“It is a very short-sighted view of the past year which regards the struggle as one between the principles of Monarchy and Democracy. The real question at issue is the far greater question of Social Equality. It was begun in Switzerland, attempted at Cracow, mooted [?] in Pau, in Vienna, throughout Italy and Germany and Hungary, and is yet in litigation,—with all men to urge and argue it, and with starving half-enlightened millions to drive them forward. Not the least dangerous part of this tremendous commotion is that many worthy and right-minded men wish it success. Some see in it the hope of a grand advance in human happiness and civilisation. Others predict that Protestantism—the religion of liberty and enlightenment—will overcome the old foe of superstition. But all seem to forget to restore order, for chaos is not man’s prerogative, and that in every history we read how such convulsion inevitably threw mankind back almost into elemental barbarism, glad even of the refuge of a tyranny against the more cruel dominion of their own passions. Pray, my dear friend, don’t set my [? lamentation] down as a worse evil than what it is intended to typify. And now for ourselves!
“Here we are, with snow a yard deep and the thermometer at 18° to 20° Fahrenheit, and this with Italian houses, marble halls and floors, marble tables, and every accessory for icing poor human nature on a grand scale. We never suffered as much from cold in the Tyrol Alps, for really there is not one single preparation here against it,—and as to fire, I have burned a small forest already.
“Socially we are far worse off than before. The worst feeling exists between the Austrians and the Italians: they seldom meet, and never amicably. The consequence is that few houses are open, and those few admit only a certain set of intimates. The Court, to avoid difficulties, does nothing; and theatres—of which there are seven—every night are deplorably bad. So you can see how dull one can be even in this favoured region. We are, however, all well, and the children not the less happy that sliding and skating replace mere promenading.
“I am in the throes of a new book, of which after a few months’ full pondering over I cannot even fix up the name, so that you see I haven’t made much progress.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Florence, Feb. 2, 1850.
“The enclosed bulky packet—which I need not say is entirely open to you if you care to read it—I want you to negotiate with M’Glashan for ‘The Dublin University Magazine’; the ground of the treaty being that I am to write a serial story, of which this is the opening chapter,* [? instalments] of a length varying from 16 to 18 pp. in the Magazine, the copyright of which I am to retain,—the whole to be concluded in twelve or twenty contributions, as we may see best, and for which I ask £20 per sheet, but if obliged will take 16 guineas—terms he offered me before. My plan is a story which, embracing the great changes in the present century, would bring my hero en scène in the recent convulsions of the world—in the years ‘48 and ‘49.”
* ‘Maurice Tiernay.’
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Florence, Feb. 26,1850.