Dear Isa Blagden writes me all the political news of Florence. She is well, and will come to pay us a visit before long. We remain here till September ends, and then return to Casa Guidi.
I had a letter from Bologna from Jessie, which threw me into a terror lest the Mazzinians should come to Italy just in time to ruin us. The letter (not unkind to me) was as contrary to facts and reason as possible. I was too ill to write at the time, and Robert would not let me answer it afterwards.
[The remainder of this letter is missing.]
Villa Alberti, Siena: September [1859].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,—As you talk of palpitations and the newspapers, and then tell me or imply that you are confined for light and air to the 'Times' on the Italian question, I am moved with sympathy and compassion for you, and anxious not to lose a post in answering your letter. My dear, dear friends, I beseech you to believe nothing which you have read, are reading, or are likely to read in the 'Times' newspaper, unless it contradicts all that went before. The criminal conduct of that paper from first to last, and the immense amount of injury it has occasioned in the world, make me feel that the hanging of the Smethursts and Ellen Butlers would be irredeemable cruelty while these writers are protected by the Law....
Of course you must feel perplexed. The paper takes up different sets of falsities, quite different and contradictory, and treats them as facts, and writes 'leaders' on them, as if they were facts. The reader, at last, falls into a state of confusion, and sees nothing clearly except that somehow or other, for something that he has done or hasn't done, has intended or hasn't intended, Louis Napoleon is a rascal, and we ought to hate him and his.
Well, leave the 'Times'—though from the 'Times' and the like base human movements in England and Germany resulted, more or less directly, that peace of Villafranca which threw us all here into so deep an anguish, that I, for one, have scarcely recovered from it even to this day.
Let me tell you. We were living in a glow of triumph and gratitude; and for me, it seemed to me as if I walked among the angels of a new-created world. All faces at Florence shone with one thought and one love. You can scarcely realise to yourself what it was at that time. Friends were more than friends, and strangers were friends. The rapture of the Italians—their gratitude to the French, the simple joy with which the French troops understood (down to the privates) that they had come to deliver their brothers, and to go away with empty hands; all these things, which have been calumniated and denied, were wonderfully beautiful. Scarcely ever in my life was I so happy. I was happy, not only for Italy, but for the world—because I thought that this great deed would beat under its feet all enmities, and lift up England itself (at last) above its selfish and base policy. Then, on a sudden, came the peace. It was as if a thunderbolt fell. For one day, every picture and bust of the Emperor vanished, and the men who would have died for him, before that sun, half articulated a curse on his head. But the next day we were no longer mad, and as the days past, we took up hope again, and the more thoughtful among our politicians began to understand the situation. There was, however, a painful change. Before, difference of opinion was unknown, and there was no sort of anxiety (a doubt of the result of the war never crossing anyone's mind). Napoleon in the thickest of the fire, with one epaulette shot off, was a symbol intelligible to the whole population. But when he disappeared from the field and entered the region of spirits and diplomats—when he walked under the earth instead of on the surface—though he walked with equal loyalty and uprightness, then people were sanguine or fearful according to their temperament, and the English and Austrian newspapers, attributing the worst motives and designs, troubled the thoughts of many. Still, both the masses (with their blind noble faith), and the leaders with their intelligence, held fast their hopes, and the consequence has been the magnificent spectacle which this nation now offers to Europe, and which for dignity, calm, and unanimous determination may seek in vain for its parallel in history. Now we are very happy again, full of hope and faith....
We shall probably go to Rome again for the winter, as Florence is considered too cold. There will be disturbances that way in all probability; but we are bold as to such things. The Pope is hard to manage, even for the Emperor. It is hard to cut up a feather bed into sandwiches with the finest Damascus blade, but the end will be attained somehow. I wish I could see clearly about Venetia. There are intelligent and thoughtful Italians who are hopeful even for Venetia, and certainly, the Emperor of Austria's offer to Tuscany (not made to the Assembly, as the 'Times' said, but murmured about by certain agents) implies a consciousness on his part of holding Venetia, with a broken wrist at least.
As to the Duchies never for a moment did I believe in armed intervention. Napoleon distinctly with his own lips promised our delegates, after the peace, and before he left Italy, that he would neither do it nor permit it. And afterwards, in Paris, again and again. He accepted the Austrian proposition under the condition simply that the Dukes were recalled by the people, not in defiance of the popular will. He has been loyal throughout both to Austria and to Italy, and to his own original programme, which did not contemplate dispossessing sovereigns but freeing peoples.
Italy for the Italians—and so it will be. For Prince Napoleon, when he was in Florence he might have remained there and delighted everybody. I know even that a person high in office felt the way towards a proposal of the kind, and that he answered in a manner considered too 'tranchant,' 'No, no, that would suit neither the Emperor nor England; et pour moi, je ne le voudrais pas.' He used every opportunity at that time of advising the fusion, about which people were much less unanimous than they are now.
