*

_To Mrs. Jameson_

(Fragment) [Early in 1860.]

I remember well your kindness to it. Nothing was said then about the
'fit arguments for poetry,' and I recovered from it to write 'Aurora
Leigh,' of which, however, many people did say that it was built on an
unfit argument, and besides was a very indecent, corrupting book (have I
not heard of ladies of sixty, who had 'never felt themselves pure since
reading it'?) But now, consider. Since you did not lose hope for me in
'Casa Guidi Windows,' because the line of politics was your own, why
need you despair of me in the 'Poems before Congress,' although I do
praise the devil in them? A mistake is not fatal to a critic? need it be
to a poet? Does Napoleon's being wicked (if he is so) make Italy less
interesting? or unfit for poetry historical subjects like 'The Dance' or
the 'Court Lady'? Meanwhile that thin-skinned people the Americans
exceed some of you in generosity, rendering thanks to reprovers of their
ill deeds, and understanding the pure love of the motive.[77] Let me
tell you rather for their sake than mine. I have extravagant praises and
_prices_ offered to me from 'over the western sun,' in consequence of
these very 'Poems before Congress.' The nation is generous in these
things and not 'thin-skinned.'

As to England, I shall be forgiven in time. The first part of a campaign
and the first part of a discussion are the least favourable to English
successes. After a while (by the time you have learnt to shoot cats with
the new rifles), you will put them away, and arrive at the happy second
thought which corrects the first thought. That second thought will not
be of _invasion_, prophesies a headless prophet. 'Time was when heads
were off a man would die.' A man--yes. But a woman! _We_ die hard, you
know.

Here, an end. I hope you will write to me some day, and ease me by
proving to me that I have ceased to be bitter to the palate of your
soul. Believe this--that, rather than be a serious sadness to you, I
would gladly sit on in the pillory under the aggressive mud of that mob
of 'Saturday Reviewers,' who take their mud and their morals from the
same place, and use voices hoarse with hooting down un-English
poetesses, to cheer on the English champion, Tom Sayers. For me, I
neither wish for the 'belt'[78] nor martyrdom; but if I were ambitious
of anything, it might be to be wronged where, for instance, Cavour is
wronged.

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