Florence: June 12, 1855 [postmark].

How kind and tender of you, my dearest Sarianna, to care so much to hear
that I am better! I was afraid that Robert had written in the Crimean
style about me, for he was depressed and uneasy, poor darling, and
looked at things from the blackest point of view. Nevertheless, I have
escaped some bad symptoms. No spitting of blood, for instance, no loss
of voice, and scarcely a threatening of pain in the side. Also I have
not grown thinner than is natural under the circumstances. At Genoa
(after our cold journey[45]) I _wasted_ in a few days, and thought much
worse of myself than there was reason to do this time.

I can assure you I am now much restored. The cough is decidedly got
under, and teases me, for the most part, only in the early morning; the
fever is gone, and the nights are quiet. I am able to take animal food
again, and shall soon recover my ordinary strength. Certainly it has
been a bad attack, and I never suffered anything like it in Italy
before. The illness at Genoa was the mere _tail_ of what began in
England, and was increased by the Alpine exposure. Our weather has been
very severe--wind and frost together--something peculiarly irritating in
the air. I am loth to blame my poor Florence, who never treated me so
before (and how many winters we have spent here!)--and our friends write
from Pisa that the weather was as trying there, while from Rome the
account is simply 'detestable weather.' At Naples it is sometimes
furiously cold; there's no perfect climate anywhere, that's certain. You
have only to choose the least evil. Here for the last week it has been
so mild that, if I had been in my usual state of health, I might have
gone out, they say; and, of course, I have felt the influence
beneficially. One encourages oneself in Italy when it is cold, with the
assurance that it can't last. Our misfortune this time has been that it
has lasted unusually long. How the Italians manage without fires I
cannot make out. So chilly as they are, too, it's a riddle.

You would wonder almost how I could feel the cold in these two rooms
opening into each other, and from which I have not stirred since the
cold weather began. Robert has kept up the fire in our bedroom
throughout the night. Oh, he has been spoiling me so. If it had not been
that I feared much to hurt him in having him so disturbed and worried,
it would have been a very subtle luxury to me, this being ill and
feeling myself dear. Do not set me down as too selfish. May God bless
him!...

Robert has been frantic about the Crimea, and 'being disgraced in the
face of Europe,' &c. &c. When he is mild he wishes the ministry to be
torn to pieces in the streets, limb from limb. I do not doubt that the
Aberdeen side of the Cabinet has been greatly to blame, but the system
is the root of the whole evil; if they don't tear up the system they may
tear up the Aberdeens 'world without end,' and not better the matter; if
they do tear up the system, then shall we all have reason to rejoice at
these disasters, apart from our sympathy with individual sufferings.
More good will have been done by this one great shock to the heart of
England than by fifty years' more patching, and pottering, and knocking
impotent heads together. What makes me most angry is the ministerial
apology. 'It's always so with us for three campaigns,'!!! 'it's our
way,' 'it's want of experience,' &c. &c. That's precisely the thing
complained of. As to want of experience, if the French have had Algerine
experiences, we have had our Indian wars, Chinese wars, Caffre wars, and
military and naval expenses _exceeding_ those of France from year to
year. If our people had never had to pay for an army, they might sit
down quietly under the taunt of wanting experience. But we have
soldiers, and soldiers should have military education as well as red
coats, and be led by properly qualified officers, instead of Lord
Nincompoop's youngest sons. As it is in the army, so it is in the State.
Places given away, here and there, to incompetent heads; nobody being
responsible, no unity of idea and purpose anywhere--the individual
interest always in the way of the general good. There is a noble heart
in our people, strong enough if once roused, to work out into light and
progression, and correct all these evils. Robert is a good deal struck
by the generous tone of the observations of the French press, as
contradistinguished from the insolences of the Americans, who really are
past enduring just now. Certain of our English friends here in Florence
have ceased to associate with them on that ground. I think there's a
good deal of jealousy about the French alliance. That may account for
something....

Dearest, kindest Sarianna, remember not to think any more about me,
except that I love you, that I am your attached

BA.