Volume 2 — CHAPTER XI 1860-1861

Early in 1860 the promised booklet, 'Poems before Congress,' was published in England, and met with very much the reception the authoress had anticipated. It contained only eight poems, all but one relating to the Italian question. Published at a time when the events to which they alluded were still matters of current controversy, they could not but be regarded rather as pamphleteering than as poetry; and it could hardly be expected that the ordinary Englishman, whose sympathy with Italy did not abolish his mistrust (eminently justifiable, as later revelations have shown it to be) of Louis Napoleon, should read with equanimity the continual scorn of English policy and motives, or the continual exaltation of the Emperor. Looking back now over a distance of nearly forty years, and when the Second Empire, with all its merits and its sins, has long gone to its account, we can, at least in part, put aside the politics and enjoy the poetry. Though pieces like 'The Dance' and 'A Court Lady' are not of much permanent value, there are many fine passages, notably in 'Napoleon III. in Italy,' and 'Italy and the World,' in which a true and noble enthusiasm is expressed in living and burning words, worthy of a poet.

For attacks on her Italian politics Mrs. Browning was prepared, as the foregoing letters show; but one incident caused her real and quite unexpected annoyance. The reviewer in the 'Athenæum' (apparently Mr. Chorley) by some unaccountable oversight took the 'Curse for a Nation' to apply to England, instead of being (as it obviously is) a denunciation of American slavery. Consequently he referred to this poem in terms of strong censure, as improper and unpatriotic on the part of an English writer; and a protest from Mrs. Browning only elicited a somewhat grudging editorial note, in a tone which implied that the interpretation which the reviewer had put upon the poem was one which it would naturally bear. One can hardly be surprised at the annoyance which this treatment caused to Mrs. Browning, though some of the phrases in which she speaks of it bear signs of the excitement which characterised so much of her thought in these years of mental strain and stress, and bodily weakness and decay.

To Mrs. Jameson

(Fragment)

[Early in 1860.]

I remember well your kindness to it. Nothing was said then about the 'fit arguments for poetry,' and I recovered from it to write 'Aurora Leigh,' of which, however, many people did say that it was built on an unfit argument, and besides was a very indecent, corrupting book (have I not heard of ladies of sixty, who had 'never felt themselves pure since reading it'?) But now, consider. Since you did not lose hope for me in 'Casa Guidi Windows,' because the line of politics was your own, why need you despair of me in the 'Poems before Congress,' although I do praise the devil in them? A mistake is not fatal to a critic? need it be to a poet? Does Napoleon's being wicked (if he is so) make Italy less interesting? or unfit for poetry historical subjects like 'The Dance' or the 'Court Lady'? Meanwhile that thin-skinned people the Americans exceed some of you in generosity, rendering thanks to reprovers of their ill deeds, and understanding the pure love of the motive.[77] Let me tell you rather for their sake than mine. I have extravagant praises and prices offered to me from 'over the western sun,' in consequence of these very 'Poems before Congress.' The nation is generous in these things and not 'thin-skinned.'

As to England, I shall be forgiven in time. The first part of a campaign and the first part of a discussion are the least favourable to English successes. After a while (by the time you have learnt to shoot cats with the new rifles), you will put them away, and arrive at the happy second thought which corrects the first thought. That second thought will not be of invasion, prophesies a headless prophet. 'Time was when heads were off a man would die.' A man—yes. But a woman! We die hard, you know.

Here, an end. I hope you will write to me some day, and ease me by proving to me that I have ceased to be bitter to the palate of your soul. Believe this—that, rather than be a serious sadness to you, I would gladly sit on in the pillory under the aggressive mud of that mob of 'Saturday Reviewers,' who take their mud and their morals from the same place, and use voices hoarse with hooting down un-English poetesses, to cheer on the English champion, Tom Sayers. For me, I neither wish for the 'belt'[78] nor martyrdom; but if I were ambitious of anything, it might be to be wronged where, for instance, Cavour is wronged.

To Miss I. Blagden

[Rome], Friday [end of March 1860].

My ever dearest Isa, I am scarcely in heart yet for writing letters, and did not mean to write to-day. You heard of the unexpected event which brought me the loss of a very dear friend, dear, dear Mrs. Jameson.[79] It was, of course, a shock to me, as such things are meant to be....

And now I come to what makes me tax you with a dull letter, I feeling so dully; and, dear, it is with dismay I have to tell you that the letter you addressed under cover to Mr. Russell has never reached us. Till your last communication (this moment received), I had hoped that the contents of it might have been less important than O.-papers must be. What is to be done, or thought? I beseech you to write and tell me if harm is likely to follow from this seizure. The other inclosure came to me quite safely, because it came by the Government messenger. I think you sent it through Corbet. But Mr. Russell's post letters are as liable to opening as mine are; his name is no security. Whenever you send a 'Nazione' newspaper through him, it never reaches us, though we receive our 'Monitore' through him regularly. Why? Because in his position he is allowed to have newspapers for his own use. He takes in for himself no 'Monitore,' so ours goes to his account, but he does take in a 'Nazione,' therefore ours is seized, as being plainly for other hands than his own licensed ones.

I am very much grieved about this loss of your letter and its contents. First, there's my fear lest harm should come of this, and then there's my own personal mulcting of what would have been of such deep interest to me. I am 'revelling'? See how little.

Robert wrote in a playful vein to Kate, and you must not and will not care for that. He had understood from your letter that you and the majority had all, like the 'Athenæum,' understood the 'Curse for a Nation' to be directed against England. Robert was furious about the 'Athenæum'; no other word describes him, and I thought that both I and Mr. Chorley would perish together, seeing that even the accusation (such a one!) made me infamous, it seemed.

The curious thing is, that it was at Robert's suggestion that that particular poem was reprinted there (it never had appeared in England), though 'Barkis was willing'; I had no manner of objection. I never have to justice.

Mr. Chorley's review is objectionable to me because unjust. A reviewer should read the book he gives judgment on, and he could not have read from beginning to end the particular poem in question, and have expounded its significance so. I wrote a letter on the subject to the 'Athenæum' to correct this mis-statement, which I cared for chiefly on Robert's account.

In fact, I cursed neither England nor America. I leave such things to our Holy Father here; the poem only pointed out how the curse was involved in the action of slave-holding.

I never saw Robert so enraged about a criticism. He is better now, let me add.

In the matter of Savoy,[80] it has vexed and vexes me, I do confess to you. It's a handle given to various kinds of dirty hands, it spoils the beauty and glory of much, the uncontested admiration of which would have done good to the world. At the same time, as long as Piedmont and Savoy agree in the annexation to France, there is nothing to object to—not to object to with a reasonable mind. And it seems to be understood (it is stated in fact), that the cession is under condition of the assent of the populations. The Vote is necessary to the honour of France. I do not doubt that it will be consulted. Meantime there is too much haste, I think. There is a haste somewhat indelicate in the introduction of French garrisons into Savoy, previous to the popular conclusion being known. There should have been mixed garrisons, French and Piedmontese, till the vote was taken. Napoleon should have been more particular in Savoy than he was even in central Italy, as to the advance of any occasion of the current charge of 'pressure.'

Altogether the subject is an anxious one—would be, even if less rancorous violence on the part of his enemies were wreaked upon it. The English Tories are using it with the frenzy of despair, and no wonder!

Lamoricière's arrival is another proof of the internal coalition against the Empire.

Now I must end, Robert says, or I shall lose the post. My true best love, and Robert's—and Peni's.

Write to me, do, dearest Isa, and tell me if the MSS. sent were nuisibles. The Excommunication just out is said to include the Emperor.

Your ever loving

Ba.

To Miss Browning

[Rome: about March 1860.]

Dearest Sarianna,—It is impossible to have a regret for dear Lady Elgin. She has been imprisoned here under double chains too long. To be out of the dark and the restraint is a blessing to that spirit, and must be felt so by all who love her. Of course I shall write to Lady Augusta Bruce....

No, I don't think there is much to be forgiven by my countrymen in my book. What I reproach them for, none of them deny. They certainly took no part in the war, nor will they if there is more war, and certainly the existence of the rifle clubs is a fact.

Robert and I began to write on the Italian question together, and our plan was (Robert's own suggestion!) to publish jointly. When I showed him my ode on Napoleon he observed that I was gentle to England in comparison to what he had been, but after Villafranca (the Palmerston Ministry having come in) he destroyed his poem and left me alone, and I determined to stand alone. What Robert had written no longer suited the moment; but the poetical devil in me burnt on for an utterance. I have spoken nothing but historical truths, as far as the outline is concerned. But the spirit of the whole, is, of course, opposed to the national feeling, or I should not in my preface suppose it to be offended.

With every deference to you, dearest Sarianna, I cannot think that you who live, as the English usually do, quite aside and apart from French society, can judge of the interest in France for Italy. I see French letters—letters of French men and women—giving a very contrary impression. The French newspapers give a very contrary impression. And the statistics of books and pamphlets published and circulated in France on the Italian question this year are in most prodigious disaccord with such a conclusion. Compare them with the same statistics in England, and then judge.

