Florence: February 24, 1855.

The devil (say charitable souls) is not as bad as he is painted, and
even I, dearest Mona Nina, am better than I seem. In the first place,
let me make haste to say that I _never received_ the letter you sent me
to Rome with the information of your family affliction, and that, if I
had, it could never have remained an unnoticed letter. I am not so
untender, so unsympathising, not so brutal--let us speak out. I lost
several letters in Rome, besides a good deal of illusion. I did not like
Rome, I think I confessed to you. In the second place, when your last
letter reached me--I mean the letter in which you told me to write to
you directly--I _would_ have written directly, but was so very unwell
that you would not have wished me even to try if, absent in the flesh,
you had been present in spirit. I have had a severe attack on the
chest--the worst I ever had in Italy--the consequence of exceptionally
severe weather--bitter wind and frost together--which quite broke me up
with cough and fever at night. Now I am well again, only of course much
weakened, and grown thin. I mean to get fat again upon cod's liver oil,
in order to appear in England with some degree of decency. You know I'm
a lineal descendant of the White Cat, and have seven lives accordingly.
Also I have a trick of falling from six-storey windows upon my feet, in
the manner of the traditions of my race. Not only I die hard, but I can
hardly die. 'Half of it would kill _me_,' said an admiring friend the
other day. 'What strength you must have!' A questionable advantage,
except that I have also--a Robert, and a Penini!

Dearest friend, I don't know how to tell you of our fullness of sympathy
in your late trials.[41] From a word which reached us from England the
other day, there will be, I do trust, some effectual arrangement to
relieve your friends from their anxieties about you. Then, there should
be an increase of the Government pension by another hundred, that is
certain; only the 'should be' lies so far out of sight in the ideal,
that nobody in his senses should calculate on its occurrence. As to Law,
it's different from Right--particularly in England perhaps--and appeals
to Law are disastrous when they cannot be counted on as victorious,
always and certainly. Therefore you may be wise in abstaining; you have
considered sufficiently, of course. I only hope you are not trammelled
in any degree by motives of delicacy which would be preposterous under
the actual circumstances. You meantime are as nobly laborious as ever.
We have caught hold of fragments in the newspapers from your
'Commonplace Book,' which made us wish for more; and Mr. Kenyon told me
of a kind mention of Robert which was very pleasant to me.

How will it be? Shall you be likely to come to Italy before we set out
to the north--that is, before the middle of May--or shall we cross on
the road, like our letters, or shall we catch you in London, or in Paris
at least? Oh, you won't miss the Exhibition in Paris. That seems
certain.

I know Florence Nightingale slightly. She came to see me when we were in
London last; and I remember her face and her graceful manner, and the
flowers she sent me after afterwards. I honor her from my heart. She is
an earnest, noble woman, and has fulfilled her woman's duty where many
men have failed.

At the same time, I confess myself to be at a loss to see any new
position for the sex, or the most imperfect solution of the 'woman's
question,' in this step of hers. If a movement at all, it is retrograde,
a revival of old virtues! Since the siege of Troy and earlier, we have
had princesses binding wounds with their hands; it's strictly the
woman's part, and men understand it so, as you will perceive by the
general adhesion and approbation on this late occasion of the masculine
dignities. Every man is on his knees before ladies carrying lint,
calling them 'angelic she's,' whereas, if they stir an inch as thinkers
or artists from the beaten line (involving more good to general
humanity; than is involved in lint), the very same men would curse the
impudence of the very same women and stop there. I can't see on what
ground you think you see here the least gain to the 'woman's question,'
so called. It's rather _the contrary_, to my mind, and, any way, the
women of England must give the precedence to the _soeurs de charite_,
who have magnificently won it in all matters of this kind. For my own
part (and apart from the exceptional miseries of the war), I acknowledge
to you that I do not consider the best use to which we can put a gifted
and accomplished woman is to _make her a hospital nurse_. If it is, why
then woe to us all who are artists! The woman's question is at an end.
The men's 'noes' carry it. For the future I hope you will know your
place and keep clear of Raffaelle and criticism; and I shall expect to
hear of you as an organiser of the gruel department in the hospital at
Greenwich, that is, if you have the luck to _percer_ and distinguish
yourself.

Oh, the Crimea! How dismal, how full of despair and horror! The results
will, however, be good if we are induced to come down from the English
pedestal in Europe of incessant self-glorification, and learn that our
close, stifling, corrupt system gives no air nor scope for healthy and
effective organisation anywhere. We are oligarchic in all things, from
our parliament to our army. Individual interests are admitted as
obstacles to the general prosperity. This plague runs through all things
with us. It accounts for the fact that, according to the last marriage
statistics, thirty per cent, of the male population signed with the
_mark_ only. It accounts for the fact that London is at once the largest
and ugliest city in Europe. For the rest, if we cannot fight righteous
and necessary battles, we must leave our place as a nation, and be
satisfied with making pins. Write to me, but don't pay your letters,
dear dear friend, and I will tell you why. Through some slip somewhere
we have had to pay your two last letters just the same. So don't try it
any more. Do you think we grudge postage from you? Tell me if it is true
that Harriet Martineau is very ill. What do you hear of her?

May God bless you! With Robert's true love,

Your ever affectionate
BA.

      * * * * *


The following letter is the first of a few addressed to Mr. Ruskin,
which have been made available through the kindness of Mrs. Arthur
Severn. The acquaintanceship with Mr. Ruskin dated from the visit of the
Brownings to England in 1852 (see vol. ii. p. 87, above); but the
occasion of the present correspondence was the recent death of Miss
Mitford, which took place on January 10, 1855. Mr. Ruskin had shown much
kindness to her during her later years, and after her death had written
to Mrs. Browning to tell her of the closing scenes of her friend's life.