4758. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 188–191.
[Siena]
[11 October 1860] [1]
We give you our last words, dearest Sarianna, as we leave Siena– For my part I am sorry to go. I want nothing so much just now as silence & quiet, & Florence sounds noisy & unsympathetic at a distance– I have been a little relieved for the last few weeks through the malady in England seeming to fall from the acute to the chronic form, .. & from the pain being somewhat less sharp—but a letter from George this morning has saddened me to a deeper shade .. & there was little need. I had been glad at the non-use of caustic– Now it appears that caustic was not used, only because of the adjacency of vital organs. George has been at Stoke Court six or seven weeks—in which time there has been little change, he says—some diminished pain certainly, .. but also some increasing weakness. The thought of this precious sister lies heavy on me of course–
Why should I pain your kindness by dwelling on it all?--
Two of my brothers have left Stoke Court, [2] but George & Arabel remain. Now for something else!
In public affairs there has been great anxiety lately on account of the weak point in Garibaldi’s brain coming out precisely as we feared it might. He is true as the steel he bears .. but liable to influences, & exposed to the worst: a little drunk with success too .. inclined to go mad like Ajax & slay the sheep. [3] An attack on Rome would have involved a civil war necessarily– But I hope the threat has been enough to dissuade him from this piece of madness & badness at once– The Roman question is to be solved otherwise. You probably know by this time what we all knew here from the beginning, that the withdrawal of the French ambassador from Turin & the scold in the Constitutional were simply a feint—necessary to enable Napoleon to disengage his army for our further protection. The circumstantial evidence of his having said “Allez,” [4] was from the beginning irrecusable– Farini (one of the most active of the Italian patriots & a personal friend of the emperor’s) went straight from his face at Chambery to the arranging of the expedition– Pepoli, his cousin & friend, is appointed the chief commissary of the Papal states—& (to say nothing of the Cavour interview at Nice which was kept very secret) [5] these facts are decisive of themselves– The secret history of the re-constitution of Italy will be very curious reading presently. The emperor has played out a game of chess for the good of humanity. His policy has been called “tortuous”– It should rather have been called underground– It has stepped forward straight as an arrow to its results,—only not openly– The problem was the liberation of Italy without a European convulsion or too much internal French opposition—for, most ignobly, all the parties inimical to the Emperor in France, have used this Italian question against him .. just as much as Lamoriciére himself did. Napoleon has risked much for Italy—and the most wily prudence became a part of duty for him. By degrees & with little noise he has reduced the papal government to the last level– If the pope flies .. it is a solution: if he stays .. it is a solution also; for a bird could as soon live in the sea as a city under a priestly tyrannical government in the heart of a liberated Italy. The mountain of the Pope’s temporal power produces a mouse which is placed in an exhausted receiver instantly.
In fact, I scarcely know whether to wish the “holy father” to go or stay—& the majority here seems to lean towards his staying. If he went, there would be a shrieking about exile, and a new banner raised. He had better stay perhaps–
Italy is very grateful to the emperor, let Garibaldi threaten what he may.
You would’nt help us last year, Sarianna, even with moral support—and now, you have enough to do with your “income-tax,” it seems, to pay for your ‘Defences’ [6] —& all we ask or expect is that you wont join against us at Warsaw [7] or elsewhere & that you abstain from writing such despatches as Lord John wrote the other day. [8] France may throw us a rough word now & then, because we know her ready to throw us a generous deed—but when it is understood that people give only words, they should be clean words & weighty, & for us & not against us– To hear of the “interests of England in the Adriatic” in relation to our poor Venice, .. did strike me as an unmanly cut–
Our Penini has had another touch of fever, & was in bed two days– You will think he has such attacks very often—but, in fact, autumnal fevers have been too common among the peasants this year– While it is hard (with every care) to keep Pen out of the sun to the safe degree. This summer’s being so comfortably cool for Italy, has not been the more healthy for that. Fire is here our natural element, you see. And after all, Pen has recovered his roses & roundnesses, .. & the impertinence thereto appertaining– You would not wish him to look better or grow faster. As to Robert he was boasting yesterday of being at the top of health.
We may not remain at Florence above a month, & then turn our faces to Rome– But it depends of course on circumstances, & I, for my part, have no heart for plans– Mr Landor … no, I dont like him, Sarianna. I am simply kind thro’ humanity. Give Peni’s & my best love, to the dearest Nonno, whose sublime unselfishness & want of common egotism present such a contrast to what is here. Tell him I often think of him & always with touched feelings. When he is eighty six or ninety six,—nobody will be pained or humbled by the spectacle of an insane selflove resulting from a long life’s ungoverned will. May God bless him.