Besides, the English, to do them justice, can be active and generous in any cause in which they are really interested, and it is a fact that we could not get up a subscription in England even for Garibaldi's muskets lately, while France is always giving.

Not that there are not, and have not been, many English of generous sympathies towards Italy. That I well know. But it is a small, protesting minority. Lord John has done very well, as far as words can go, but it has been simply in giving effect to the intentions of France, who wanted much a respectable conservative Power like England to endorse her bill of revolution with the retrograde European Governments.

I will spare what I think of the treatment in England of the Savoy question. We are losing all moral prestige in the eyes of the world, with our small jealousies and factional struggles for power.

Ah! dear Sarianna, I don't complain for myself of an unappreciating public—I have no reason. But, just for that reason, I complain more about Robert, only he does not hear me complain. To you I may say, that the blindness, deafness, and stupidity of the English public to Robert are amazing. Of course Milsand had 'heard his name'! Well, the contrary would have been strange. Robert is. All England can't prevent his existence, I suppose. But nobody there, except a small knot of pre-Raffaelite men, pretends to do him justice. Mr. Forster has done the best in the press. As a sort of lion, Robert has his range in society, and, for the rest, you should see Chapman's returns; while in America he's a power, a writer, a poet. He is read—he lives in the hearts of the people. 'Browning readings' here in Boston; 'Browning evenings' there. For the rest, the English hunt lions too, Sarianna, but their favourite lions are chosen among 'lords' chiefly, or 'railroad kings.' 'It's worth eating much dirt,' said an Englishman of high family and character here, 'to get to Lady ——'s soirée.' Americans will eat dirt to get to us. There's the difference. English people will come and stare at me sometimes, but physicians, dentists, who serve me and refuse their fees, artists who give me pictures, friends who give up their carriages and make other practical sacrifices, are not English—no—though English Woolner was generous about a bust. Let me be just at least.

There is a beautiful photograph of Wilde's picture of Pen on horseback, which shall go to you, the likeness better than in the picture.

I can scarcely allude to the loss of my loved friend Mrs. Jameson. It's a blot more on the world to me. Best love to you and the dear Nonno from Pen and myself. The editor of the 'Atlas' writes to thank me for the justice and courage of my international politics. English clergyman stops at the door to say to the servant, 'he does not know me, but applauds my sentiments.' So there may be ten just persons who spare

Your affectionate sister.

To Miss I. Blagden

[Rome]: Saturday [April 1860].

My dearest dear Isa, not well! That must be the first word 'by return of post.' Dear, let me have a better letter, to say that you are well and bright again, and brilliant Isa as customary.

And now, join me in admiration of the 'husband Browning!' Isn't he a miracle, whoever else may be? The wife Browning, not to name most other human beings, would have certainly put the 'Monitore' receipt into the fire, or, at best, lost it. In fact, whisper it not in the streets of Askelon, but she had forgotten even the fact of its having been sent, and was quietly concluding that Wilson had lost it in a fog and that we should have patiently to pay twice. Not at all. Up rises the husband Browning, superior to his mate, and with eyes all fire, holds up the receipt like an heroic rifleman looking to a French invasion at the end of a hundred years. Blessed be they who keep receipts. It is a beatitude beyond my reach.

Only I do hope my Tuscan friends of the 'Monitore' are only careless and forgetful in their business habits, and that they didn't think of 'annexing'—eh, Isa! No, I don't believe it was dishonesty, it might have so very well been oblivion.

May the paper come to-day, that's all. We get the 'Galignani,' but can't afford to miss our Italian news. Then, not only we ourselves, but half a dozen Tuscan exiles here in Rome who are not allowed to read a freely breathed word, come to us for that paper, friends of Ferdinando's living in Rome. First he lent them the paper, then they got frightened for fear of being convicted through some spy of reading such a thing[81], and prayed to come to this house to read it. There have been six of them sometimes in the evening. We keep a sort of café in Rome, observe, and your 'Monitore' is necessary to us.

You have seen by this time Lamoricière's[82] address to the Papal array. It's extraordinary, while the French are still here, that such a publication should be permitted, obvious as the position taken must be to all, and personally displeasing to the Emperor as the man is known to be. Magnanimity is certainly a great feature of Napoleon's mind. And now what next? The French are going, of course. You would suppose an attack on Romagna imminent. And better so. Let us have it out at once.

I have the papers. I am much the better for some things in them. There's to be the universal suffrage, the withdrawal of troops, whatever I wanted. Cavour's despatch to the Swiss is also excellent. Those injured martyrs wanted the bone in their teeth, that's all.

The wailing in England for Swiss and Savoyards, while other nationalities are to be trodden under foot without intervention, except what's called aggression, is highly irritating to me.

Dearest Isa, Robert tore me from my last sentence to you. I was going to say that I cared less for the attacks of the press on my book than I care for your sympathy. Thank you for feeling 'mad' for me. But be sane again. Dear, it's not worth being mad for.

In the advertised 'Blackwood,' do you see an article called 'Poetic Aberration'? It came into my head that it might be a stone thrown at me, and Robert went to Monaldini's to glance at it. Sure enough it is a stone. He says a violent attack. And let me do him justice. It was only the misstatement in the 'Athenæum' which overset him, only the first fire which made him wink. Now he turns a hero's face to all this cannonading. He doesn't care a straw, he says, and what's more, he doesn't, really. So I, who was only sorry for him, can't care. Observe, Isa, if there had been less violence and more generosity, the poems would obviously have been less deserved.

The English were not always so thin-skinned. Lord Byron and Moore have....

[The rest of the letter is lost]

To Miss I. Blagden

Rome: April 2, [1860].

Ever dearest Isa,—Here are the letters! I am sorry I wrote rashly yesterday; but from an expression of yours I took for granted that the packet went by the post; and I have been really very anxious about it.

No, Isa; I don't like the tone of these letters so well. I can understand that what is said of Belgium and the Rhine provinces is in the event of a certain coalition and eventual complication, but it doesn't do, even in a thought and theory, to sacrifice a country like Belgium. I respect France, and 'l'idée Napoléonienne'; yes, but conscience and the populations more.

As to Napoleon's waiting for the bribe of Savoy before he would pass beyond Villafranca, this is making him ignoble; and I do not believe it in the least. Also it contradicts the letter-writer's previous letter, in which he said that Savoy had been from the beginning the sous entendre of Venetia. No, I can see that an Italy in unity, a great newly constituted nation, might be reasonably asked by her liberator to shift her frontier from beyond the Alps, but for Victor Emmanuel to be expected at Milan to put his hand into his pocket and pay, without completion of facts, or consultation of peoples, this would be to 'faire le marchand' indeed, and I could write no odes to a man who could act so. I don't sell my soul to Napoleon, and applaud him quand même. But absolutely I disbelieve in this version, Isa. If the war had not stopped at Villafranca, it would have been European; that, if not clear at the time, is clear now—clear from the official statement of Prussia. By putting diplomacy in the place of the war, a great deal was absolutely attained, besides a better standpoint for a renewal of the war, should that be necessary. 'Hence those tears'—of Villafranca!

The letter-writer is very keen, and evidently hears a good deal, while he selects after his own judgment. I am glad to hear that 'L'Opinion Nationale' represents the efficient power. That's comfortable. What's to be done next in the south here rests with us, it seems. But what of the occupation of Rome? And what is the meaning of Lamoricière being here 'with the consent of the Emperor'? Lamoricière can mean no good either to the French Government or to Italy; and the Emperor knows it well.

My dearest Isa, let us make haste to say that of course I shall be glad to let my book be used as is proposed. How will we get a copy to M. Fauvety? I enclose an order to Chapman and Hall which M. Dall' Ongaro[83] may enclose to his friend, who must enclose it on to England, with a letter conveying his address in Paris. Then the book may be sent by the book post. Wouldn't that do?

I shall give a copy to Dall' Ongaro (when I can get a supply), and one for the Trollopes also, never forgetting dear Kate! (and I do expect copies through the embassy) but I have not seen a word of the book yet. I only know that, being Cæsar's wife, I am not merely 'suspected' (poor wife!), but dishonored before the 'Athenæum' world as an unnatural vixen, who, instead of staying at home and spinning wool, stays at home[84] and curses her own land. 'It is my own, my native land!' If, indeed, I had gone abroad and cursed other people's lands, there would have been no objection. That poem, as addressed to America, has always been considered rather an amiable and domestic trait on my part. But England! Heavens and earth! What a crime! The very suspicion of it is guilt.

The fact is, between you and me, Isa, certain of those quoted stanzas do 'fit' England 'as if they were made for her,' which they were not, though....

According to your letters, Venetia seems pushed off into the future a little, don't you think?

Still, they are interesting, very. Get Dall' Ongaro to remember me in future. The details about Antonelli shall go to him. I am delighted at the idea of being translated by him....

Write to me, my dearly loved Isa. You who are true! let me touch you!

Yours ever from the heart

Ba.

