a judge over her? I can't tell you how often I have been going to write and have failed. You see that our Magazine is written not only for men and women but for boys, girls, infants, sucklings almost; and one of the best wives, mothers, women in the world writes some verses which I feel certain would be objected to by many of our readers. Not that the writer is not pure, and the moral most pure, chaste, and right, but there are things my squeamish public will not hear on Monday, though on Sundays they listen to them without scruple. In your poem, you know, there is an account of unlawful passion, felt by a man for a woman, and though you write pure doctrine, and real modesty, and pure ethics, I am sure our readers would make an outcry, and so I have not published this poem.

To have to say no to my betters is one of the hardest duties I have, but I'm sure we must not publish your verses, and I go down on my knees before cutting my victim's head off, and say, 'Madam, you know how I respect and regard you, Browning's wife and Penini's mother; and for what I am going to do I most humbly ask your pardon.'

My girls send their very best regards and remembrances, and I am, dear Mrs. Browning,

Always yours,

W.M. Thackeray.

Mrs. Browning's answer follows.

To W.M. Thackeray

Rome, 126 Via Felice: April 21, [1861].

Dear Mr. Thackeray,—Pray consider the famous 'tooth' (a wise tooth!) as extracted under chloroform, and no pain suffered by anybody.

To prove that I am not sulky, I send another contribution, which may prove too much, perhaps—and, if you think so, dispose of the supererogatory virtue by burning the manuscript, as I am sure I may rely on your having done with the last.

I confess it, dear Mr. Thackeray, never was anyone turned out of a room for indecent behaviour in a more gracious and conciliatory manner! Also, I confess that from your 'Cornhill' standpoint (paterfamilias looking on) you are probably right ten times over. From mine, however, I may not be wrong, and I appeal to you as the deep man you are, whether it is not the higher mood, which on Sunday bears with the 'plain word,' so offensive on Monday, during the cheating across the counter? I am not a 'fast woman.' I don't like coarse subjects, or the coarse treatment of any subject. But I am deeply convinced that the corruption of our society requires not shut doors and windows, but light and air: and that it is exactly because pure and prosperous women choose to ignore vice, that miserable women suffer wrong by it everywhere. Has paterfamilias, with his Oriental traditions and veiled female faces, very successfully dealt with a certain class of evil? What if materfamilias, with her quick sure instincts and honest innocent eyes, do more towards their expulsion by simply looking at them and calling them by their names? See what insolence you put me up to by your kind way of naming my dignities—'Browning's wife and Penini's mother.'

And I, being vain (turn some people out of a room and you don't humble them properly), retort with—'materfamilias!'

Our friend Mr. Story has just finished a really grand statue of the 'African Sybil.' It will place him very high.

Where are you all, Annie, Minnie?—Why don't you come and see us in Rome?

My husband bids me give you his kind regards, and I shall send Pen's love with mine to your dear girls.

Most truly yours,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

We go to Florence in the latter part of May.

Before leaving Florence, however, the following letter was written to Mr. Thackeray, which I quote from the same article by Mrs. Ritchie. The poem alluded to must, however, be 'The North and the South,'[101] Mrs. Browning's last poem, written with reference to Hans Andersen's visit to Rome; not 'A Musical Instrument,' as Mrs. Ritchie suggests, which had been written some time previously.

To W.M. Thackeray

Rome, 126 Via Felice: [May 21, 1861].

Dear Mr. Thackeray,—I hope you received my note and last poem. I hope still more earnestly that you won't think I am putting my spite against your chastening hand into a presumptuous and troublesome fluency.

But Hans Christian Andersen is here, charming us all, and not least the children. So I wrote these verses—not for 'Cornhill' this month, of course—though I send them now that they may lie over at your service (if you are so pleased) for some other month of the summer.

We go to Florence on the first of June, and lo! here is the twenty-first of May.

With love to dear Annie and Minny,

I remain, most truly yours,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

To Miss I. Blagden

Rome: Saturday, [about May 1861].

Ever dearest Isa,—Now that Robert's letter is gone, I am able for shame to write. His waiting did not mean a slackness of kindness, but a tightness of entanglement in other things; and then absolutely he has got to the point of doing without reading. Nothing but clay does he care for, poor lost soul. But you will see, I hope, from what he has written (to judge by what he speaks), that he is not so lost as to be untouched by Agnes.[102]...