But calumny never dies (like me!). Mr. Russell, Lord John's nephew, the quasi-minister at Rome, very acute, and liberal too (by the English standard) being on his road to Rome from London last week proposed paying us a visit, and we had him here two days (in a valuable spare room!). He told me that Napoleon had been too fin for the English Government. He had induced them to acknowledge the Tuscan vote—(observe that fact, dearest friends) induced them to acknowledge the Tuscan vote; and now here was his game. He had forbidden Piedmont to accept the fusion,[66] and therefore Piedmont must refuse. The consequence of which would be that there must be another vote in Tuscany, which would favor Prince Napoleon, and that we, having accepted the first vote, must accept the second, the Emperor throwing up his hands and crying, 'Who would have thought it?'
We told him that he and the English Government were so far out in their conclusions, that Piedmont, instead of refusing, would accept conditionally; but he sighed, 'hoped it might be so,' in the way in which preposterous opinions are civilly put away.
Scarcely was he gone, when the conditional acceptance was known.
How much more I could tell you. But one can't write all. The first battle in the north of Italy freed Italy potentially from north to south. Our political life here in the centre is a proof of this. The conduct of the Italians is admirable, but last year they could not have assumed this attitude. They were a bound people. And even now, if the Emperor removed his hand from Austria, we should have the foreign intervention, and no hope.
We are ready and willing to fight, observe. The 'Times' may take back its words. But to oppose the whole Austrian Empire with our unorganised, however heroic, forces, is impossible. We might die, indeed....
May God bless both of you always! I have pretty good letters from home. Home! what's home?
Your ever affectionate and grateful
Read 'La Foi des Traités'; it is from the hand of Louis Napoleon. So that I was prepared for the amnesty and for what follows.
The following letters to Mr. Chorley relate to Mrs. Browning's poem 'A Tale of Villafranca,' which was published in the 'Athenæum' for September 24, and subsequently included in the volume of 'Poems before Congress' (Poetical Works, iv. 195).
Villa Alberti, Siena: September 12, [1859].
My dear Mr. Chorley,—This isn't a letter, as you will see at a glance. I should have written to you long since, and have also sent this poem (which solicits a place in the 'Athenæum') if I had not been very ill and been very slow in getting well. We wanted to answer your kind letter, and shall. As for my poem, be so good as to see it put in, in spite of its good and true politics, which you 'Athenæum' people (being English) will dissent from altogether. Say so, if you please, but let me in. 'Strike, but hear me.' I have been living and dying for Italy lately. You don't know how vivid these things are to us, which serve for conversation at London dinner parties.
Ah—dear Mr. Chorley. The bad news about poor Lady Arnould will have affected you as it did Robert a few days ago. I do pity so our unhappy friend, Sir Joseph. Tell us, if you can and will, what you hear.
We came here from Florence five or six weeks since, when I was very unfit for moving, but change of air and a cooler air and repose had grown necessary. We are at a villa two miles from Siena, where we look at scarlet sunsets, over purple hills, and have the wind nearly all day. Mr. and Mrs. Story are half a mile off in another villa, and Mr. Landor at a stone's cast. Otherwise the solitude is absolute. Mr. Russell spent two days with us on his way to resume office at Rome. I should remember that....
To Mr. Chorley
Siena: Sunday [September-October 1859].
Thank you, my dear Mr. Chorley, I submit gratefully to being snubbed for my politics. In return I will send to your private ear an additional stanza which should interpose as the real seventh but was left out. I did not send it to you the day after my note, though sorely tempted to do so, because it seemed to me likely to annul any small chance of 'Athenæum' tolerance which might fall to me. Would it have done so, do you think?
Certainly if I don't guess 'the Sphinx' right, some of your English guessers in the 'Times' and elsewhere fail also, as events prove. The clever 'Prince-Napoleon-for-Central-Italy' guess,[67] for instance, has just fallen through, by declaration of the 'Moniteur.' Most absurd it was always. At one time the Prince might have taken the crown by acclamation. He was almost rude about it when he was in Tuscany. And even after the peace, members of the present Government were not averse, were much the contrary indeed. At that time the autonomy was still dear, we had not made up our minds to the fusion. Now, è altra cosa, and to imagine that a man like the French Emperor would have waited till now, producing, by the opportunities he has given, the present complication, in order to impose the Prince, is absurd on the very face of it.
While standers-by guess, the comfort is that circumstances ripen. We are in spirits about our Italy. The dignity, the constancy, the calm, are admirable, as the unanimity of the people is wonderful. Even the contadini have rallied to the Government, and the cry of enthusiasm to which the cross of Savoy was uncovered in the market place of Siena yesterday was a thrilling thing. Also we will fight, be it understood, whenever fighting shall be necessary. At present, the right arm of Austria is broken; she cannot hold the sword since Solferino, at least in central Italy. Let those who doubt our debt to France remember where we were last year, and see what our political life is now—real, vivid, unhindered! Our moral qualities are our own, but our practical opportunities come from another; we could not have made them by force of moral qualities, great as those are allowed to be. And how striking the growth of this people since 1848. Massimo d' Azeglio said to Robert and me, 'It is '48 over again with matured actors.' But it is even more than that: it is '48 over again with regenerated actors. All internal jealousies at an end, all suspicions quenched, all selfish policies dissolved. Florence forgets herself for Italy. This is grand. Would that England, that pattern of moral nations, would forget herself for the sake of something or someone beyond. That would be grand.