To Miss I. Blagden

28 Via del Tritone: Monday and Tuesday [April 1860].

Ever dearest Isa,—I send you under this enclosure an abstract of some papers given to me by somebody who can't be named, with a sketch of Antonelli. I wasn't allowed to copy; I was only to abstract. But everything is in. The whole has been verified and may be absolutely relied on, I hear. So long I have waited for them. Should I have translated them into Italian, I wonder? Or can Dall' Ongaro get to the bottom of them so? Dates of birth are not mentioned, I observe. From another quarter I may get those. About has the character of romancing a little.

Not a word do you say of your health. Do another time. Remember that your previous letter left you in bed.

Dearest Isa, how it touched me, your putting away the 'Saturday Review'! But dear, don't care more for me than I do for myself. That very Review, lent to us, we lent to the Storys. Dear, the abuse of the press is the justification of the poems; so don't be reserved about these attacks. I was a little, little vexed by a letter this morning from my brother George; but pazienza, we must bear these things. Robert called yesterday on Odo Russell, who observed to him that the article in the 'Saturday Review' was infamous, and that the general tone of the newspaper had grown to be so offensive, he should cease to take it in. (Not on my account, observe.) 'But,' said Mr. Russell, 'it's extraordinary, the sensation your wife's book has made. Every paper I see has something to say about it,' added he; 'it is curious. The offence has been less in the objections to England than in the praise of Napoleon. Certainly Monckton Milnes said a good thing when he was asked lately in Paris what, after all, you English wanted. "We want" he answered, "first, that the Austrians should beat you French thoroughly; next, we want that the Italians should be free, and then we want them to be very grateful to us for doing nothing towards it." This, concluded Russell, 'sums up the whole question.' Mark, he is very English, but he can't help seeing what lies before him, having quick perceptions, moreover. Then men have no courage. Milnes, for instance, keeps his sarcasm for Paris, and in England supports his rifle club and all Parliamentary decencies.

Mind you read 'Blackwood.' Though I was rather vexed by George's letter (he is awfully vexed) I couldn't help laughing at my sister Henrietta, who accepts the interpretation of the 'Athenæum' (having read the poems) and exclaims, 'But, oh, Ba, such dreadful curses!'...

Mrs. Apthorp has arrived, but I have not seen her nor received the paper. Pins were right, though I should have liked some smaller. 'Monitores' arrived up at the 12. Beyond, nothing. I hear that Mr. Apthorp was struck with the 'brilliant conversation between you and Miss Cobbe.' You made an impression too, on Mrs. Apthorp.

Oh, Isa, how I should like to be with you in our Florence to-day. Yes, yes, I think of you. Here the day is gloomy, and with a sprinkling now and then of rain. I trust you may have more sun. God bless the city and the hills, and the people who dwell therein!

I have just sent a lyric to Thackeray for his magazine.[85] He begged me for something long ago. Robert suggested that now he probably wanted nothing from such profane hands. So I told him that in that case he might send me back my manuscripts. In the more favorable case it may be still too late for this month. The poem is 'meek as maid,' though the last thing I wrote—no touch of 'Deborah'—'A Musical Instrument.' How good this 'Cornhill Magazine' is! Anthony Trollope is really superb.[86] I only just got leave from Robert to send something: he is so averse to the periodicals as mediums....

Lamoricière's arrival produces a painful sensation among the people here; and the withdrawal of the French troops has become most unpopular. I am anxious. If the Emperor has consented to his coming, it was pure magnanimity, and very characteristic; but the cost of this should be paid by France and not Italy, we must feel besides. I am content about Savoy.

Dearest Isa, you and your 'Saturday Reviewer' shall have Robert's portrait. Are you sure he didn't ask for mine? How good you are to us and Landor! God bless you, says

Your tenderly loving

Ba.

To Mr. Chorley

28 Via del Tritone, Rome: April 13, [1860].

My dear Mr. Chorley,—It is always better to be frank than otherwise; sometimes it is necessary to be frank—that is when one would fain keep a friend, yet has a thing against him which burns in one. I shall put my foot on this spark in a moment; but first I must throw it out of my heart you see, and here it is.

Dearest Mr. Chorley, you have not been just to me in the matter of my 'Poems before Congress.' Why have you not been just to me? You are an honest man and my friend. Those two things might go together. Your opinions, critical or political, are free from stress of friendship. I never expected from you favor or mercy because you were my friend (it would have been unworthy of us both) but I did expect justice from you, although you were my friend. That is reasonable.

And I consider that as a conscientious critic you were bound to read through the whole of the 'rhyme' called 'A Curse for a Nation' before ticketing it for the public, and I complain that after neglecting to do so and making a mistake in consequence, you refused the poor amends of printing my letter in full. A loose paragraph like this found to-day in your 'Athenæum' about Mrs. Browning 'wishing to state' that the 'Curse' was levelled at America quoad negro-slavery, and the satisfaction of her English readers in this correction of what was 'generally thought'; as if Mrs. Browning 'stated' it arbitrarily (perhaps from fright) and as if the poem stated nothing distinctly, and as if the intention of it could be 'generally thought' what the 'Athenæum' critic took it to be, except by following his lead or adopting his process of a general skipping of half the said poem—this loose paragraph does not cover a great fault, it seems to me. Well, I have spoken.

As to the extent of the 'general thought,' we cannot, of course judge here, where it is so difficult to get access to periodicals. We have seen, however, two virulent articles from enemies in 'Blackwood' and the 'Saturday Review,' the latter sparing none of its native mud through three columns; not to speak of a renewal of the charge in several political articles with a most flattering persistency. Both these writers (being enemies) keep clear of the 'general thought' suggested by a friend, and accepted indeed by friendly and generous reviewers in the 'Atlas' and 'Daily News.' Therefore I feel perfectly unaggrieved by all the enemies' hard words. They speak from their own point of view, and have a right to speak.

In fact, in printing the poems, I did not expect to help my reputation in England, but simply to deliver my soul, to get the relief to my conscience and heart, which comes from a pent-up word spoken or a tear shed. Whatever I may have ever written of the least worth has represented a conviction in me, something in me felt as a truth. I never wrote to please any of you, not even to please my own husband. Every genuine artist in the world (whatever his degree) goes to heaven for speaking the truth. It is one of the beatitudes of art, and attainable without putting off the flesh.

To be plain, and not mystical, it is obvious that if I had expected compliments and caresses from the English press to my 'Poems before Congress,' the said poems would have been little deserved in England, and a greater mistake on my part than any committed by the 'Athenæum,' which is saying much.

There! I have done. The spark is under my shoe. If in 'losing my temper' I have 'lost my music,' don't let it be said that I have lost my friend by my own fault and choice also.

For I would not willingly lose him, though he should be unjust to me thrice, instead of this once throughout our intercourse. Affectionately yours, dear Mr. Chorley,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

To Mr. Chorley

28 Via del Tritone, Rome: May 2, [1860].

My dear Mr. Chorley,—I make haste to answer your letter, and beg you to do the like in putting out of your life the least touch of pain or bitterness connected with me. It is true, true, true, that some of my earliest gladness in literary sympathy and recognition came from you. I was grateful to you then as a stranger, and I am not likely ever to forget it as a friend. Believe this of me, as I feel it of you.

In the matter of reviews and of my last book, and before leaving the subject for ever, I want you distinctly to understand that my complaint related simply to the mistake in facts, and not to any mistake in opinion. The quality of neither mercy nor justice should be strained in the honest reviewer by the personal motive; and, because you felt a regard for me, that was no kind of reason why you should like my book.

In printing the poems, I well knew the storm of execration which would follow. Your zephyr from the 'Athenæum' was the first of it, gentle indeed in comparison with various gusts from other quarters. All fair it was from your standpoint, to see me as a prophet without a head, or even as a woman in a shrewish temper, and if my husband had not been especially pained by my being held up at the end of a fork as the unnatural she-monster who had 'cursed' her own country (following the Holy Father), I should have left the 'mistake' to right itself, without troubling the 'Athenæum' office with the letter they would not insert. In fact, Robert was a little vexed with me for not being vexed enough. I was only vexed enough when the 'Athenæum' corrected its misstatement in its own way. That did extremely vex me, for it made me look ungenerous, cowardly, mean—as if, in haste to escape from the dogs in England, I threw them the good name of America. 'Mrs. Browning now states.'

Well, dear Mr. Chorley, it was not your doing. So the thing that 'vexed me enough' in you was a mistake of mine. Let us forgive one another our mistakes; and there, an end. I was wrong in taking for granted that the letter which referred to your review was entrusted to you to dispose of; and you were not right in being in too much haste to condemn a book you disliked to give the due measure of attention to every page of it. The insurgents being plainly insurgents, you shot one at least of them without trial, as was done in Spain the other day. True, that even favorable critics have fallen here and there into your very mistake; but is not that mainly attributable to the suggestive power of the 'Athenæum,' do you not believe so yourself? 'Thais led the way!'

And now that we clasp hands again, my dear friend, let me say one word as to the 'argument' of my last poems. Once, in a kind and generous review of 'Aurora Leigh,' you complained a little of 'new lights.' Now I appeal to you. Is it not rather you than I, who deal in 'new lights,' if the liberation of a people and the struggle of a nation for existence have ceased in your mind to be the right arguments for poetry? Observe, I may be wrong or right about Napoleon. He may be snake, scoundrel, devil, in his motives. But the thing he did was done before the eyes of all. His coming here was real, the stroke of his sword was indubitable, the rising and struggle of the people was beyond controversy, and the state of things at present is a fact. What if the father of poetry Homer (to go back to the oldest lights) made a mistake about the cause of Achilles' wrath. What if Achilles really wanted to get rid of Briseis and the war together, and sulked in his tent in a great sham? Should we conclude against the artistic propriety of the poet's argument therefore?

