Mr. del Bene thought him much improved in his music, and I hope he gets on in other things, and that when we bring him back to you (crowned with Italian laurels), you will think so too. Meanwhile think of us and love us, dearest Nonno. I always think of your kindness to me.
Your ever affectionate Daughter,
Ba.
Casa Guidi: June 3, [1859].
My dear Mr. Ruskin,—We send to you every now and then somebody hungry for a touch from your hand; we who are famished for it ourselves. But this time we send you a man whom you will value perfectly for himself and be kind to from yourself, quite spontaneously. He is the American artist, Page, an earnest, simple, noble artist and man, who carries his Christianity down from his deep heart to the point of his brush. Draw him out to talk to you, and you will find it worth while. He has learnt much from Swedenborg, and used it in his views upon art. Much of it (if new) may sound to you wild and dreamy—but the dream will admit of logical inference and philosophical induction, and when you open your eyes, it is still there.
He has not been successful in life—few are who are uncompromising in their manner of life. When I speak of life, I include art, which is life to him. I should like you to see what a wonder of light and colour and space and breathable air, he put into his Venus rising from the sea—refused on the ground of nudity at the Paris Exhibition this summer. The loss will be great to him, I fear.
You will recognise in this name Page, the painter of Robert's portrait which you praised for its Venetian colour, and criticised in other respects. In fact, Mr. Page believes that he has discovered Titian's secret—and, what is more, he will tell it to you in love, and indeed to anybody else in charity. So I don't say that to bribe you.
Dear, dear Mr. Ruskin, we thank you and love you more than ever for your good word about our Italy. Oh, if you knew how hard it is and has been to receive the low, selfish, ignoble words with which this great cause has been pelted from England, not from her Derby government only, but from her parliament, her statesmen, her reformers, her leaders of the Liberal party, her free press—to receive such words full in our faces, nay, in the quick of our hearts, till we grow sick with loathing and hot with indignation—if you knew what it was and is, you would feel how glad and grateful we must be to have a right word from John Ruskin. Dear Mr. Ruskin, England has done terribly ill, ignobly ill, which is worse. That men of all parties should have spoken as they have, proves a state of public morals lamentable to admit. What—not even our poets with clean hands? Alfred Tennyson abetting Lord Derby? That to me was the heaviest blow of all.