I wish you were here, my dear Mr. Chorley, since I am wishing in vain, though we are almost at the close of our stay in this pretty country. We have a villa with beautiful sights from all the windows; and there, on the hill opposite, live Mr. and Mrs. Story, and within a stone's throw, in a villino, lives the poor old lion Landor, who, being sorely buffeted by his family at Fiesole, far beyond 'kissing with tears' (though Robert did what he could), took refuge with us at Casa Guidi one day, broken-hearted and in wrath. He stays here while we stay, and then goes with us to Florence, where Robert has received the authorisation of his English friends to settle him in comfort in an apartment of his own, with my late maid, Wilson (who married our Italian man-servant), to take care of him; and meanwhile the quiet of this place has so restored his health and peace of mind that he is able to write awful Latin alcaics, to say nothing of hexameters and pentameters, on the wickedness of Louis Napoleon. Yes, dear Mr. Chorley, poems which might appear in the 'Athenæum' without disclaimer, and without injury to the reputation of that journal.
Am I not spiteful? I assure you I couldn't be spiteful a short time ago, so very ill I have been. Now it is different, and every day the strength returns. What remains, however, is a certain necessity of not facing the Florence wind this winter, and of going again to Rome, in spite of probable revolutions there. We talk of going in the early part of November. Why won't you come to Rome and give us meeting? Foolish speech, when I know you won't. We shall be in Florence probably at the end of the present week, to stay there until the journey further south begins. I shall regret this silence. And little Penini too will have his regrets, for he has been very happy here, made friends with the contadini, has helped to keep the sheep, to run after straggling cows, to play at 'nocini' (did you ever hear of that game?) and to pick the grapes at the vintage—driving in the grape-carts (exactly of the shape of the Greek chariots), with the grapes heaped up round him; and then riding on his own pony, which Robert is going to buy for him (though Robert never spoils him; no, not he, it is only I who do that!), galloping through the lanes on this pony the colour of his curls. I was looking over his journal (Pen keeps a journal), and fell on the following memorial which I copy for you—I must.
'This is the happiest day of my hole (sic) life, for now dearest Vittorio Emanuele is really nostro re.'
Pen's weak point does not lie in his politics, Mr. Chorley, but in his spelling. When his contadini have done their day's work he takes it on him to read aloud to them the poems of the revolutionary Venetian poet Dall' Ongaro, to their great applause. Then I must tell you of his music. He is strong in music for ten years old—and plays a sonata of Beethoven already (in E flat—opera 7) and the first four books of Stephen Heller; to say nothing of various pieces by modern German composers in which there is need of considerable execution. Robert is the maestro, and sits by him two hours every day, with an amount of patience and persistence really extraordinary. Also for two months back, since I have been thrown out of work, Robert has heard the child all his other lessons. Isn't it very, very good of him?
Do write to us and tell me how your sister is, and also how you are in spirits and towards the things of the world? Give her my love—will you?
I had a letter some time ago from poor Jessie Mario, from Bologna. Respect her. She hindered her husband from fighting with Garibaldi for his country, because Garibaldi fought under L.N., which was so highly improper. Her letter was not unkind to me, but altogether and insanely wrong as I considered. (Not more wrong though, and much less wicked, than the 'Times.') I was too ill at the time to answer it, and afterwards Robert would not let me, but I should have liked to do it; it's such a comfort to a woman (and a man?) to sfogarsi, as we say here. Also, I was really uneasy at what might be doing at Bologna; so, in spite of friendship, it was a relief to me to hear of the police taking charge of all overt possibilities in that direction.
Is it really true that 'Adam Bede' is the work of Miss Evans? The woman (as I have heard of her) and the author (as I read her) do not hold together. May God bless you, my dear friend! Robert shall say so for himself.
Ever affectionately yours,
My dear Mr. Chorley,—Reading over what I have written I find that I have been so basely ungrateful as not to say the thing I would when I would thank you. Your Dedication will be accepted with a true sense of kindness and honor together; I shall be proud and thankful. But perhaps you have changed your mind in the course of this long silence.
And now where's room for Robert?
Villa Alberti, [Siena]:
Tuesday [September-October, 1859].
Ever dearest Isa,—Yes, I am delighted.
Evviva il nostro re! It isn't a very distinct acceptance, however, but as distinct as could be expected reasonably.[68] Under conditions, of course.