You greatly surprise me by such objections. It is objected to 'new lights,' as far as I know, that we are apt to be too metaphysical, self-conscious, subjective, everything for which there are hard German words. The reproaches made against myself have been often of this nature, as you must be well aware. 'Beyond human sympathies' is a phrase in use among critics of a certain school. But that, in any school, any critic should consider the occasions of great tragic movements (such as a war for the life of a nation) unfit occasions for poetry, improper arguments, fills me with an astonishment which I can scarcely express adequately, and, pardon me, I can only understand your objection by a sad return on the English persistency in its mode of looking at the Italian war. You have looked at it always too much as a mere table for throwing dice—so much for France's ambition, so much for Piedmont's, so much stuff for intrigue in an English Parliament for ousting Whigs, or inning Conservatives. You have not realised to yourselves the dreadful struggle for national life, you who, thank God, have your life as a nation safe. A calm scholastic Italian friend of ours said to my husband at the peace, 'It's sad to think how the madhouses will fill after this.' You do not conceive clearly the agony of a whole people with their house on fire, though Lord Brougham used that very figure to recommend your international neutrality. No, if you conceived of it, if you did not dispose of it lightly in your thoughts as of a Roccabella conspiracy, full half vanity, and only half serious—a Mazzini explosion, not a quarter justified, and taking place often on an affair of métier—you, a thoughtful and feeling man, would cry aloud that if poets represent the deepest things, the most tragic things in human life, they need not go further for an argument. And I say, my dear Mr. Chorley, that if, while such things are done and suffered, the poet's business is to rhyme the stars and walk apart, I say that Mr. Carlyle is right, and that the world requires more earnest workers than such dreamers can be.

For my part, I have always conceived otherwise of poetry. I believe that if anything written by me has been recognised even by you, the cause is that I have written not to please you or any critic, but the deepest truth out of my own heart and head. I don't dream and make a poem of it. Art is not either all beauty or all use, it is essential truth which makes its way through beauty into use. Not that I say this for myself. Artistically, I may have failed in these poems—that is for the critic to consider; but in the choice of their argument I have not failed artistically, I think, or my whole artistic life and understanding of life have failed.

There, I cannot persuade you of this, but I believe it. I have tried to stand on the facts of things before I began to feel 'dithyrambically.' Thought out coldly, then felt upon warmly. I will not admit of 'being heated out of fairness!' I deny it, and stand upon my innocency.

And after all, 'Casa Guidi Windows' was a book that commended itself to you, Mr. Chorley.

[The rest of this letter is missing]

To John Forster

28 Via del Tritone, Rome: Monday [May 1860].

I have tried and taken pains to see the truth, and have spoken it as I have seemed to see it. If the issue of events shall prove me wrong about the E. Napoleon, the worse for him, I am bold to say, rather than for me, who have honored him only because I believed his intentions worthy of the honor of honest souls.

If he lives long enough, he will explain himself to all. So far, I cannot help persisting in certain of my views, because they have been held long enough to be justified by the past on many points. The intervention in Italy, while it overwhelmed with joy, did not dazzle me into doubts of the motive of it, but satisfied a patient expectation and fulfilled a logical inference. Thus it did not present itself to my mind as a caprice of power, to be followed perhaps by an onslaught on Belgium, and an invasion of England. These things were out of the beat; and are. There may follow Hungarian, Polish, or other questions—but there won't follow an English question unless the English make it, which, I grieve to think, looks every day less impossible.

Dear Mr. F., have you read 'La Foi des Traités,' written, some of it, by L.N.'s own hand? Do you consider About's 'Carte de l'Europe' (as the 'Times' does) 'a dull jeu d'esprit'? The wit isn't dull, and the serious intention, hid in those mummy wrappings, is not inauthentic. Official—certainly not; but Napoleonic—yes. I believe so. And I seem to myself to have strong reasons.

But you are sorry that Cavour loves popularity in England. I cried rather bitterly, 'Better so!' A complete injustice comes to nearly the same thing as a complete justice. Have we not watched for a year while every saddle of iniquity has been tried on the Napoleonic back, and nothing fitted? Wasn't he to crush Piedmontese institutions like so many egg-shells? Was he ever going away with his army, and hadn't he occupied houses in Genoa with an intention of bombarding the city? Didn't he keep troops in the north after Villafranca on purpose to come down on us with a Grand Duke at best, or otherwise with a swamping Kingdom of Etruria and Plon-Plon to rule it? and wouldn't he give back Bologna to the Pope bound by seven devils fiercer than the first, and prove Austria bettered by Solferino? Also, were not Cipriani, Farini, and other patriots, his 'mere creatures' in treacherous correspondence with the Tuileries; 'doing his dirty work,' 'keeping things in suspense' till destruction should arrange itself on falsehood? Have I not read and heard from the most intelligent English journals, and the best-informed English politicians (men with one foot and two ears in the Cabinet) these true things written and repeated, and watched while they died out into the Vast Inane and Immense Absurd from which they were born?

So I would rather have a rounded, complete injustice, as we can't have the complete justice. After all, the thing done is only a nation saved. Hurry up the men who did it on the same cord! Ought not Cavour to be there?

And if the Savoy cession is a crime, he is criminal, he, who undeniably from the beginning contemplated it, not as the price of the war, but as the condition of a newly constituted Italy. And the condition implies more than is understood, more than the consenting parties dare to confess—can at present afford to confess—unless I am deceived by information, which has hitherto justified itself in the event. Be patient with me one moment—for if I differ from you, I seem to have access to another class of facts than you see. If Italy, for instance, expands itself to a nation of twenty-six millions, would you blame the Emperor who 'did it all' (Cavour's own phrase) for providing an answer to his own people in some small foresight about the frontier, when in the course of fifty or a hundred years they may reproach his memory with the existence of an oppressive rival or enemy next door? Mr. Russell said to me last January 'Everything that comes out proves the Emperor to have acted towards Italy like an Italian rather than a Frenchman.' At which we applaud; that is, you, and Mr. R., and I, and the Italians generally applaud. But—let us be just—that would not be a satisfactory opinion in France of the Head of the State, would it, do you think? It was obviously his duty not to be negligent of certain eventualities in the case of his own country, to be a 'Frenchman' there.

Oh, Savoy has given me pain: and I would rather for the world's sake that a great action had remained out of reach of the hypothetical whispers of depreciators. I would rather not hear Robert say, for instance: 'It was a great action; but he has taken eighteenpence for it, which is a pity.' I don't think this judgment fair—and much worse judgments are passed than that, which is very painful. But, after all, this thing may have been a necessary duty on L.N.'s part, and I can understand that it was so. For this loss of the Italians, that is not to be dwelt on; while for the Savoyards, none knew better than Cavour (not even L.N.) the leaning of those populations towards France for years back; it has been an inconvenient element of his government. Whether there are or are not natural frontiers, there are natural barriers, and the Alps hinder trade and make direct influence difficult; and what the popular vote would be nobody here doubted. Be sure that nobody did in Switzerland. The Swiss have been insincere, it seems to me—talking of terror when they thought chiefly of territory. But I feel tenderly for poor heroic Garibaldi, who has suffered, he and his minority. He is not a man of much brain; which makes the subject the more cruel to him. But I can't write of Garibaldi this morning, so anxious we are after an unpleasant despatch yesterday. He is a hero, and has led a forlorn hope out to Sicily, to succeed for Italy, or to fail for himself. It's 'imprudence,' if he fails: if otherwise, who shall praise him enough? it's salvation and glory.

To Miss E.F. Haworth

[Rome], 28 Via del Tritone: May 18, 1860 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,—It seems to me that you have drunk so much England, which cheers and inebriates, as to have forgotten your Italian friends. Here have I been waiting with my load of gratitude, till my shoulders ache under it, not knowing to what address to carry it! Sarianna sent me one address of your London lodgings, with the satisfactory addition that you were about to move immediately. You really might have written to me before, unkindest and falsest of Fannies! Or else (understand) you should not have sent me those graceful and suggestive drawings, for which only now I am able to thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was very kind of you to let me have them.

Then, pray how did you get my 'Poems before Congress'? Was I not to send you an order? Here I send one at least, whether you scorn my gift or not; and by this sign you will inherit also an 'Aurora Leigh.'

Yes, I expected nothing better from the 'British public,' which, strictly conforming itself to the higher civilisation of the age, gives sympathy only where it gives 'the belt.'[87] As the favorite hero says in his last eloquent letter, 'In all my actions, whether in private or public life, may I be worthy of having had the honor ... of a notice in the "Times,"' he concludes 'of the abuse of the "Saturday Review"' &c., &c., say I.

