SD2400. William Wetmore Story to Christopher Pearse Cranch
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 358–359 (in part).
Siena
Sept. 17, 1860.
My dear Cranch:
I can no longer postpone answering your letter, so long ago received. I am so terribly behindhand in my correspondence that I begin to fear that I shall never make it up; but I have been so hard at work, that I have been forced to give it all the go-by for a couple of months, and even before then I was really too much occupied to be able to do anything in the way of writing letters. This is no excuse, I know, only believe anything rather than that I do not hold you in warmest and most affectionate remembrance. The other day, worn out, and in a fit of the blues, I thought who I should wish to see, and I wrote out to Emelyn how I wish that dear old Cranch was here. And so I do. If you would come and sit on the terrace or under the trees, and read me some poetry or some new story of yours, how much better it would be than this ineffectual calling at each other through the long search of the post office. I too, am such a stupid letter writer, so are all men as a general thing, and I somehow never say on paper what I wish. But you will not write to me until I have written to you, so here goes.
Let me justify myself in saying I have been busy. Since I have arrived here I have written seven long chapters of Roba di Roma, some of which has cost me considerable study, besides the mere writing, and this has occupied all the available hours of the day. At night Browning almost always comes over here, or we go over there, and sit and talk till near midnight. Then there are other friends, the Crawfords, who have a villa close by, and Landor the Savage, and Miss Blagden, with whom we constantly engage in tea fights, and have long discussions on politics. Besides this, Emelyn’s mother and brother George have been staying with us for four months, and naturally they consume much time; so that really the days have slipped away like water through my fingers, and nothing remains of them but about three hundred closely written pages of Roba on paper, and several more wrinkles engraved on my forehead and a vast number more white hairs.
The great object of interest is Italy. One cannot but be stirred in these exciting days, and I, for one, am all the more pleased since Italy has taken her affairs into her own hands and opened her own path with the sword. What a hero is Garibaldi, so frank, noble, open and strong. It seems to me as if God was with him; no paltry trickery, no fine woven diplomacy, no hypocritical pretenses, no lies in his course. He avows his aim, and marches straight to it. Within these last few days we have been receiving from hour to hour the exciting telegrams of victory in Austria, which make the heart beat quick. Thank heaven at last, Italy is up, and Victor Emanuel in the North and Garibaldi in the South, we will grind—God willing—Rome into fine powder, and show the church what the original meaning of tribulation is. We do not want France any more than Austria, and all we ask is “hands off” and “Italia sarà da se,” she begins to feel already how strong she is, and if Louis Napoleon would only let her alone and withdraw from Rome, she would take care of the rest. As for Austria, she can do nothing effectually with Hungary in her rear. What a poor, raging fool Pius IX (or as you in Paris call him, Peeweet) looks like with his old wooden guns of excommunication; nor does he show a better front as the king, leaving armies of Mercenaries to sack his towns and murder his children. What can one say too, of La Moncière, the pure Republican, whose hands were too clean for the Empire, and who now does the Pope’s dirty work of tyranny, to patch up his pocket. I do not attempt to give you any news for you will see this in the papers.
Mrs. Browning is as strong as ever in the Gospel according to Louis Napoleon, and everything looks rosecolored in her eyes Francewards. How did you like her Poems before Congress, and did you see the Pan which was published in the Cornhill Magazine?
What have you been about lately? Writing more poems and painting more pictures? I took in “Rain” in the “Atlantic” for something of yours. I have not yet detected your hand in the latter numbers. Is there anything there?
I received a letter a few days ago from Wild who was at Boston, surrounded by friends and who was very happy to be once again in the bosom of his family. He finds things odd enough there, after his six years of European life; art friends are kind and he is skimming the cream. But like everything else in America this cream will soon go, and he will not like the skim milk below, and will long again for this side of the water. Everything, he says is monstrously dear, he rather enjoys this feature as he carried everything he needed with him. He breakfasted with James T. Field, who lives in Charles street with a view on the river and was very kind and pleasant and full of foreign reminiscences. He was about to take a tour to Franconia Notch. Quincy Shaw, he says is engaged to Pauline Agassiz; and James Lowell and the Nortons have gone off to the Adirondack Mountains.
I am really ashamed to send you such a wretched scrawl of a letter but I know not when I shall get time to do anything better; and you must accept it as a most affectionate greeting, whiskeing kiss and make me ashamed of it by long and prompt rejoinder. Pray remember me most kindly to my old friends the Greenoughs, who I hope have not forgotten me. By the way, please tell them that my music has at last turned up in Mrs. Crawford’s garret, where their servant carried it, she supposes, during her absence, as she knows not how or when it came there. She was looking over some old papers when she found this portfolio with my name, and brought it to me. What is Greenough doing now? I see by the papers that Hatty Hosmer is a celebrity in America, all the papers speak of her as Hatty, and she has lately received a commission to make a colossal statue of Thomas H. Benton for St. Louis. … Miss Cushman, I hear has gone to California,—is this so?
Kindest remembrance from Emelyn and Edie to you and Lizzie in which I cordially join.
Affectionately
W.W.S.
The “Independent” has an article greeting Page on his return to New York very warmly and speaking of him in terms of highest praise, making Browning say what he declares he never did. [“Robert Browning and other English authors in Italy who have seen the pictures painted by Mr. Page in Florence and Rome, have awarded him the very highest praise that could be bestowed upon a painter” (The Independent, 23 August 1860, p. 2).]
Publication: None traced.
Source: Transcript at Massachusetts Historical Society.
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