May 28, 1848.

... And now I must tell you what we have done since I wrote last, little thinking of doing so. You see our problem was to get to England as much in our summers as possible, the expense of the intermediate journeys making it difficult of solution. On examination of the whole case, it appeared manifest that we were throwing money into the like to hear you talk of poor France; how I hope that you are able to hope for her. Oh, this absurdity of communism and mythological fête-ism! where can it end? They had better have kept Louis Philippe after all, if they are no more practical. Your Madame must be insufferable indeed, seeing that her knowledge of these subjects and men did not make her sufferable to you. My curiosity never is exhausted. What I hold is that the French have a higher ideal than we, and that all this clambering, leaping, struggling of indefinite awkwardness simply proves it. But success in the republic is different still. I fear for them. My uncle and his family are safe at Tunbridge Wells, my aunt longing to be able to get back again. For those who are still nearer to me, I have no heart to speak of them, loving them as I do and must to the end, whatever that end may be; but my dearest sisters write often to me—never let me miss their affection. I am quite well again, and strong, and Robert and I go out after tea in a wandering walk to sit in the Loggia and look at the Perseus, or, better still, at the divine sunsets on the Arno, turning it to pure gold under the bridges. After more than twenty months of marriage, we are happier than ever—I may say we. Italy will regenerate herself in all senses, I hope and believe. In Florence we are very quiet, and the English fly in proportion. N.B.—Always first fly the majors and gallant captains, unless there's a general. How I should like to see dear Mr. Horne's poem! He's bold, at least—yes, and has a great heart to be bold with. A cloud has fallen on me some few weeks ago, in the illness and death of my dear friend Mr. Boyd,[[177]] but he did not suffer, and is not to be mourned by those without hope [sic]. Still, it has been a cloud. May God bless you, my beloved friend. Write soon, and of yourself, to your ever affectionate

BA.

My husband's regards go to you, of course.

To Miss Browning

[Florence: about June 1848.]

My dearest Sarianna,—At last, you see, I give sign of life. The love, I hope you believed in without sign or symbol; and even for the rest, Robert promised to answer for me like godfather or godmother, and bear the consequence of my sins....

We are a little uneasy just now as to whether you will be overjoyed or under joyed by our new scheme of taking an unfurnished apartment. It would spoil all, for instance, if your dear mother seemed disappointed—vexed—in the least degree. And I can understand how, to persons at a distance and of course unable to understand the whole circumstances of the case, the fact of an apartment taken and furnished may seem to involve some dreadful giving up for ever and ever of country and family—which would be as dreadful to us as to you! How could we give you up, do you think, when we love you more and more? Oh no. If Robert has succeeded in making clear the subject to you, you will all perceive, just as we know, that we have simply thus solved the problem of making our small income carry us to England, not only next summer, but many a summer after. We should like to give every summer to dear England, and hide away from the cold only when it comes. By our scheme we shall have saved money even at the end of the present year; while for afterward, here's a residence—that is, apied à terre—in Italy, all but free when we wish to use it; and when we care to let it, producing eight or ten pounds a month in help of travelling expenses. It's the best investment for Mr. Moxon's money we could have looked the world over for. So the learned tell us; and after all, you know, we only pay in the proportion of your working classes in the Pancras building contrived for them by the philanthropy of your Southwood Smiths. I do wish you could see what rooms we have, what ceilings, what height and breadth, what a double terrace for orange trees; how cool, how likely to be warm, how perfect every way! Robert leaned once to a ground floor in the Frescobaldi Palace, being bewitched by a garden full of camellias, and a little pond of gold and silver fish; but while he saw the fish I saw the mosquitos in clouds, such an apocalypse of them as has not yet been visible to me in all Florence, and I dread mosquitos more than Austrians; and he, in his unspeakable goodness, deferred to my fear in a moment and gave up the camellias without one look behind. A heavy conscience I should have if it were not that the camellia garden was certainly less private than our terrace here, where we can have camellias also if we please. How pretty and pleasant your cottage at Windsor must be! We had a long muse over your father's sketch of it, and set faces at the windows. That the dear invalid is better for the change must have brightened it, too, to her companions, and the very sound of a 'forest' is something peculiarly delightful and untried to me. I know hills well, and of the sea too much; but now I want forests, or quite, quite mountains, such as you have not in England.

Robert says that if 'Blackwood' likes to print a poem of mine and send you the proofs, you will be so very good as to like to correct them. To me it seems too much to ask, when you have work for him to do beside. Will it be too much, or is nothing so to your kindness? I would ask my other sisters, who would gladly, dear things, do it for me; but I have misgivings through their being so entirely unaccustomed to occupations of the sort, or any critical reading of poetry of any sort. Robert is quite well and in the best spirits, and has the headache now only very occasionally. I am as well as he, having quite recovered my strength and power of walking. So we wander to the bridge of Trinità every evening after tea to see the sunset on the Arno. May God bless you all! Give my true love to your father and mother, and my loving thanks to yourself for that last stitch in the stool. How good you are, Sarianna, to your ever affectionate sister

BA.