On Friday morning before noon up to our door came Mr. Russell's carriage. He had closed with Robert's proposition at once, and we made room for him without much difficulty, and were very glad to see him. I didn't go in to dinner, and he and Robert went to the Storys in the evening—so that it wasn't too much for me—and then I really like him—he is refined and amiable, and acute and liberal (as an Englishman can be), full of 'traditions' or prejudices, to use the right word. To my surprise he knew scarcely anything; and, as I modestly observed to Robert, 'didn't understand the Italian question half as well as I understand it.' Of course there was a quantity of gossip in the anti-Napoleon sense; how the Emperor told the King of the peace over the soup, twirling his moustache; and how the King swore like a trooper at the Emperor in consequence; and how the Emperor took it all very well—didn't mind at all and how, and how—things which are manifestly impossible and which Robert tells me I ought not to repeat, in order not to multiply such vain tales. There is Metternich the younger (ambassador in Paris), a personal friend of Odo Russell's, in whose bosom Louis Napoleon seems to pour the confidences of his heart about that 'coquin de Cavour who led him into the Italian war,' &c., &c., but it simply proves to you and me how an Austrian can lie, which we could guess before.
My facts are these: First, Ferdinando IV.[69] has an ambassador in Rome, who has been received officially by the Pope (!!) ('The coolest thing that ever was'), and is paid out of the private purse of the Royal Highness. There is another ambassador at Naples, and another at Vienna—on the same terms; so let no one talk of 'Déchéance.'
Then let me tell you what Mr. Russell said to me. 'Napoleon,' said he, 'has been too fin for the English Government. He made us acknowledge the Tuscan vote. Now he has strictly forbidden Piedmont to accept, and Piedmont must therefore refuse. The consequences of which will be that there must be another vote in Tuscany, by which Prince Napoleon will be elected; and we, having acknowledged the first vote, must acknowledge the second.'
Of course I protested; disbelieved in the forbidding, and believed in the accepting. He 'hoped it might be so'—in the civil way with which people put away preposterous opinions—and left us on Saturday night at ten, just too late to hear of the 'fait accompli.'
Out of all that, I rescue my fact that Napoleon made the English Government acknowledge the Tuscan vote.
Don't let Kate put any of this into American papers, because Mr. Russell was our guest, observe, and spoke trustingly to us. He had just arrived from England, and went on to Rome without further delay.
The word Venice makes my heart beat. Has Guiducci any grounds for hope about Venice? If Austria could be bought off at any price! Something has evidently been promised at Villafranca on the subject of Venice; and evidently the late strengthening of the hands of Piedmont will render the Austrian occupation on any terms more and more difficult and precarious.
I should agree with you on Prince Napoleon, if it were not that I want the Emperor's disinterestedness to remain in its high place. We can't spare great men and great deeds out of the honour of the world. There are so few.
For the rest, the Prince would have been a popular and natural choice at one time, and as far as central Italy was concerned. Also he is very liberal in opinion, and full of ideas, I have been told.
But the fusion is a wiser step now, and altogether—even if we could spare the Emperor's fame. Do you remember the obloquy he suffered for Neufchâtel? and how it came out that, if he pressed his conditions, it was simply because he meant to fight for the independence of the State? and how at last the Swiss delegates went to Paris to offer their gratitude for the deliverance he had attained for the people? His loyalty will come out clean before the eyes of his enemies now as then. We agree absolutely. And Robert does not dissent, I think. Facts begin to be conclusive to him.
You are an angel, dearest Isa, with the tact of a woman of the world. This in reference to the note you sent me, and your answer. You could not have done better—not at all.
Our kind love to Kate—and mind you give our regards to Dr. Gresonowsky. Also to Mr. Jarves—poor Mr. Jarves—how sorry I am about the pictures!
Robert will write another time, he says, 'with kindest love.'
[Siena: September-October, 1859.]
My dearest Sarianna,—We are on the verge of returning to Florence, for a short time—only to pack up, I believe, and go further south—to 'meet the revolution,' tell the dearest Nonno, with my love. The case is that though I am really convalescent and look well (Robert has even let me take to Penini a little, which is conclusive), it is considered dangerous for me to run the risk of even a Florence winter. You see I have been very ill. The physician thought there was pressure of the lungs on the heart, and, under those circumstances, that I must avoid irritation of the lungs by any cold. Say nothing which can reach my sisters and frighten them; and after all I care very little about doctors, except that I do know myself how hard renewals of the late attack would go with me. But I mean to take care, and use God's opportunities of getting strong again. Also it seems to me that I have taken a leap within these ten days, and that the strength comes back in a fuller tide. After all, it is not a cruel punishment to us to have to go to Rome again this winter, though it will be an undesirable expense, and though we did wish to keep quiet this winter, the taste for constant wanderings having passed away as much for me as for Robert. We begin to see that by no possible means can one spend as much money to so small an end. And then we don't work so well—don't live to as much use, either for ourselves or others. Isa Blagden bids us observe that we pretend to live at Florence, and are not there much above two months in the year, what with going away for the summer and going away for the winter. It's too true. It's the drawback of Italy. To live in one place here is impossible for us almost, just as to live out of Italy at all is impossible for us. It isn't caprice—that's all I mean to say—on our part.
