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
'Athenaeum' tolerance which might fall to me. Would it have done so, do
you think?

    'A great deed in this world of ours!
      Unheard of the pretence is.
    It plainly threatens the Great Powers;
      Is fatal in all senses.
    A just deed in the world! Call out
    The rifles! ... be not slack about
      The National Defences.'

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, _e 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
'Athenaeum' 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,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

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?