SD2414. John Ruskin to Louisa Anne Stuart

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 361 (in part).

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25th November [1860]

Dear lady Waterford

Your fairy-tale contains more encouragement in it than you have yet gathered from it: For …

The opening of the note enclosed from Mrs. Browning refers to my having spoken of Lord John’s last despatch as giving me courage to write to her about Italy; there are then three pages—worth your reading merely in illustration of Mrs. Browning’s kindness: then come the Italian pieces. I fear she has been “lyrically” hopeful—I have always been despondent, from what I have seen of the uncertainty and weakness of Italian character. The news every day becomes darker–

Heaven send that she may be right and I—wrong. But England and Prussia have acted so basely and stupidly throughout that I believe they will be punished by and through the misery of Italy—reacting on themselves.

Text: Sublime & Instructive: Letters from John Ruskin, ed. Virginia Surtees (London, 1972), pp. 38–39.

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