For the rest, being turned out of the old world, I fall on my feet in the new world, where people have been generous, and even publishers turned liberal. Think of my having an offer (on the ground of that book) from a periodical in New York of a hundred dollars for every single poem, though as short as a sonnet—that is, for its merely passing through their pages on the road to the publisher's proper. Oh, I shall cry aloud and boast, since people choose to abuse me. Did you see how I was treated in 'Blackwood'? In fact, you and all women, though you hated me, should be vexed on your own accounts. As for me, it's only what I expected, and I have had that deep satisfaction of 'speaking though I died for it,' which we are all apt to aspire to now and then. Do you know I was half inclined to send my little book to Mr. Cobden, and then I drew back into my shell, with native snail-shyness.

We remain here till the end of May, when we remove back to Florence. Meanwhile I am in great anxiety about Sicily. Garibaldi's hardy enterprise may be followed by difficult complications.

Let us talk away from politics, which set my heart beating uncomfortably, and don't particularly amuse you....

Have you read the 'Mill on the Floss,' and what of it? The author is here, they say, with her elective affinity, and is seen on the Corso walking, or in the Vatican musing. Always together. They are said to visit nobody, and to be beheld only at unawares. Theodore Parker removed to Florence in an extremity of ill-health, and is dead there. I feel very sorry. There was something high and noble about the man—though he was not deep in proportion. Hatty Hosmer has arrived in America, and found her father alive and better, but threatened with another attack which must be final. Gibson came to us yesterday, and we agreed that we never found him so interesting. I grieve to hear that Mr. Page's pictures (another Venus and a Moses) have been rejected at your Academy.

Robert deserves no reproaches, for he has been writing a good deal this winter—working at a long poem[88] which I have not seen a line of, and producing short lyrics which I have seen, and may declare worthy of him. For me, if I have attained anything of force and freedom by living near the oak, the better for me. But I hope you don't think that I mimic [him, or] lose my individuality. [Penini] sends his love with Robert's. [He ri]des his pony and learns his Latin and looks as pretty as ever—to my way of [thinking]. If you don't write directly, address to Florence.

We have another thick Indian letter for you, but Robert is afraid of sending it till you give us a safe address.

To Miss I. Blagden

[Rome: about May 1860.]

[The beginning of this letter is wanting]

When the English were raging about Savoy, I heard a word or two from Pantaleone which convinced me that the Imperial wickedness did not strike him as the sin against the Holy Ghost precisely. In fact, I doubt much that he (an intimate friend of Massimo d' Azeglio) knew all about it before the war.

By the by, why does Azeglio write against Rome being the capital just now? It seems to us all very ill-advised. Italy may hereafter select the capital she pleases, but now her game ought to be to get Rome, as an indispensable part of the play, as soon as possible. There are great difficulties in the way—that's very sure. It's quite time, indeed, that Mrs. Trollope's heart should warm a little towards the Emperor, for no ruler has risked so much for a nation to which he did not belong (unless he wished to conquer it) as Napoleon has for this nation. He has been tortuous in certain respects—in the official presentation of the points he was resolute on carrying—but from first to last there has been one steady intention—the liberation of Italy without the confusion of a general war. Moreover, his eyes are upon Venice, and have been since Villafranca. What I see in the very suggestion to England about stopping Garibaldi from attacking the mainland was a preparation to the English mind towards receiving the consequence of unity, namely, the seizure of Venice. 'You must be prepared for that. You see where you are going? You won't cry out when France joins her ally again!' Lord John didn't see the necessity. No, of course he didn't. He never does see except what he runs against. He protested to the last (by the Blue Book) against G.'s attack; he was of opinion, to the last, that Italy would be better in two kingdoms. But he wouldn't intervene. In which he was perfectly right, of course, only that people should see where their road goes even when they walk straight. And mark, if France had herself prevented Garibaldi's landing, Lord John would simply have 'protested.' He said so. France might have done it without the least inconvenience, therefore, and she did not. She confined herself to observing that if V.E. might have Naples, he must have Venice, and that there could be no good in objecting to logical necessities of accepted situations. In spite of which, every sort of weight was hung on the arms of France that no aid should be given for Venetia. Certain things written to Austria, and uttered through Lord Cowley, I can't forgive Lord John for; my heart does not warm, except with rage. To think of writing only the other day to an Austrian Court: 'All we can do for you is to use our strongest influence with France that she should not help Italy against you in Venetia. And in our opinion you will always be strong enough to baffle Italy. Italy can't fight you alone.' The words I am not sure of, but the idea is a transcript. And the threats uttered through Lord Cowley were worse—morally hideous, I think.

Napoleon's position in France is hard enough of itself. Forty thousand priests, with bishops of the colour of Mon. d'Orléans and company, having, of course, a certain hold on the agricultural population which forms so large a part of the basis of the imperial throne. Then add to that the parties the 'Liberals' (so called) and others, who use this question as a weapon simply. In the Senate and Legislative Body they haven't forgotten how to talk, have they—these French? The passion and confusion seem to have been extreme. After all, we shall get a working majority, I do hope and trust, for all the intelligent supporters of the Government are with us, and the Chamber will be dissolved at need. There is talk of it already in Rome....

At last we see your advertisement. Viva 'Agnes Tremorne'![89] We find it in 'Orley Farm.' How admirably this last opens! We are both delighted with it. What a pity it is that so powerful and idiomatic a writer should be so incorrect grammatically and scholastically speaking! Robert insists on my putting down such phrases as these: 'The Cleeve was distant from Orley two miles, though it could not be driven under five.' 'One rises up the hill.' 'As good as him.' 'Possessing more acquirements than he would have learned at Harrow.' Learning acquirements! Yes, they are faults, and should be put away by a first-rate writer like Anthony Trollope. It's always worth while to be correct. But do understand through the pedantry of these remarks that we are full of admiration for the book. The movement is so excellent and straightforward—walking like a man, and 'rising up-hill,' and not going round and round, as Thackeray has taken to do lately. He's clever always, but he goes round and round till I'm dizzy, for one, and don't know where I am. I think somebody has tied him up to a post, leaving a tether. Dearest Isa, the day before yesterday I had two letters from Madame M—— to ask us to take rooms. He is coming directly to Rome. She says he has much to tell me, and it's evident, of course, that an Italian senator, native to the Roman States, wouldn't come here just now without mission or permission. I am full of expectation, but will say no more.

Dearest Isa, have I been long in writing indeed? You see, I let so many letters accumulate which I hadn't the heart to reply to, that, on taking up the account, I had over much to do in writing letters. Then I have been working a little at some Italian lyrics. Three more are gone lately to the 'Independent,' and another is ready to go. All this, with helping Pen to prepare for the Abbé, has filled my hands, and they are soon tired, my Isa, nowadays. When the sun goes down, I am down. At eight I generally am in bed, or little after. And people will come in occasionally in the day, and annul me. I had a visit from Lady Annabella Noel lately, Lord Byron's granddaughter. Very quiet, and very intense, I should say. She is going away, and I shall not see her more than that once, I dare say; but she looked at me so with her still deep eyes, and spoke so feelingly, that I kissed her when she went away. Another new acquaintance is Lady Marion Alford, the Marquis of Northampton's daughter, very eager about literature and art and Robert, for all which reasons I should care for her; also Hatty calls her divine. I thought there was the least touch of affectation of fussiness, but it may not be so. She knelt down before Hatty the other day and gave her—placed on her finger—the most splendid ring you can imagine, a ruby in the form of a heart, surrounded and crowned with diamonds. Hatty is frankly delighted, and says so with all sorts of fantastical exaggerations.

Tell me what you think of the photographs which Robert sends, with his best love. I think the head perfect, and the other very poetical and picturesque. I wish I had mine to send Kate, tell her with my dear love, but I have not one, nor can get one. Perhaps I may have to sit again before leaving Rome, and then she shall be remembered. And Robert will give her his.

Pray don't apologise for your Borden. He is very much to be liked. Mrs. Bruen is charmed. He has been three times to talk with me, and Robert has called on him twice. Robert is quite vexed at your 'pretension' about having friends not good enough for his acquaintance. Yes, really he was vexed. 'Isa never understood him—not she!'

Is there not reason, we may murmur? But the truth is he is always ready (be pleased to know) to honour your drafts in acquaintanceship, and chooses to be considered ready.

[The remainder of this letter is wanting]

To Miss E.F. Haworth

Florence: June 16, 1860 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,—I must use my opportunity of sending you these photographs, because I think you will care to have them. Peni is himself, not a likeness, but an identity. I, like a devil, or the Emperor Napoleon, am not as black as I seem; but Pen looks lovely enough to satisfy my vanity.

Your Indian poet's letter was despatched to you from Rome, and 'so Apollo saved me.' Oh—if you knew how I hate giving opinions! I think a poet's opinion of another poet should be paid by some triple fee. I, at least, always feel that after being ingenuous on these occasions and advising persons who can barely spell against publishing their epic poems, one is supposed to be secretly influenced by the fear of a rival or worse. Give me a triple fee.

Poor dearest Fanny, of course you are in the chain; being in England. You are moved to set down the Emperor as 'the Beast' 666, of course. If he crushes 'Garibaldi you must give him up.' Yes; but what an If. If you stab Miss Heaton with a golden bodkin, right through the heart, under circumstances of peculiar cruelty, I shall have to give up you. If I bake Penini in a pie and eat him, you'll have to give up me.