Love to dear M. Milsand. John Lemoine has done good service for Italy in some admirable articles in the Debats– [9] The Revue des deux Mondes on the other hand has taken an unworthy attitude .. for love of the emperor of course.
Colonel Peard [10] (“Garibaldi’s Englishman” so called) writes in private letters to friends of ours that the hero is surrounded day & night, with the Mazzinian gang– Oh– Jessie is there, of course!– She pretends to be doing work at the hospitals [11] —but she does work instead, says Peard, in corrupting Garibaldi– An infamous “allocution” (as bad as the pope’s in its way) has appeared from Mazzini. [12]
For all that, the national party & overwhelming majority must triumph we believe. Only here, at the last hour, is a division & an internal danger! & this by Mazzini! [13] ——
See how I get back to my Italy. It’s the only way I get out of my private grief just now.
Dearest Sarianna’s ever affectionate sister
Ba
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Dated by EBB’s references to Henrietta’s illness and by her mention of “last words … as we leave Siena.” The Brownings left Siena on 11 October 1860, as RB indicates in letter 4761.
2. Charles John and Octavius.
4. “Let’s go.”
5. We have been unable to verify that such an interview (presumably with Napoleon III) took place.
6. In September, W.E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that England’s income tax, previously collected half-yearly, would in the future be collected quarterly. An editorial in The Times of 24 September 1860 suggested that “Mr. Gladstone’s desire—very natural in the position to which he has brought our finances—of gaining to the credit of the present year a quarter’s Income Tax, and indemnifying the next year and all succeeding ones by a similar anticipation, has, no doubt, been the cause of the change; but it is easier to see why the thing was done than to justify the doing it” (p. 6). A further editorial in the issue of 1 October (p. 6) complained: “Taxation has now reached such a point that even the most encouraging statement of the revenue will fail of awaking a cheerful response in the minds of the public.” In looking over the country’s revenues and expenditures for the last year and a quarter, The Times editorial writer noted: “The first fact that strikes us … is the enormous sum annually collected, and spent for the most part in war and preparations for war.” From 1859 to 1860, defense spending increased by nearly five million pounds, the reason for which lay on the other side of the English Channel: “This sum is the extra insurance we pay for our lives and properties on account of the Military government which is established at our doors.”
7. i.e., the Warsaw Conferences, which England did not attend (see letter 4753, note 12 and letter 4755, note 12).
9. In an untitled article in the Journal des Débats of 17 September 1860, for example, John Émile Lemoine (1815–92), a French journalist born in London, wrote: “We are convinced that the principle of non-intervention, which is closely tied to the principle of national sovereignty, will continue to be respected, and we firmly hope that the rapid changes unfolding in the Italian theatre will not bring greater and more serious ones to Europe. … We are convinced that the Italians will know when to stop when it is necessary to do so, just as they have been able to proceed when it was necessary, and that they will have too much prudence, presence of mind and insightfulness to, on the one hand, attack the flag that heretofore has served as a signal and today serves them as protection, and on the other hand, to provoke aggression against which they are not yet sufficiently prepared” (p. 1).
11. According to Elizabeth Adams Daniels, citing The Daily News of 25 September 1860, Jessie White Mario was not pretending: “Madame Mario, whose husband is attached to the staff, and herself to the hospitals of Garibaldi, is also here. I utterly reject her principles … but I admire her merits in the management of hospitals, and in the sacrifice of time and repose which she made for a great benevolent object” (Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary, Athens, Ohio, 1972, p. 96). “In The Daily News for Friday, October 12, it was reported that during the battle of Santa Maria [battle of Volturno] ‘Miss White, in a fantastic dress, devoted herself entirely to this mission … [of collecting the wounded and dressing their wounds]’” (p. 97).
12. Presumably, EBB refers to a letter written by Mazzini that was printed in various continental newspapers. Dated 6 October, it was a reply to a letter from Giorgio Pallavicino (1796–1878), recently named Pro-Dictator of Naples, asking Mazzini to leave the Neapolitan states because his presence caused division and harmed the Italian cause. A translation of both Pallavicino’s letter, dated 3 October, and Mazzini’s appeared in The Morning Post of 13 October 1860 (p. 5). Mazzini refused to go and among a number of reasons for his doing so was the belief that the request to leave came from “the Turin Ministry, towards whom I have no debt, and whom I think fatal to the unity of the country; it [the request] comes from intriguers without conscience, without honour, and without national morality; without creed except for the existing power whatever it may be, and whom I consequently despise.”
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