Siena pleases us very much. The silence and repose have been heavenly things to me, and the country is very pretty, though no more than pretty—nothing marked or romantic, no mountains (did you fancy us on the mountains?) except so far off as to be like a cloud only, on clear days, and no water. Pretty, dimpled ground, covered with low vineyards; purple hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them. But I like the place, and feel loth to return to Florence from this half-furnished villa and stone floors. The weather is still very hot, but no longer past bearing, and we are enjoying it, staying on from day to day. Robert proposed Palermo instead of Rome, but I shrink a little from the prospect of our being cut up into mincemeat by patriotic Sicilians, though the English fleet (which he reminds me of) might obtain for you and for England the most 'satisfactory compensation' of the pecuniary kind. At Rome I shall not be frightened, knowing my Italians. Then there will be more comfort, and, besides, no horrible sea-voyage. Some Americans have told us that the Mediterranean is twice as bad as the Atlantic. I always thought it twice as bad as anything, as people say elegantly. We shall not leave Florence till November. Robert must see W. Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartment, with Wilson for a duenna. It's an excellent plan for him, and not a bad one for Wilson. He will pay a pound (English) a week for his three rooms, and she is to receive twenty-two pounds a year for the care she is to take of him, besides what is left of his rations. Forgive me if Robert has told you this already. Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his 'gentleness and sweetness.' A most courteous and refined gentleman he is, of course, and very affectionate to Robert (as he ought to be), but of self-restraint he has not a grain, and of suspiciousness many grains. Wilson will run certain risks, and I for one would rather not meet them. What do you say to dashing down a plate on the floor when you don't like what's on it? And the contadini at whose house he is lodging now have been already accused of opening desks. Still, upon that occasion (though there was talk of the probability of Landor's throat being 'cut in his sleep'), as on other occasions, Robert succeeded in soothing him, and the poor old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring softly, to beguile the time, in Latin alcaics against his wife and Louis Napoleon. He laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one of these days he will have to write an ode in honour of the Emperor, to please me.
Little Pen has been in the utmost excitement lately about his pony, which Robert is actually going to buy for him. I am said to be the spoiler, but mark! I will confess to you that, considering how we run to and fro, it never would have entered into the extravagance of my love to set up a pony for Penini. When I heard of it first, I opened my eyes wide, only no amount of discretion on my part could enable me to take part against both Pen and Robert in a matter which pleases Pen. I hope they won't combine to give me an Austrian daughter-in-law when Peni is sixteen. So I say 'Yes,' 'Yes,' 'Certainly,' and the pony is to be bought, and carried to Rome (fancy that!), and we are to hunt up some small Italian princes and princesses to ride with him at Rome (I object to Hatty Hosmer, who has been thrown thirty times[70]). In fact, Pen has been very coaxing about the pony. He has beset Robert in private and then, as privately, entreated me, 'if papa spoke to me about the pony, not to discourage him.' So I discouraged nobody, but am rather triumphantly glad, upon the whole, that we have done such a very foolish, extravagant thing.
Robert will have told you, I am sure, what a lovely picture Mr. Wilde, the American artist (staying with the Storys), has made of Penini on horseback, and presented to me. It is to be exhibited in the spring in London, but before then, either at Rome or Florence, we will have a photograph made from it to send you. By the way, Mr. Monroe failed us about the photograph from the bust. He said he had tried in vain once, but would try again. The child is no less pretty and graceful than he was, and he rides, as he does everything, with a grace which is striking. He gallops like the wind, and with an absolute fearlessness—he who is timid about sleeping in a room by himself, poor darling. He has had a very happy time here (besides the pony) having made friends with all the contadini, who adore him, and helped them to keep the sheep, catch the stray cows, drive the oxen in the grape-carts, and to bring in the vintage generally, besides reading and expounding revolutionary poems to them at evening. The worst of it was, while it lasted, that he ate so many grapes he could eat nothing else whatever. Still, he looks rosy and well, and there's nothing to regret....
Robert has let his moustache and beard grow together, and looks very picturesque. I thought I should not like the moustache, but I do. He is in very good looks altogether, though, in spite of remonstrances, he has given up walking before breakfast, and doesn't walk at any time half enough. I was in fault chiefly, because he both sate up at night with me and kept by me when I was generally ill in the mornings. So I oughtn't to grumble—but I do.... Love to dear M. Milsand. We are in increasing spirits on Italian affairs.
Your very affectionate
In October they returned to Florence, though only for about six weeks, before moving on to Rome for the winter.
[Florence]: Casa Guidi: Friday [October 1859].
Ever dearest Mona Nina,—Here we are at our Florence, very thankful for the advantages of our Siena residence. God has been kind. When I think how I went away and how I came back, it seems to me wonderful. For the latter fortnight the tide of life seemed fairly to set in again, and now I am quite well, if not as strong—which, of course, could not be in the time. My doctor opened his eyes to see me yesterday so right in looks and ways. But we spend the winter in Rome, because the great guns of the revolution (and even the small daggers) will be safer to encounter than any sort of tramontana. To tell you the truth, dearest friend, there have been moments when I have 'despaired of the republic'—that is, doubted much whether I should ever be quite well again; I mean as tolerably well as it is my normal state to be. So severe the attack was altogether.
