4774. John Ruskin to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 211–212.
[London]
5th November [1860] [1]
Dear Mrs Browning.
I have been these two years back in a state of mind quite unfit for letter writing. Partly tired and melancholy: partly in an unspeakable condition—not knowing what to say of myself—or to any one else. You, I believe[,] were made ill by Villafranca: but you could say your say about it. I could not. I wrote three letters about it to a Scotch paper which I thought would insert them—the editor was frightened at the strong language– I got two put in another paper, [2] the third, the strongest & worthiest—nobody would have– You also can write what you feel– I can’t: I can only say what I think—in a slow way which nobody will listen to. I’m obliged, I find, now at last quite to hold my tongue, and am taking quietly to birds and beasts & worms—and bones—finding some peace in them. People are indeed shooting all the birds as fast as they can—still—there are some yellow-hammers and robins left—and a few field-mice & squirrels. Cathedrals and pictures there will soon be an end of.
I’ve been working pretty hard too—to get my book done. [3] (Are you going to stay in Florence long enough now for me to send it you there?)—and have now fallen into the lassitude of surrendered effort—& the disappointment of discovered uselessness—having come to see the great fact that great Art is of no real use to anybody but the next great Artist. That it is wholly invisible to people in general—for the present, and that to get anybody to see it, one must begin at the other end, with moral education of the people and physical—and so I’ve to turn myself quite upside down—and I’m half broken-backed and can’t manage it.
I should hardly have had spirit to write to you even now—but that there is in to-days paper at last something like a Voice from England– Late—how late. Yet, thank heaven—at last a voice,—and I suppose she has been in an occult and cowardly way—yet still, positively, helping for some time back. —I never thought to have to thank Lord John for anything, here however is whether his own or not—the first piece of steady utterance we’ve had. [4] Now if Italy can only be true to herself—but alas—for her inveterate Idleness. What do you think she can do—in way of foodful—soul-ful—work. However—with what oscillation or failure may be appointed for her—she will—as all nations will—now go forward I believe & not Hades-way, as Carlyle says. There are more now in the world who see than ever before, that I can hear of.
Just a line, please, to say if I may send book. Love to Mr Browning. Ever faithfully & devotedly yours
J Ruskin.
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We always want to hear of Penini. My mother as you know—with especial pleasure[.]
Publication: Cook, pp. 347–348.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Year provided by Ruskin’s reference to Lord John Russell’s dispatch (see note 4 below).
2. See letter 4544, note 4.
3. Modern Painters, Vol. V, published in June 1860. The copy Ruskin sent to EBB is inscribed “Mrs. Robert Browning, with the Author’s deepest regards, 1861.” It sold as part of lot 1051 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1983).
4. Ruskin refers to a dispatch dated 27 October from foreign secretary Lord John Russell to Sir James Hudson, British minister at Turin, which was printed in The Times of 5 November 1860 (p. 5). Noting the general European condemnation of Piedmont’s invasion of the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, Lord John thought that the issue came down to two questions: “Were the people of Italy justified in asking the assistance of the King of Sardinia to relieve them from Governments with which they were discontented?—and was the King of Sardinia justified in furnishing the assistance of his arms to the people of the Roman and Neapolitan States?” It was the view of his government that “the Italians themselves are the best judges of their own interests.” In concluding, Lord John wrote: “Her Majesty’s Government can see no sufficient ground for the severe censure with which Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia have visited the acts of the King of Sardinia. Her Majesty’s Government will turn their eyes rather to the gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of their liberties, and consolidating the work of their independence amid the sympathies and good wishes of Europe.”
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