I send you, dear, two more translations for Dall' Ongaro. You will have given him my former message. I began that letter to him, and was interrupted; and then, considering the shortness of our time here, would not begin another. You will have explained, and will make him thoroughly understand, that in sending him a verbal and literal translation I never thought of exacting such a thing from him, but simply of letting him have the advantage of seeing the raw, naked poetry as it stands. In fact, my translation is scarcely Italian, I know very well. I mean it for English rather. Conventional and idiomatical Italian forms have been expressly avoided. I have used the Italian as a net to catch the English in for the use of an Italian poet! Let him understand.

We shall be soon in our Florence now. I am rather stronger, but so weak still that my eyes dazzle to think of it. Povera me!

Tell Dall' Ongaro that his friend M. Carl Grün had enough of me in one visit. He never came again, though I prayed him to come. I have not been equal to receiving in the evening, and perhaps he expected an invitation. I go to bed at eight on most nights. I'm the rag of a Ba. Yet I am stronger, and look much so, it seems to me. Mr. Story is doing Robert's bust, which is likely to be a success.[103] Hatty brought us a most charming design for a fountain for Lady Marion Alford. The imagination is unfolding its wings in Hatty. She is quite of a mind to spend the summer with you at Florence or elsewhere. The Storys talk of Switzerland....

Andersen (the Dane) came to see me yesterday—kissed my hand, and seemed in a general verve for embracing. He is very earnest, very simple, very childlike. I like him. Pen says of him, 'He is not really pretty. He is rather like his own ugly duck, but his mind has developed into a swan.'

That wasn't bad of Pen, was it? He gets on with his Latin too. And, Isa, he has fastened a half-franc to his button-hole, for the sake of the beloved image, and no power on earth can persuade him out of being so ridiculous. I was base enough to say that it wouldn't please the Queen of Spain! And he responded, he 'chose her to know that he did love Napoleon'!

Isa, I send these two last poems that Dall' Ongaro may be aware of my sympathy's comprehending more sides than one of Italian experience.

We have taken no apartment yet!!!

To Miss Browning

Florence: June 7, 1861 [postmark].

I can't let Robert's disagreeable letter go alone, dearest Sarianna, though my word will be as heavy as a stone at the bottom of it. I am deeply sorry you should have had the vain hope of seeing Robert and Pen. As for me, I know my place; I am only good for a drag chain. But, dear, don't fancy it has been the fault of my will. In fact, I said almost too much at Rome to Robert, till he fancied I had set my selfwill on tossing myself up as a halfpenny, and coming down on the wrong side. Now, in fact, it was not at all (nearly) for Arabel that I wished to go, only I did really wish and do my best to go. He, on the other hand, before we left Rome, had made up his mind (helped by a stray physician of mine, whom he met in the street) that it would be a great risk to carry me north. He (Robert) always a little exaggerates the difficulties of travelling, and there's no denying that I have less strength than is usual to me even at the present time. I touched the line of vexing him, with my resistance to the decision, but he is so convinced that repose is necessary for me, and that the lions in the path will be all asleep by this time next year, that I yielded. Certainly he has a right to command me away from giving him unnecessary anxieties. What does vex me is that the dearest nonno should not see his Peni this year, and that you, dear, should be disappointed, on my account again. That's hard on us all. We came home into a cloud here. I can scarcely command voice or hand to name Cavour.[104] That great soul, which meditated and made Italy, has gone to the Diviner country. If tears or blood could have saved him to us, he should have had mine. I feel yet as if I could scarcely comprehend the greatness of the vacancy. A hundred Garibaldis for such a man. There is a hope that certain solutions had been prepared between him and the Emperor, and that events will slide into their grooves. May God save Italy! Dear M. Milsand had pleased me so by his appreciation, but there are great difficulties. The French press, tell him, has, on the whole, done great service, except that part of it under the influence of the ultramontane and dynastic opposition parties. And as to exaggerated statements, it is hard, even here, to get at the truth (with regard to the state of the south), and many Italian liberals have had hours of anxiety and even of despondency. English friends of ours, very candid and liberal, have gone to Naples full of hope, and returned hoping nothing—yet they are wrong, unless this bitter loss makes them right—