The Emperor Napoleon is faithful and will be faithful to the Italian cause, and to the cause of the nationalities, as long as and wherever it is prudent, for the general interest; possible without dangerous complications. He has risked enough for it, to be trusted a little I think—his life and dynasty certainly. At this moment I hear from Rome of a great dinner given by Lamoricière to his staff, or by his staff to him (I don't know which), only that the health of Henri Cinq was suggested and drunk at it. Gorgon telegraphed the news to Paris. What then? English newspapers (even such papers as the 'Daily News') have stated that Lamoricière was doing Napoleonic business at Rome. Perhaps this is of it.

Chapman junior is in Florence (doing business upon Lever I believe), and he maintains that I have done myself no mortal harm by the Congress poems, which incline to a second edition after all. Had it been otherwise I yet never should have repented speaking the word out of me which burnt in me. Printing that book did me real good. For the rest 'Aurora Leigh' is in the press for a fifth edition. Read the 'Word for Truth by a Seaman,' written by a naval officer of high reputation.

We left Rome on the 4th of June, and travelled by vettura through Orvieto and Chiusi. Beautiful scenery, interesting pictures and tombs, but a fatiguing journey. At least, Pen's pony and I were both of us unusually fatigued, and scarcely, at the end of a week, am I myself yet. I am not as strong since my illness last summer. We stay here till the early part of July and then remove to Siena, to the villa we had last year; and there Pen keeps tryst with his Abbé and the Latin. He has made great progress this winter in Latin and much besides, and he isn't going to be a 'wretched little Papist,' as some of our friends precipitately conclude from the fact of his having a priest for a tutor. Indeed Pen has to be restrained into politeness and tolerance towards ecclesiastical dignities. Think of his addressing his instructor (who complained of the weather at Rome one morning) thus—in choice Tuscan: 'Of course it's the excommunication. The prophet says that a curse begins with the curser's own house; and so it is with the Holy Father's curse.' Wasn't that clever of Pen? and impertinent, but our Abbé only tried at gravity; he sympathises secretly with the insorgimento d' Italia, and besides is very fond of Pen. Poor Pen, 'innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,' how his mama has been wickedly cursing her native country (after Chorley)! It's hard upon me, Fanny, that you won't tell me of the spirits, you who can see. Here is even Robert, whose heart softens to the point of letting me have the 'Spiritual Magazine' from England. Do knock at Mrs. Milner Gibson's doors till you get to see the 'hands' and the 'heads' and the 'bodies' and the 'celestial garlands' which she has the privilege of being familiar with. Touch the hands. Has Mr. Monckton Milnes seen anything so as to believe? Is it true that Lord Lyndhurst was lifted up in a chair? Does he believe? I hear through Mr. Trollope and Chapman that Edwin Landseer has received the faith, and did everything possible to persuade Dickens to investigate, which Dickens refused. Afraid of the truth, of course, having deeply committed himself to negatives. This is a moral lâcheté, hard for my feminine mind to conceive of. Dickens, too, who is so fond of ghost-stories, as long as they are impossible....

I can scarcely imagine the summer's passing without a struggle on the Continent of Italy. It can't be, I think. At least we are prepared for it here.

We find Wilson well. Mr. Landor also. He had thrown a dinner out of the window only once, and a few things of the kind, but he lives in a chronic state of ingratitude to the whole world except Robert, who waits for his turn. I am glad to think that poor Mr. Landor is well; unsympathetical to me as he is in his morale. He has the most beautiful sea-foam of a beard you ever saw, all in a curl and white bubblement of beauty. He informed us the other morning that he had 'quite given up thinking of a future state—he had had thoughts of it once, but that was very early in life.' Mr. Kirkup (who is deafer than a post now) tries in vain to convert him to the spiritual doctrine. Landor laughs so loud in reply that Kirkup hears him.

Pray keep Mr. —— off till we have settled the independence and unity of Italy. It isn't the hour for peace, and we don't want a second Villafranca. By the way, I dare say nobody in England lays his face in the dust and acknowledges, in consequence of the official declaration of the Prussian Minister (to the effect that Prussia was to attack on the crossing of the Mincio, and that nothing but the unexpected conclusion of hostilities hindered the general war)—acknowledges that Napoleon stands fully justified in making that peace. I cannot expect so much justice in an Englishman. He would rather bury his past mistake in a present mistake than simply confess it.

Now no more. May God bless you! Do be happy, and do write to me. We talk of Paris and England for next year.

Your very affectionate

Ba.

Robert's love and Pen's.

To Miss Browning

[Florence: about June 1860.]

I didn't write last time, dearest Sarianna, not only because of being over-busy or over-tired, but because I had not the heart that day. Peni had another touch of fever, and was forced to have a doctor and cataplasms to his feet. It was only a day's anxiety, but I didn't like writing just then. He had been in the sun or the wind or something. I was glad to get away from Rome. There were two cases of fever in our courtyard, and both the sun and the shade were suspectés. As far as Pen is concerned, the evil was averted, and I assure you he is looking in the full bloom of health, and we have been congratulated on all sides on his appearance and growth since we returned to Florence. Riding so much has agreed well with him; and the general results of the Roman campaign cannot be said to be otherwise than favourable. Set down as much for Robert. Everybody exclaims at his stoutness. In fact, never since I have known him has he condescended to put on such an air of robustness, there's no other word for it. Shall we give the glory to Rome, or to nux, to which he is constant. For two years and a half he has had recourse to no other remedy, and it has not yet failed to produce its effect. How do you unbelievers account for that? At the same time, I never would think of using it in any active or inflammatory malady, and where a sudden revolution or scosso is required from the remedial agent.

We find poor Mr. Landor tolerably amenable to Wilson, and well in health, though he can't live more than three months, he says, and except when Robert keeps him soothed by quoting his own works to him, considers himself in a very wretched condition, which is a sort of satisfaction too. He is a man of great genius, and we owe him every attention on that ground. Otherwise I confess to you he is to me eminently unsympathetic....

If —— 'turns Catholic,' as you say, on the ground of the organisation of certain institutions, it will be a proof of very peculiar ignorance. This power of organisation is French, and not Catholic. You look for it in vain in Rome, for instance, except where the organisation comes from France. The sœurs de charité, who are of all Catholic nations, are organised entirely by the French. The institutions here are branch institutions. In Rome the tendency of everything is to confusion and 'individuality' with separate pockets. Lamoricière was in despair at it all, and even now people talk of his resigning, though he gave a dinner the other day to his staff, with the toast of 'Henri Cinq.'

Individuality is an excellent thing in its place, and an infamous thing out of it. In England we have some very successful efforts at organisation—the post office, which is nearly perfect, and society, in which the demarcation between class and class is much too perfect to be humane. In other respects we are apt to fail.

We do not fail, however, in organisation only with regard to these charitable institutions. We are very hard and unsympathetic in them. A distinguished woman has been here lately—a Miss Cobbe (a fellow-worker with Miss Carpenter)—who, having overworked herself, was forced by her physician to come here for three months and rest, under dire penalties. She went to Isa Blagden's, and returned to England and her work just now. She is very acute, and so perfectly without Continental prejudices, that she didn't pretend to much interest even in our Italian movement, having her heart in England and with the poor. But she was much struck, not merely with the order of foreign institutions, but with their superior tenderness and sympathy. The account she gave of the English workhouses and hospitals was very sad, very cruel, corresponding, in fact, to what I have heard from other quarters.

Ah, Sarianna, 'charming old men' who call the Tuscans angels, except that they lie (what an exception!), can be mistaken like others. That passes for 'liberality,' does it? We are not angels, and we don't lie—there's no more lying in Italy than in England, I begin to affirm. Also, M. Tassinari was in prison, not a week but a month—and well did he deserve it. We deal now in French coinage, and are to see no more pauls after the middle of next month. Robert thinks it will destroy the last vestige of our cheapness, but I am very favorable to a unification of international coinage. It agrees with my theories, you know.

We are all talking and dreaming Garibaldi just now in great anxiety. Scarcely since the world was a world has there been such a feat of arms. All modern heroes grow pale before him. It was necessary, however, for us all even here, and at Turin just as in Paris, to be ready to disavow him. The whole good of Central Italy was hazarded by it. If it had not been success it would have been an evil beyond failure. The enterprise was forlorner than a forlorn hope. The hero, if he had perished, would scarcely have been sure of his epitaph even.

And 'intervention' does mean quite a different thing at Naples and in Lombardy. In Lombardy there was the foreign tyrant. At Naples Italians deal with Italians; and the Austrian influence is indirect. So also at Rome. It is this which makes the difficulty of dealing with Southern Italy and the difference of treatment which you observe in certain French papers.

I am sure, though you don't like photographs, you say, that you will find nothing lacking in what we send you and dearest Nonno of our Penini. It isn't like him, it's himself. As for me, I murmur, in the depths of my vanity, that like the Emperor Napoleon (and the devil) I'm not so black as I'm painted; but I forgive everything for Pen's sake. Robert is not very favourably represented, I think. The beard on the upper lip had not been properly clipped, and makes the space seem too long for him. Another time I will mend that. I was very unusually tired after my journey, but am getting past it. Weather was hot; but within two days we have had some cooling rain.

