somewhat
disappointed by your not coming to Italy. Never will you come to Rome as
Geddie expects, late in the spring, to take an apartment close to her,
looking charmingly on the river. I told her quite frankly that you would
not be so unwise. Rome is empty of foreigners this year, a few Americans
standing for all. Then, in the midst of the quiet, deeply does the
passion work: on one side, with the people, on the other in the despair
and rage of the Papal Government. The Pope can't go out to breakfast, to
drink chocolate and talk about 'Divine things' to the 'Christian youth,'
but he stumbles upon the term 'new ideas,' and, falling precipitately
into a fury, neither evangelical nor angelical, calls Napoleon a
_sicario_ (cut-throat), and Vittorio Emanuele an _assassino_. The French
head of police, who was present, whispered to acquaintances of ours,
'Comme il enrage le saint pere!' In fact, all dignity has been
repeatedly forgotten in simple _rage_. Affairs of Italy generally are
going on to the goal, and we look for the best and glorious results,
perhaps _not without more fighting_. Certainly we can't leave Venetia in
the mouth of Austria by a second Villafranca. We cannot and will not.
And, sooner or later, the Emperor is prepared, I think, to carry us
through. Odo Russell told me (without my putting any question to him)
that everything, as it came out, proved how true he had been to
Italy--that, in fact, he had 'rather acted as an Italian than as a
Frenchman.' And Mr. Russell, while liberal, is himself very English, and
free from Buonaparte tendencies from hair to heel.

We often have letters from dear Isa Blagden, who sends me the Florence
news, more shining from day to day. Central Italy seems safe.

But let me tell you of my thin slice of a wicked book. Yes, I shall
expect you to read it, and I send you an order for it to Chapman,
therefore. Everybody will hate me for it, and so _you must_ try hard to
love me the more to make up for that. Say it's mad, and bad, and sad;
but _add_ that somebody did it who meant it, thought it, felt it,
throbbed it out with heart and brain, and that she holds it for truth in
conscience and not in partisanship. I want to tell you (oh, I can't help
telling you) that when the ode was read before Peni, at the part
relating to Italy his eyes overflowed, and down he threw himself on the
sofa, hiding his face. The child has been very earnest about Italian
politics. The heroine of that poem