As to political affairs, I will use the word of Penini's music-master when asked the other day how they went on—'Divinamente,' said he. Things are certainly going divinamente. I observe that, while politicians by profession, by the way, have various opinions, and hope and fear according to their temperaments, the people here are steadily sanguine, distrusting nobody if it isn't a Mazzinian or a codino, and looking to the end with a profound interest, of course, but not any inquietude. 'Divinamente' things are going on.
There is an expectation, indeed, of fighting, but only with the Pope's troops (and we all know what a 'soldato del papa' means), or with such mongrel defenders as can be got up by the convicts of Modena or Tuscany to give us an occasion of triumph presently. The expected outburst in Sicily and the Neapolitan States will simply extend the movement. That's our way of thinking and hoping. May God defend the right!
Mr. Probyn, a Liberal M.P., has come out here to appreciate the situation, and said last night that, after visiting the north of Italy and speaking with the chiefs, he is full of hope. Not quite so is Cartwright, whom you know, and who came to us at Siena. But Mr. Cartwright exceeds Dr. Cumming in the view of Napoleon, who isn't Antichrist to him, but is assuredly the devil. I like Mr. Cartwright, observe, but I don't like his modes of political thinking, which are 'after the strictest sect' and the reddest-tape English. He and his family are gone to Rome, and find the whole city 'to be hired.' Family men in general are not likely to go there this winter, and we shall find the coast very clear. And you—dearest friend, you seem to have given up Italy altogether this winter. Unless you come to Rome, we shall not be the better for your crossing the Alps. The Eckleys have settled in Florence till next year. The Perkinses also. Isa Blagden is at her villa, which, if she lets, she may pay Miss Cushman a visit in Rome towards the spring, but scarcely earlier.
After the dreary track of physical discomfort was passed, I enjoyed Siena much, and so did Robert, and the next time we have to spend a summer in Tuscany we shall certainly turn our faces that way. When able to drive, I drove about with Robert and enjoyed the lovely country; and once, on the last day, I ventured into the gallery and saw the divine Eve of Sodoma for the second time. But I never entered the cathedral—think of that! There were steps to be mounted. But I have the vision of it safe within me since nine years ago. The Storys, let me remember to tell you gratefully, were very kind and very delicate, offering all kindnesses I could receive, and no other....
Did I tell you that Jessie Mario had written to me from Romagna? You know, in any case, that she and her husband were arrested subsequently and sent into Switzerland. The other day I had two printed letters from the newspaper 'Evening Star,' enclosed to me by herself or her brother, I suppose—one the production of her husband, and one of Brofferio the advocate. I thought both were written in a detestable spirit, attempting to throw an odium on the governments of central Italy, which they should all three have rather died in their own poor personal reputations than have wished to hazard under present circumstances. Mazzini and his party have only to keep still, if indeed they do not desire to swamp the great Italian cause. Every movement made by them is a gain to Austria—a clear gain. Every word spoken by them, even if it applaud us, goes against the cause! Whoever has a conscience among them, let him consider this and be still....
Casa Guidi: November 2 [1859].
My dearest Fanny,—I this moment receive your letter, and hasten to answer it lest I should be too late for you in Paris. Dear Fanny, you seem in a chronic transitional state; it's always crisis with you. I can't advise; but I do rather wonder that you don't go at once to England and see your friends till you can do your business.... You can get at pictures in England and at artistic society also if you please; and making a slancio into Germany or to Paris would not be impossible to you occasionally.
Does this advice sound too disinterested on my part? Never think so. We only stand ourselves on one foot in Florence—forced to go away in the summer; forced to go away in the winter. Robert was so persuaded even last winter (before my illness) of my being better at Rome that he would have taken an apartment there and furnished it, except that I prevented him. Then we have calls from the north, and on most summers we must be in England and Paris. To stay on through the summer in Florence is impossible to us at least. Think of thermometers being a hundred and two in the shade this year! So I consider your case dispassionately, and conclude we are not worth your consideration in reference to prospects connected with any place. We are rolling stones gathering no moss. There's no use for anyone to run after us; but we may roll anyone's way. I say this, penetrated by your affectionate feeling for us. May God bless you and keep you, my dear friend.
As for me, I have been nearly as ill as possible—that's the truth—suffering so much that the idea of the evil's recurrence makes me feel nervous. All the Italians who came near me gave me up as a lost life; but God would not have it so this time, and my old vitality proved itself strong still. At present I am remarkably well; I had a return of threatening symptoms a fortnight ago, but they passed. I think I had been talking too much. Now I feel quite as free and well as usual about the chest, and 'buoyant' as to general spirits. Affairs in Italy seem going well, and Napoleon does not forget us, whatever his townsfolk of a certain class may do. The French newspapers remember us well, I am happy to see, also. But, my dear Fanny, who am I to give letters to Garibaldi? I don't know him, nor does he know me. Have you acquaintance with Madame Swartz? She could help Mr. Spicer. But she has just gone to Rome. And we are going to Rome. Did not Sarianna tell you that? We go on my account to avoid the tramontana here. People say we are foolhardy on account of the state of the country; but you are aware we are no more frightened of revolutions than M. Charles is of the tiger. Prices at Rome will be more reasonable at any rate. Nobody pays high for a probability of being massacred. What I'm most afraid of after all is lest the 'Holiness of our Lord' should agree to reform at the last moment. It's too late; it must be too late—it ought to be too late....