Your loving Ba—

Robert tears me away—

With this letter the correspondence of Mrs. Browning, so far, at least, as it is extant or accessible, comes to an end. The journey to Paris had been abandoned, but it does not appear that there was any cause to apprehend that her life could now be reckoned only by days. Yet so it was. For the past three years, it is evident, her strength had been giving way. Attacks of physical illness weakened her, without being followed by any adequate rally; but more than all, the continuous stress and strain of mental anxiety wore her strength away. The war of 1859, the liberation of Sicily and Naples, the intense irritation of feeling in connection with English opinion of Louis Napoleon and his policy, the continual ebb and flow of rumours concerning Venetia and the Papal States, the illness and death of her sister Henrietta—all these sources of anxiety told terribly on her sensitive, emotional mind, and thereby on her enfeebled body. The fragility of her appearance had always struck strangers. So far back as 1851, Bayard Taylor remarked that 'her frame seemed to be altogether disproportionate to her soul.' Her 'fiery soul' did, indeed, with a far more literal truth than can often be the case, fret her 'puny body to decay, and o'er-informed its tenement of clay.' Her last illness—or, it may more truly be said, the last phase of that illness which had been present with her for years—was neither long nor severe; but she had no more strength left to resist it. Shortly after her return to Casa Guidi another bronchial attack developed itself, to all appearance just like many others that she had had before; but this time there was no recovery.

Of the last scene no other account need be asked or wished for than that given by Mr. Browning himself in a letter to Miss Haworth, dated July 20, 1861.[105]

My dear Friend,—I well know you feel, as you say, for her once and for me now. Isa Blagden, perfect in all kindness to me, will have told you something, perhaps, and one day I shall see you and be able to tell you myself as much as I can. The main comfort is that she suffered very little pain, none beside that ordinarily attending the simple attacks of cold and cough she was subject to, had no presentiment of the result whatever, and was consequently spared the misery of knowing she was about to leave us: she was smilingly assuring me that she was 'better,' 'quite comfortable, if I would but come to bed,' to within a few minutes of the last. I think I foreboded evil at Rome, certainly from the beginning of the week's illness, but when I reasoned about it, there was no justifying fear. She said on the last evening 'It is merely the old attack, not so severe a one as that of two years ago; there is no doubt I shall soon recover,' and we talked over plans for the summer and next year. I sent the servants away and her maid to bed, so little reason for disquietude did there seem. Through the night she slept heavily and brokenly—that was the bad sign; but then she would sit up, take her medicine, say unrepeatable things to me, and sleep again. At four o'clock there were symptoms that alarmed me; I called the maid and sent for the doctor. She smiled as I proposed to bathe her feet, 'Well, you are determined to make an exaggerated case of it!' Then came what my heart will keep till I see her again and longer—the most perfect expression of her love to me within my whole knowledge of her. Always smilingly, happily, and with a face like a girl's, and in a few minutes she died in my arms, her head on my cheek. These incidents so sustain me that I tell them to her beloved ones as their right: there was no lingering, nor acute pain, nor consciousness of separation, but God took her to Himself as you would lift a sleeping child from a dark uneasy bed into your arms and the light. Thank God! Annunziata thought, by her earnest ways with me, happy and smiling as they were, that she must have been aware of our parting's approach, but she was quite conscious, had words at command, and yet did not even speak of Peni, who was in the next room. The last word was, when I asked, 'How do you feel?' 'Beautiful.'...

So ended on earth the most perfect example of wedded happiness in the history of literature—perfect in the inner life and perfect in its poetical expression. It was on June 29, 1861, that Mrs. Browning died. She was buried at Florence, where her body rests in a sarcophagus designed by her friend and her husband's friend, Frederic Leighton, the future President of the Royal Academy. At a later date, when her husband was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, her remains might have been transferred to England, to lie with his among the great company of English poets in which they had earned their places. But it was thought better, on the whole, to leave them undisturbed in the land and in the city which she had loved so well, and which had been her home so long. In life and in death she had been made welcome in Florence. The Italians, as her husband said, seemed to have understood her by an instinct; and upon the walls of Casa Guidi is a marble slab, placed there by the municipality of Florence, and bearing an inscription from the pen of the Italian poet, Tommaséo:—

QUI SCRISSE E MORÌ ELISABETTA BARRETT BROWNING CHE IN CUORE DI DONNA CONCILIAVA SCIENZA DI DOTTO E SPIRITO DI POETA E FECE DEL SUO VERSO AUREO ANELLO FRA ITALIA E INGHILTERRA. PONE QUESTA LAPIDE FIRENZE GRATA 1861.

It is with words adapted from this memorial that her husband, seven years later, closed his own great poem, praying that the 'ring,' to which he likens it, might but—

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