this winter he has had too much gloom
about him by far. But he looks entirely well--as does Penini. I am weak
and languid. I struggle hard to live on. I wish to live just as long as
and no longer than to grow in the soul.

May God bless you, dearest Fanny. Write.

America is making me very anxious just know. If they compromise in the
north it is a moral death, but a merely physical dissolution of the
States would be followed by a resurrection 'in honor,' and I should not
fear. What are you painting?

Your affectionate as ever
BA.

Did you see Lacordaire received? Those are things I care to see in
Paris, wishing, however, to Guizot, the king of Prussia, and all prigs,
the contempt they deserve.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

126 Via Felice, [Rome]:
Monday, [November December 1860].

Ever dearest Isa,--How you grieve me by this news of your being unwell.
Dear, I wondered at having no letter, and now with the letter and all
the proofs of your remembering me (newspaper and pens) comes the bad
word of your being ill....

I myself am not very well. I thought I was going to have a bad attack of
the oppression, but this morning it seems to have almost gone, and
without a blister! I had one night very bad. Probably a sudden call from
the tramontana brought it; even frost we had. Only, on the whole, and
considering accounts from other places, Rome has distinguished itself
for mildness this year; and I hope I shall keep from bad attacks, having
not much strength in body, nerve, or spirit to bear up resistingly
against them....

Sir John Bowring has been to see us. Yes, he speaks with great authority
and conviction, and it carries the more emphasis because he is not
without Antigallican prejudice, I observed. He told me that the panic in
England about invasion had reached, at one time, a point of phrenzy
which would be scarcely credible to anyone who had not witnessed it.
People were in terrors, expecting their houses to be burnt and sacked
directly. Placards of the most inflammatory character, calling
passionately on the riflemen to arm, arm, arm! He himself was hissed at
Edinburgh for venturing to say that the rifle-locks would be very rusty
if only used against invading Napoleons.

He told me that the Emperor's intentions towards Italy had been
undeviatingly ignored, and that whatever had seemed equivocal had been
misunderstood, or was the consequence of misunderstanding, or o