Give my best love to M. Milsand, beside the photographs, and thank him for not being offended in his 'patriotism' by my Congress poems. If he approved of the preface as he says, I can't see how he can have written anything about 'intervention' which I would not accept. Nothing could have ended the intervention of Austria, except the intervention of France; and it was on that account that we feel the latter to be a great and chivalrous action. Italy is grateful. And if France were in difficulty she might count on this delivered nation, as on herself. In spite of all the bad words hurled at me in every English newspaper and periodical nearly (and I assure you I have been put in the pillory among them) the poems are going into a second edition, Chapman says, and 'Aurora Leigh' into a fifth. Also Chapman junior, who has come out here to see after Lever, smoothes me down a little about Robert, and says that the sale is bettering itself, and that a new edition of the 'Poems' will soon be wanted. I just now see a pleasant notice of myself in 'Bentley's Magazine.' Abuse of the 'Congress Poems,' of course. Then a side stroke at 'Aurora Leigh,' which was original, of course, because it's my way to stand alone and attack people; but the principal merit of which otherwise was the suggestion of 'Lucille' (Lytton's new poem)—'Lucille,' says the critic, being superior in holiness and virtue and that sort of thing to 'Aurora'! Of course.

They subscribed in England five thousand pounds for Tom Sayers. There's the advance of civilisation. Napoleon has gone to Baden to arrange the world a little more comfortably, I hope.

Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans have been here, and are coming back to settle into our congenial bosom. I admire her books so much, that certainly I shall not refuse to receive her, though she is not a medium. Sarianna!

Your ever affectionate sister.

The programme of the previous year was repeated in 1860. Returning from Rome to Florence at the beginning of June, the Brownings in July went to Siena to avoid the extreme heat of the summer at Florence, staying as before at the Villa Alberti. Their visit to Siena was, however, rather shorter than the previous one, lasting only till September.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Browning, during all this time, was losing ground in point of health; and she now received another severe blow in the news of the serious illness of her sister Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook). The anxiety lasted for several months, and ended with the death of Mrs. Cook in the following winter.

To Mrs. Martin

Villa Alberti, Siena: August 21, [1860].

I thank you, my dearest friend, from my heart for your letter, and the ray of sunshine it brought with it. Do you know I was childish enough to kiss it as if it knew what it did. I wish I could kiss you. Yes, I have been very unhappy, not giving way on the whole, going about my work as usual, but with a sense of a black veil between me and whatever I did, sometimes feeling incapable of crawling down to sit on the cushion under my own fig-tree for an hour's vision of this beautiful country—sometimes in 'des transes mortelles' of fear.

But we must not be atheists, as a friend said to me the other day. I hope I do not live quite as if I were. But it was a great shock from the beginning. Henrietta always seemed so strong that I never feared that way.

My first impulse was to rush to England, but this has been over-ruled by everybody, and I believe wisely. With my usual luck I should just have increased the sum of evil instead of bringing a single advantage to anyone. The best thing I can do for the others, is to keep quiet and try not to give cause for trouble on my account, to be patient and live on God's daily bread from day to day. I had a crumb or two the day before yesterday through Storm, who thought there might be a little less pain—and here you have sent me almost a slice—may God be thanked! How good you were to mention the doctor! It is grievous to me to think of her suffering. Darling!

I knew how strong your sympathy and personal feeling would be, and, even on that account, I had not the heart and courage to write to you. But no, dearest friends, I did not receive the letter you speak of, though I heard of your grief a good while afterwards. And so sorry I was—we both were—so sorry for Fanny, so sorry for you! May God bless you all! How the spiritual world gets thronged to us with familiar faces, till at last, perhaps, the world here will seem the vague and strange world, even while we remain.

Still, it is beautiful out of this window; and of public affairs in Italy, I am stirred to think with the most vivid interest through all. The rapture is not as in the northern war last year, because (you don't understand that in England) last year we fought the Austrian and now it is Italian against Italian,[90] which tempers every triumph with a certain melancholy. Also the Italian question in the south was decided in the north, and remained only a question of time, abbreviated (many think rashly) by our hero Garibaldi. For the crisis, so quickened, involves very serious dangers and most solemn thoughts. The southern difficulty may be considered solved—so we think—but just now that very solution opens out, as we all fear a new Austrian invasion in the north, backed indirectly at least by Prussia and Germany, who will use the opportunity in carrying out the coalition against France. There seems no doubt of the mischief hatched at Toeplitz. I wish I had known that England's influence was not used in drawing together those two powers. Prussia deserves to be—what shall I say?—docked of her Rhenish provinces? It would be a too slight punishment. She caused the Villafranca halt (according to her official confession by the mouth of Baron Schleinitz, last spring), and now this second time, would she interrupt the liberation of Italy? The aspect of affairs looks very grave. As to England, England wishes well to this country at this present time, but she will make no sacrifices (not even of her hatreds, least of all, perhaps, of her blind hatreds), for the sake of ten Italys. Tell dear Mr. Martin that after the speech for the Defences, I gave up Lord Palmerston for ever. He plays double. He is too shrewd to believe in the probability of invasions, &c., &c., but he wants a shield to guard his sword-arm. The statesmanship of England pines for new blood, for ideas of the epoch, and the Russell old-fogyism will not do any more at all. These old bottles won't hold the new wine. People are positively calling on the Muse and William Pitt. It's religion to hate France, and to set up a 'Boney' as a 'raw head and bloody bones' sort of scarecrow. But it won't do. As the Revolutionists say, 'È troppo tardi.'

I am not, however, in furies all day, dearest Mrs. Martin. (I answer satisfactorily your question whether I am 'ever calm.') The newspapers from various parts of Italy thunder down on us here, not to speak of 'Galignanis' and 'Saturday Reviews.' See how calm-blooded I must be to bear the 'Saturday Review.' (I consider it a curiosity in vice, certainly.) Then we have books from the subscription library in Florence, and sights of the 'Cornhill,' and political pamphlets by the book-post; nay, even the 'Spiritual Magazine,' sent by Chapman and Hall, in the last number of which that clever and brave William Howitt (who, like a man, is foolish sometimes) suggests gravely in an article that I have lately been 'biologised by infernal spirits,' in order to the production of certain bad works in the service of 'Moloch,' meaning, of course, L.N. Oh! and did anyone tell you how Harriet Martineau, in her political letters to America, set me down with her air of serene superiority? But such things never chafe me—never. They don't even quicken my pulsation. And the place we are passing the summer in is very calm—a great lonely villa, in the midst of purple hills and vineyards, olive-trees and fig-trees like forest-trees; a deep soothing silence. A mile off we have friends, and my dear friend Miss Blagden is in a villa half a mile off. This for the summer. Also, we brought with us from Florence and dropped in a villino not far, our friend Mr. Landor (Walter Savage), who is under Robert's guardianship, having quarrelled with everybody in and out of England. I call him our adopted son. (You did not know I had a son of eighty-six and more.) Wilson lives with him, and Robert receives from his family in England means for his support. But really the office is hard, and I tell Robert that he must be prepared for the consequences: an outbreak and a printed statement that he (Robert), instigated by his wicked wife, had attempted to poison him (Landor) slowly. Such an extraordinary union of great literary gifts and incapacity of will has seldom surprised the world. Of course he does not live with us, you know, either here or in Florence, but my husband manages every detail of his life, and both the responsibility and trouble are considerable. Still he is a great writer. We owe him some gratitude therefore.

Penini has his pony here, and rides with his father. We have had the coolest summer I ever remember in Italy. I could have been very happy. But God, who 'tempers the wind,' finds it necessary for the welfare of some of us to temper the sunshine also....

As the very poorest proof of gratitude for your letter, Robert suggests that I should enclose this photograph of Penini and myself taken at Rome this last spring. You will like to have them, we fancy, but it is Robert's gift. I was half inclined last year to send you a photograph from Field Talfourd's picture of me,[91] but I shrank back, knowing that dear Mr. Martin would cry out at the flattery of it, which he well might do. But this photograph from nature can't be flattered, so I hazard it. You see the locks are dark still, not white, and the sun, in spite, has blackened the face to complete the harmony. Pen is very like, and very sweet we think.

Do, when you write, speak of yourself—yourselves. I hope you like the 'Mill on the Floss.'

Our love to dearest Mr. Martin and you.

Let me be as ever,

Your affectionate and grateful

Ba.

To Miss E.F. Haworth

Villa Alberti, Siena, Sardegna: August 25, [1860].

