ch a man. There is a hope that certain solutions had been prepared
between him and the Emperor, and that events will slide into their
grooves. May God save Italy! Dear M. Milsand had pleased me so by his
appreciation, but there _are_ great difficulties. The French press, tell
him, has, on the whole, done great service, except that part of it under
the influence of the ultramontane and dynastic opposition parties. And
as to exaggerated statements, it is hard, even here, to get at the truth
(with regard to the state of the south), and many Italian liberals have
had hours of anxiety and even of despondency. English friends of ours,
very candid and liberal, have gone to Naples full of hope, and returned
hoping nothing--yet they are wrong, unless this bitter loss makes them
right--

Your loving BA--

Robert tears me away--

* * * * *

With this letter the correspondence of Mrs. Browning, so far, at least,
as it is extant or accessible, comes to an end. The journey to Paris had
been abandoned, but it does not appear that there was any cause to
apprehend that her life could now be reckoned only by days. Yet so it
was. For the past three years, it is evident, her strength had been
giving way. Attacks of physical illness weakened her, without being
followed by any adequate rally; but more than all, the continuous stress
and strain of mental anxiety wore her strength away. The war of 1859,
the liberation of Sicily and Naples, the intense irritation of feeling
in connection with English opinion of Louis Napoleon and his policy, the
continual ebb and flow of rumours concerning Venetia and the Papal
States, the illness and death of her sister Henrietta--all these sources
of anxiety told terribly on her sensitive, emotional mind, and thereby
on her enfeebled body. The fragility of her appearance had always struck
strangers. So far back as 1851, Bayard Taylor remarked that 'her frame
seemed to be altogether disproportionate to her soul.' Her 'fiery soul'
did, indeed, with a far more literal truth than can often be the case,
fret her 'puny body to decay, and o'er-informed its tenement of clay.'
Her last illness--or, it may more truly be said, the last phase of that
illness which had been present with her for years--was neither long nor
severe; but she had no more strength left to resist it. Shortly after
her return to Casa Guidi another bronchial attack developed itself, to
all appearance just like