Poor Mr. Landor is in perfect health and in rather good spirits, seeming reconciled to his fate of exile. In the summer he moaned over it sadly, 'never could be happy except in England'; and I rather leant to sending him back, I confess. But Mr. Forster and other friends seemed to think that if he went back he could never be kept from the attack, all would come over again; and really that was probable. Still, I feared for him before he went to Siena. It does not do to shake hour-glasses at his age, and though he had been acclimated here by an eleven years' residence, still—well; there was nothing for it but to keep him here. He sighs a little still that it 'does not agree with him,' and that Florence is a 'very ugly town,' and so on; but still he is evidently much stronger than when he went to Siena, can walk for an hour together (instead of failing at the end of the street), and looks quite vigorous with his snow-white beard and moustache, through which the carnivorous laugh runs and rings. He doesn't know yet we are going away. He will miss Robert dreadfully. Robert's goodness to him has really been apostolical. And think of the effect of a goodness which can quote at every turn of a phrase something from an author's book! Isn't it more bewitching than other goodnesses? To certain authors, that is....
Dearest Fanny, keep up your spirits, do. Write to me to say you are less sad. And love not less your
Affectionate
Casa Guidi: November 25 [1859].
My dear Friend,—I thank you with all my heart for your most graceful and touching dedication,[71] and do assure you that I feel it both as honour and as pleasure.
And yet, do you know, Robert says that you might peradventure, by the dedication of your book to me, mean a covert lecture, or sarcasm, who knows? Even if you did, the kindness of the personal address would make up for it. Who wouldn't bear both lecture and sarcasm from anyone who begins by speaking so? Therefore I am honoured and pleased and grateful all the same—yes, and will be.
But, dear Mr. Chorley, you don't silence me, notwithstanding. The spell of your dedication hasn't fastened me up in an oak for ever. Your book is very clever; your characters very incisively given; princess and patriots admirably cut out (and up!); half truths everywhere, to which one says 'How true!' But one might as well (and better) say 'How false!' seeing that, dear Mr. Chorley, it does really take two halves to make a whole, and we know it. The whole truth is not here—not even suggested here—and let me add that the half truth on this occasion is cruel.
One thing is ignored in the book. Under all the ridiculousness, under all the wickedness even of such men and women, lies a cause, a right inherent, a wrong committed. The cant presupposes a doctrine, and the pretension a real heroism. Your best people (in your book) seem to have no notion of this. Your heroine deserves to be a victim, not because she was rash and ignorant, but because she was selfish and foolish. The world wasn't lost for her because she loved—either a cause or a man—but because she wanted change and excitement. If she had felt on the abstract question as I have known women to feel, even when they have acted like fools, I should pity her more. As it is, the lesson was necessary. If she had not married rashly an Italian birbante she would have married rashly an English blackguard, and I myself see small difference in the kinds. With you, however, to your mind, it is different; and in this view of yours seems to me to lie the main fault of your book. You evidently think that God made only the English. The English are a peculiar people. Their worst is better than the best of the exterior nations. Over the rest of the world He has cast out His shoe. Even supposing that a foreigner does, by extraordinary exception, some good thing, it's only in reaction from having murdered somebody last year, or at least left his children to starve the year before. Truth, generosity, nobleness of will and mind, these things do not exist beyond the influence of the 'Times' newspaper and the 'Saturday Review.' (By the way, it would be extraordinary if it were so.')
Well, I have lived thirteen years on the Continent, and, far as England is from Italy, far as the heavens are from the earth, I dissent from you, dissent from you, dissent from you.
I say so, and there is an end. It is relief to me, and will make no impression on you; but for my sake you permit me to say it, I feel sure.
Dear Mr. Chorley, Robert and I have had true pleasure (in spite of all this fault-finding) in feeling ourselves close to you in your book. Volume after volume we have exchanged, talking of you, praising you here, blaming you there, but always feeling pleasure in reading your words and speaking your name. Don't say it's the last novel. You, who can do so much. Write us another at once rather, doing justice to our sublime Azeglios and acute Cavours and energetic Farinis. If I could hear an English statesman (Conservative or Liberal) speak out of a large heart and generous comprehension as I did Azeglio this last spring, I should thank God for it. I fear I never shall. My boy may, perhaps. Red tape has garrotted this political generation....
I persist in being in high hopes for my Italy.
Ever affectionately yours
Early in December the move to Rome took place, and they found rooms at 28 Via del Tritone. During the winter Mrs. Browning was preparing for the press her last volume, the 'Poems before Congress,' while her husband, in a fit of disinclination to write poetry, occupied himself by trying his hand at sculpture.
[Rome: December 1859.]