My dearest Fanny,—I received your letter with thanks upon thanks. It seemed long since I heard or wrote. I have been very sad, very—with a stone hung round my heart, and a black veil between me and all that I do, think, or look at. One of my sisters is very ill in England—my married sister—an internal tumour, accompanied with considerable suffering, and doubtful enough as to its issue to keep us all (I can answer at least for myself) in great misery. Robert says I exaggerate, and I think and know that consciously or unconsciously he wants to save me pain. She went to London, and the medical man called it an anxious case. We all know what that must mean. For a little time I was in an anguish of fear, and though come to believe now that no great change any way is to be expected quickly, you would pity what I feel when the letters are at hand. May God have mercy on us all! I wanted at first to get to England, but everyone here and there was against it, and I suppose it would have been a pure selfishness on my part to persist in going, seeing that the fatigue and the cold in England alone would have broken me up to a faggot (though of not so much use as to burn) so that I should have complicated other people's difficulties, without much mending my own. Still it would have been comfort to me (however selfish) to have just held her hand. But no. Oh, I am resigned to its being wiser. I am shaken, even at this distance. She has three children younger than my Peni. Don't let me talk of it any more.

You see, Fanny, my 'destiny' has always been to be entirely useless to the people I should like to help (except to my little Pen sometimes in pushing him through his lessons, and even so the help seems doubtful, scholastically speaking, to Robert!) and to have only power at the end of my pen, and for the help of people I don't care for. At moments lately, thanks from a stranger for this or that have sounded ghastly to me who can't go to smooth a pillow for my own darling sister. Now, I won't talk of it any more. After all I try to be patient and wait quietly, and there ought to be hope and faith meantime.

The pen-utilities themselves don't pass uncontested, as you observe. Yes, I see the 'Spiritual Magazine,' and remarked how I was scourged in the house of my friends. Robert shouted in triumph at it, and hoped I was pleased, and as for myself, it really did make me smile a little, which was an advantage, in the sad humour I was in at the time. 'Biologised by infernal spirits since "Casa Guidi Windows"' yet 'Casa Guidi Windows' was not wholly vicious it seems to me, nor 'Aurora' utterly corrupt. And Mr. Howitt is both a clever man, and an honest and brave man, for all his sweeping opinions. Biologised and be-Harrised he is certainly. What an extraordinary admiration! I wonder at that more than at any of the external spiritual phenomena. Dearest Fanny, you were very, very good and generous to take my part with the editor—but laissez faire. These things do one no harm—and, for me, they don't even vex me. I had an anonymous letter from England the other day, from somebody who recognised me, he said, in some prodigious way as a great Age-teacher, all but divine, I believe, and now gave me up on account of certain atrocities—first, for the poem 'Pan'[92] in the 'Cornhill' (considered immoral!) and then for having had my 'brain so turned by the private attentions and flatteries of the Emperor Napoleon when I was in Paris, that I have devoted myself since to help him in the gratification of his selfish ambitions.' Conceive of this, written with an air of conviction, and on the best information. Now, of the two imputations, I much prefer 'the inspiration from hell.' There's something grandiose about that, to say nothing of the superior honesty of the position.

What a 'mountainous me' I am 'piling up' in this letter, I who want rather to write of you....

Italy ought not to draw you just now, Fanny. We are all looking for war, and wondering where the safety is. A Piccolomini said yesterday that it was as safe at Rome as in Florence, which only proved Florence unsafe. Austria may come down on Central Italy any day; and sooner or later there must be war. The Storys are alarmed enough to avoid going back to Rome until the end of November, when things may be a little arranged. The indignation here is great against 'questa canaglia di Germania.' Toeplitz means mischief both against France and Italy—that is plain. The Prince of Prussia gave his 'parole de gentilhomme' meaning the word of a rascal. My poor Venice! But you will see presently, only the fear is that our fire here may flash very far. In any case, it would not be desirable for Englishmen to come southwards this year. Our plans for the winter depend entirely on circumstances. If we can go to Rome in any reasonable security, I suppose we shall go. But I have no heart for plans just now.

Dear Isa Blagden is spending the summer in a rough cabin, a quarter of an hour's walk from here, and Mr. Landor is hard by in the lane. This (with the Storys a mile off) makes a sort of colonisation of the country here. Otherwise it's a solitude, 'very triste,' say the English, not even an English church, even in the city of Siena. We get books from Florence, and newspapers from everywhere, or one couldn't get on quite well. As it is I like it very much. I like the quiet! the lying at length on a sofa, in an absolute silence, nobody speaking for hours together (Robert rides a great deal), not a chance of morning visitors, no voices under the windows. The repose would help me much, if it were not that circumstances of pain and fear walk in upon me through windows and doors, using one's own thoughts, till they tremble. Pen has had an abbé to teach him Latin, and his pony to ride on, and he and Robert are very well and strong, thank God.

Thank you for your words on spiritualism. I have not yet seen the last 'Cornhill.' It pleases me that Thackeray has had the courage to maintain the facts before the public; I think much the better of him for doing so. Owen's book I shall try to get. There is a weak reference to the subject in the 'Saturday Review' (against it), and I see an article advertised in 'Once a Week,' all proving that the public is awaking to a consideration of the class of phenomena. Investigation is all I desire. The 'Spiritual Magazine' lingers so this month that I fear, and Robert hopes, something may have happened to it.

On returning to Rome for the winter, which they did about September, the Brownings found quarters at 126 Via Felice. The following letter was written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning's sister.

To Miss E.F. Haworth

[Rome: autumn 1860.]

In one word, my dearest Fanny, I will thank you for what is said and not said, for sympathy true and tender each way. It is a great privilege to be able to talk and cry; but I cannot, you know. I have suffered very much, and feel tired and beaten. Now, it's all being lived down; thrown behind or pushed before, as such things must be if we are to live: not forgetting, not feeling any tie slackened, loving unchangeably, and believing how mere a line this is to overstep between the living and the dead.

Do you know, the first thing from without which did me the least good was a letter from America, from dear Mrs. Stowe. Since we parted here in the spring, neither of us had written, and she had not the least idea of my being unhappy for any reason. In fact, her thought was to congratulate me on public affairs (knowing how keenly I felt about them), but her letter dwelt at length upon spiritualism. She had heard, she said, for the fifth time from her boy (the one who was drowned in that awful manner through carrying out a college jest) without any seeking on her part. She gave me a minute account of a late manifestation, not seeming to have a doubt in respect to the verity and identity of the spirit. In fact, secret things were told, reference to private papers made, the evidence was considered most satisfying. And she says that all of the communications descriptive of the state of that Spirit, though coming from very different mediums (some high Calvinists and others low infidels) tallied exactly. She spoke very calmly about it, with no dogmatism, but with the strongest disposition to receive the facts of the subject with all their bearings, and at whatever loss of orthodoxy or sacrifice of reputation for common sense. I have a high appreciation of her power of forming opinions, let me add to this. It is one of the most vital and growing minds I ever knew. Besides the inventive, the critical and analytical faculties are strong with her. How many women do you know who are religious, and yet analyse point by point what they believe in? She lives in the midst of the traditional churches, and is full of reverence by nature; and yet if you knew how fearlessly that woman has torn up the old cerements and taken note of what is a dead letter within, yet preserved her faith in essential spiritual truth, you would feel more admiration for her than even for writing 'Uncle Tom.' There are quantities of irreverent women and men who profess infidelity. But this is a woman of another order, observe, devout yet brave in the outlook for truth, and considering, not whether a thing be sound, but whether it be true. Her views are Swedenborgian on some points, beyond him where he departs from orthodoxy on one or two points, adhering to the orthodox creed on certain others. She used to come to me last winter and open out to me very freely, and I was much interested in the character of her intellect. Dr. Manning tried his converting power on her. 'It might have answered,' she said, 'if one side of her mind had not confuted what the other side was receptive of.' In fact, she caught at all the beauty and truth and good of the Roman Catholic symbolism, saw what was better in it than Protestantism, and also, just as clearly, what was worse. She admired Manning immensely, and was very keen and quick in all her admirations; had no national any more than ecclesiastical prejudices; didn't take up Anglo-Saxon outcries of superiority in morals and the rest, which makes me so sick from American and English mouths. By the way (I must tell Sarianna that for M. Milsand!) a clever Englishwoman (married to a Frenchman) told Robert the other day that she believed in 'a special hell for the Anglo-Saxon race on account of its hypocrisy.'...

Meanwhile you will care for Roman news, and I have not much to tell you. I am very much in my corner, and very quiet. Robert, who has been most dear and tender and considerate to me through my trial, kept all the people off, and even now, when the door is open a little, gloomy lionesses with wounded paws don't draw the public, I thank God, and I am not much teased, if at all. Sir John Bowring came with a letter of introduction, and intimate relations with Napoleon to talk of, and he has confirmed certain views of mine which I was glad to hear confirmed by a disciple of Bentham and true liberal of distinguished intelligence. He said that nothing could be more ludicrous and fanatical than the volunteer movement in England rising out of the most incredible panic which ever arose without a reason. I only hope that if the volunteers ever have to act indeed, they may behave better than at Naples, where they left the worst impression of English morals and discipline. They embarked to return home dead drunk all of them, and the drunkenness was not the worst. Sir John Bowring has been ill since he came, so perhaps he may go before I see him again. Then Madame Swab [Schwabe], whom I slightly knew in Paris, has been with me to-day, talking on Italian affairs. There is room for anxiety about the Neapolitans; but don't believe in exaggerations: we shall do better than our enemies desire. There will be war probably....