f the
press of some otherwise great difficulty. The Italian question was only
beginning to be understood in England. I said (in my sarcastic way) that
at first they had seemed to understand it upside down. To which he
replied that when, at the opening of the Revolution, he came over with
several English officers from India, they were _all prepared_ (in case
England didn't fight on the Hapsburg side) to enter the Austrian army as
volunteers to help them to keep down Italy.

But men like Mr. Trollope find it easy to ignore all this. It is we who
have done the most for Italy--we who did nothing! Yes, I admit so far.
We abstained from helping the Austrians with an open force.

That now we wish well to the Italian cause is true, I hope, but, at
best, it is a noble inconsistency; and that we should set up a claim to
a nation's gratitude on these grounds seems to me worse than absurd. The
more we are in earnest now, the more ashamed we should be for what has
been.

I have been sorry about Gaeta;[93] but there is somewhere a cause, and,
perhaps, not hard to find. That the Emperor is ready to do for Italy
_whatever will not sacrifice France_, I am convinced more than ever. And
even the Romans (who have benefited least) think so. One of the patriots
here, a watchmaker, was saying to Ferdinando the other day that he had
subscribed to Garibaldi's fund, and had given his name for Viterbo,[94]
but that there was one man in whom he believed most, and never ceased to
believe--Louis Napoleon. And this is the common feeling. Mr. Trollope
said that they only ventured to unbosom themselves to the English. Now
my belief is that the Italians seldom do this to the English, as far as
Napoleon is concerned. The Italians are _furbi assai_, and wish to
conciliate us, and are perfectly aware of our national jealousies. I
myself have observed the difference in an Italian when speaking to my
own husband before me and speaking to me alone.

Since we came here I have had a letter from Ruskin, written in a very
desponding state about his work, and life, and the world....

Life goes on heavily with me, but it goes on: it has rolled into the
ruts again and goes....

Write to me, my Isa, and love me.

I am your ever loving BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

[Rome: November-December 1860.]

... Now while I remember it let me tell you what I quite forgot
yesterday. If through Kate's dealing with American pa