* *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

[Rome], Friday [end of March 1860].

My ever dearest Isa, I am scarcely in heart yet for writing letters, and
did not mean to write to-day. You heard of the unexpected event which
brought me the loss of a very dear friend, dear, dear Mrs. Jameson.[79]
It was, of course, a shock to me, as such things are meant to be....

And now I come to what makes me tax you with a dull letter, I feeling so
dully; and, dear, it is with dismay I have to tell you that the letter
you addressed under cover to Mr. Russell has _never reached us_. Till
your last communication (this moment received), I had hoped that the
contents of it might have been less important than O.-papers must be.
What is to be done, or thought? I beseech you to write and tell me if
_harm_ is likely to follow from this seizure. The other inclosure came
to me quite safely, because it came by the Government messenger. I think
you sent it through Corbet. But Mr. Russell's _post_ letters are as
liable to opening as mine are; his name is no security. Whenever you
send a 'Nazione' newspaper through him, it never reaches us, though we
receive our 'Monitore' through him regularly. Why? Because in his
position he is allowed to have newspapers for his own use. He takes in
for himself no 'Monitore,' so ours goes to his account, but he does take
in a 'Nazione,' therefore ours is seized, as being plainly for other
hands than his own licensed ones.

I am very much grieved about this loss of your letter and its contents.
First, there's my fear lest harm should come of this, and then there's
my own personal _mulcting_ of what would have been of such deep interest
to me. I am 'revelling'? See how little.

Robert wrote in a playful vein to Kate, and you must not and will not
care for that. He had understood from your letter that you and the
majority had all, like the 'Athenaeum,' understood the 'Curse for a
Nation' to be directed against England. Robert was _furious_ about the
'Athenaeum'; no other word describes him, and I thought that both I and
Mr. Chorley would perish together, seeing that even the accusation (such
a one!) made me infamous, it seemed.

The curious thing is, that it was at Robert's suggestion that that
particular poem was reprinted there (it never had appeared in England),
though 'Barkis was willing'; I had no manner of objection. I never have
to justice.

Mr. Chorley's review is objectionable to me because unjust. A rev