[Florence: about June 1860.]

I didn't write last time, dearest Sarianna, not only because of being
over-busy or over-tired, but because I had not the heart that day. Peni
had another touch of fever, and was forced to have a doctor and
cataplasms to his feet. It was only a day's anxiety, but I didn't like
writing just then. He had been in the sun or the wind or something. I
was glad to get away from Rome. There were two cases of fever in our
courtyard, and both the sun and the shade were _suspectes_. As far as
Pen is concerned, the evil was averted, and I assure you he is looking
in the full bloom of health, and we have been congratulated on all sides
on his appearance and growth since we returned to Florence. Riding so
much has agreed well with him; and the general results of the Roman
campaign cannot be said to be otherwise than favourable. Set down as
much for Robert. Everybody exclaims at his stoutness. In fact, never
since I have known him has he condescended to put on such an air of
_robustness_, there's no other word for it. Shall we give the glory to
Rome, or to _nux_, to which he is constant. For two years and a half he
has had recourse to no other remedy, and it has not yet failed to
produce its effect. How do you unbelievers account for that? At the same
time, I never would think of using it in any active or inflammatory
malady, and where a sudden revolution or _scosso_ is required from the
remedial agent.

We find poor Mr. Landor tolerably amenable to Wilson, and well in
health, though he can't live more than three months, he says, and except
when Robert keeps him soothed by quoting his own works to him, considers
himself in a very wretched condition, which is a sort of satisfaction
too. He is a man of great genius, and we owe him every attention on that
ground. Otherwise I confess to you he is to me eminently
unsympathetic....

If ---- 'turns Catholic,' as you say, on the ground of the organisation
of certain institutions, it will be a proof of very peculiar ignorance.
This power of organisation is _French_, and not Catholic. You look for
it in vain in Rome, for instance, except where the organisation comes
from France. The _soeurs de charite_, who are of all Catholic nations,
are organised entirely by the French. The institutions here are branch
institutions. In Rome the tendency of everything is to confusion and
'individuality' with separate pockets. Lamoriciere was in despair at it
all, and even now people talk of his resigning, though he gave a dinner
the other day to his staff, with the toast of '_Henri Cinq_.'

Individuality is an excellent thing in its place, and an infamous thing
out of it. In England we have some very successful efforts at
organisation--the post office, which is nearly perfect, and society, in
which the demarcation between class and class is much too perfect to be
humane. In other respects we are apt to fail.

We do not fail, however, in organisation only with regard to these
charitable institutions. We are very hard and unsympathetic in them. A
distinguished woman has been here lately--a Miss Cobbe (a fellow-worker
with Miss Carpenter)--who, having overworked herself, was forced by her
physician to come here for three months and rest, under dire penalties.
She went to Isa Blagden's, and returned to England and her work just
now. She is very acute, and so perfectly without Continental prejudices,
that she didn't pretend to much interest even in our Italian movement,
having her heart in England and with the poor. But she was much struck,
not merely with the order of foreign institutions, but with their
superior tenderness and sympathy. The account she gave of the English
workhouses and hospitals was very sad, very cruel, corresponding, in
fact, to what I have heard from other quarters.

Ah, Sarianna, 'charming old men' who call the Tuscans angels, except
that they lie (what an exception!), can be mistaken like others. _That_
passes for 'liberality,' does it? We are not angels, and we don't
lie--there's no more lying in Italy than in England, I begin to affirm.
Also, M. Tassinari was in prison, not a week but a month--and well did
he deserve it. We deal now in French coinage, and are to see no more
pauls after the middle of next month. Robert thinks it will destroy the
last vestige of our cheapness, but I am very favorable to a unification
of international coinage. It agrees with my theories, you know.

We are all talking and dreaming Garibaldi just now in great anxiety.
Scarcely since the world was a world has there been such a feat of arms.
All modern heroes grow pale before him. It was necessary, however, for
us all even here, and at Turin just as in Paris, to be ready to disavow
him. The whole good of Central Italy was hazarded by it. If it had not
been success it would have been an evil beyond failure. The enterprise
was forlorner than a forlorn hope. The hero, if he had perished, would
scarcely have been sure of his epitaph even.

And 'intervention' _does_ mean quite a different thing at Naples and in
Lombardy. In Lombardy there was the _foreign tyrant_. At Naples
Italians deal with Italians; and the Austrian influence is _indirect_.
So also at Rome. It is this which makes the difficulty of dealing with
Southern Italy and the difference of treatment which you observe in
certain French papers.

I am sure, though you don't like photographs, you say, that you will
find nothing lacking in what we send you and dearest Nonno of our
Penini. It isn't like him, it's himself. As for me, I murmur, in the
depths of my vanity, that like the Emperor Napoleon (and the devil) I'm
not so black as I'm painted; but I forgive everything for Pen's sake.
Robert is not very favourably represented, I think. The beard on the
upper lip had not been properly clipped, and makes the space seem too
long for him. Another time I will mend that. I was very unusually tired
after my journey, but am getting past it. Weather was hot; but within
two days we have had some cooling rain.

Give my best love to M. Milsand, beside the photographs, and thank him
for not being offended in his 'patriotism' by my Congress poems. If he
approved of the preface as he says, I can't see how he can have written
anything about 'intervention' which I would not accept. Nothing could
have ended the intervention of Austria, except the intervention of
France; and it was on that account that we feel the latter to be a great
and chivalrous action. Italy is grateful. And if France were in
difficulty she might count on this delivered nation, as on herself. In
spite of all the bad words hurled at me in every English newspaper and
periodical nearly (and I assure you I have been put in the pillory among
them) the poems are going into a second edition, Chapman says, and
'Aurora Leigh' into a fifth. Also Chapman junior, who has come out here
to see after Lever, smoothes me down a little about Robert, and says
that the sale is bettering itself, and that a new edition of the 'oems'
will soon be wanted. I just now see a pleasant notice of myself in
'Bentley's Magazine.' Abuse of the 'Congress oems,' of course. Then a
side stroke at 'Aurora Leigh,' which was original, of course, because
it's my way to stand alone and attack people; but the principal merit of
which otherwise was the suggestion of 'Lucille' (Lytton's new
poem)--'Lucille,' says the critic, being superior in holiness and virtue
and that sort of thing to 'Aurora'! Of course.

They subscribed in England five thousand pounds for Tom Sayers. There's
the advance of civilisation. Napoleon has gone to Baden to arrange the
world a little more comfortably, I hope.

Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans have been here, and are coming back to settle
into our congenial bosom. I admire her books so much, that certainly I
shall not refuse to receive her, though she is not a medium. Sarianna!

Your ever affectionate sister.

      * * * * *


The programme of the previous year was repeated in 1860. Returning from
Rome to Florence at the beginning of June, the Brownings in July went to
Siena to avoid the extreme heat of the summer at Florence, staying as
before at the Villa Alberti. Their visit to Siena was, however, rather
shorter than the previous one, lasting only till September.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Browning, during all this time, was losing
ground in point of health; and she now received another severe blow in
the news of the serious illness of her sister Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees
Cook). The anxiety lasted for several months, and ended with the death
of Mrs. Cook in the following winter.