SD2360. Ellen Twisleton to Elizabeth Cabot
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 347–348 (in part).
[London]
March 30, 1860.
My darling– Your letter of March 10th with all its enclosures arrived this week, for which many, many thanks. …
You & Elliot will be delighted with Hawthorne’s new novel—wh. Edward & I read right thro’ without ever laying it down. I do so sympathize with the man’s view of good & evil—more than anyone he expresses their difference, in his weird & mystical meanings. Besides it is Rome & Italy all over.
Edward’s feelings are dreadfully wrought upon by Mrs Browning’s “Poems before Congress”—as you will easily understand when you read them. I wish she said things a little more justly than to curse & swear at England, & deify Louis Napoleon—for who has helped Italy & risked their own overthrow for her, if not this Government?—two stancher friends than Lord John & Gladstone she never had—& I have been proud of the Whigs, for the very sake of Italy. Also, she swears at the volunteer movement, which I intensely believe in, for a needful, & patriotic, & living thing, with a heart to it, & a righteous aim. But there are most lovely lines in it, and the poetry enchants me, wherever she keeps to Italy, & lets England & France alone. I suppose she thinks it all right that Louis Napoleon should have Savoy—& what will she think when he wishes to go to the Rhine?—right too? In fact, I am having rather a strife of sensations, between husband & friend, Italy & England—“(Knowing the heart of man is set to be the centre of this world,” &c. &c.). …
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Harvard University.
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