[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 'oems oem '? 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.