Dearest Sarianna,—Robert will have told you of the success of our journey, which the necessities of Mr. Landor very nearly pushed back into the cold too late. We had even resolved that if the wind changed before morning we would accept it 'as a sign' and altogether give up Rome. We were all but run to ground, you see. Happily it didn't end so; and here we are in a very nice sunny apartment, which would have been far beyond our means last year or any year except just now when the Pope's obstinacy and the rumoured departure of the French have left Rome a solitude and called it peace—very problematical peace. (Peni, in despair at leaving Florence, urged on us that 'for mama to have cold air in her chest would be better than to have a cannon-ball in her stomach'; but she was unreasonably more afraid of one than of the other.) Apartments here for which friends of ours paid forty pounds English the month last winter are going for fifteen or under—or rather not going—for nobody scarcely comes to take them. The Pope's 'reforms' seem to be limited, in spite of his alarming position, which is breaking his heart, he told a friend of Mrs. Stowe's the other day, and out of which he looks to be relieved only by some special miracle (the American was quite affected to hear the old man bewail himself!), to an edict against crinolines, the same being forbidden to sweep the sacred pavement of St. Peter's. This is true, though it sounds like a joke.
Even Florence has very few English. A crisis is looked for everywhere. Prices there are rising fast; but one is prepared to pay more for liberty. Carriages are dearer than in Paris by our new tariff, which is an item important to me. We left Mr. Landor in great comfort. I went to see his apartment before it was furnished. Rooms small, but with a look out into a little garden; quiet and cheerful; and he doesn't mind a situation rather out of the way. He pays four pound ten (English) the month. Wilson has thirty pounds a year for taking care of him, which sounds a good deal; but it is a difficult position. He has excellent, generous, affectionate impulses, but the impulses of the tiger every now and then. Nothing coheres in him, either in his opinions, or I fear, affections. It isn't age; he is precisely the man of his youth, I must believe. Still, his genius gives him the right of gratitude on all artists at least, and I must say that my Robert has generously paid the debt. Robert always said that he owed more as a writer to Landor than to any contemporary. At present Landor is very fond of him; but I am quite prepared for his turning against us as he has turned against Forster, who has been so devoted for years and years. Only one isn't kind for what one gets by it, or there wouldn't be much kindness in this world.
I keep well; and of course, at Rome there is more chance for me than there was in Florence; but I hated to inflict an unpopular journey, of which the advantage was solely mine. Poor Peni said that if he had to leave his Florence he would rather go to Paris than to Rome. I dare say he would. Then his Florentines frightened him with ideas of the awful massacre we were to be subjected to here. The pony travelled like a glorified Houyhnhnm and we have brought a second male servant to take care of him. It was an economy; for the wages of Rome are inordinate. Pen's tender love to his nonno and you with that of
Your ever affectionate sister,
[Rome]: 28 Via Tritone: Friday [winter 1859].
My dearest Fanny,—Set me down as a wretch, but hear me. I have been ill again, in the first place; then as weak as a rag in consequence, and then with business accumulated on impotent hands; proofs to see to, and the like. You may have heard in the buzz of newspapers of certain presentation swords, subscribed for by twenty thousand Romans, at a franc each, and presented in homage and gratitude to Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel. Castellani[72] of course was the artist, and the whole business had to be huddled up at the end, because of his Holiness denouncing all such givers of gifts as traitors to the See. So just as the swords had to be packed up and disappear, some one came with a shut carriage to take me for a sight of these most exquisite works of art. It was five o'clock in the evening and raining, but not cold, so that the whole world here agreed it couldn't hurt me. I went with Robert therefore; we were received at Castellani's most flatteringly as poets and lovers of Italy; were asked for autographs; and returned in a blaze of glory and satisfaction, to collapse (as far as I'm concerned) in a near approach to mortality. You see I can't catch a simple cold. All my bad symptoms came back. Suffocations, singular heart-action, cough tearing one to atoms. A gigantic blister, however, let me crawl out of bed at the end of a week, and the advantage of a Roman climate told, I dare say, for the attack was less violent and much less long than the one in the summer. Only I feel myself brittle, and become aware, of increased susceptibility. Dr. Gresonowsky warns me against Florence in the winter. I must be warm, they say. Well, never mind! Now I am well again, and I don't know why I should have whined so to you. I am well, and living on asses' milk by way of sustaining the mental calibre; yes, and able to have tête-à-têtes with Theodore Parker, who believes nothing, you know, and has been writing a little Christmas book for the young just now, to prove how they should keep Christmas without a Christ, and a Mr. Hazard, a spiritualist, who believes everything, walks and talks with spirits, and impresses Robert with a sense of veracity, which is more remarkable. I like the man much. He holds the subject on high grounds, takes the idea and lives on it above the earth. For years he has given himself to investigation, and has seen the Impossible. Certainly enough Robert met him and conversed with him, and came back to tell me what an intelligent and agreeable new American acquaintance he had made, without knowing that he was Hazard the spiritualist, rather famous in his department.... Don't fall out of heart with investigation. It takes patient investigation to establish the number of legs of a newly remarked fly. Nothing riles me so much as the dogmatism of the people who pronounce on there being nothing to see, because in half a dozen experiments, perhaps, they have seen nothing conclusive.