h the lanes on a pony the colour of his curls. Then he helps to
work in the vineyards and to keep the sheep, having made close friends
with the _contadini_ to whom he reads and explains Dall' Ongaro's
poems with great applause. By the way, the poet paid us a visit
lately, and we liked him much.

[Footnote 1: Browning's boy and my girl.]

"And let me tell _Bice's mother_ another story of Penini. He keeps a
journal, be it whispered; I ventured to peep through the leaves the
other morning, and came to the following notice: 'This is the happiest
day of my _hole (sic)_ life, because dearest Vittorio Emanuele is
really _nostro re!_'

"There's a true Italian for you! But his weak point is spelling.

"Believe me, with my husband's regards,

"Ever truly and affectionately yours,

"ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING."

* * * * *

It may possibly enter into the mind of some one of those who never
enjoyed the privilege of knowing Mrs. Browning the woman, to couple
together the stupidly calumnious insinuations to which she refers in
the first letter I have given, with the admiration she expresses for
the third Napoleon in the second letter. I differed from her wholly in
her estimate of the man, and in her views of his policy with regard to
Italy. And many an argument have I had with her on the subject. And my
opinions respecting it were all the more distasteful to her because
they concerned the character of the man himself as well as his policy
as a ruler. And those talks and arguments have left me probably the
only man alive, save one, who knows with such certainty as I know it,
and can assert as I can, the absolute absurdity and impossibility of
the idea that she, being what she was, could have been bribed by any
amount of Imperial or other flattery, not only to profess opinions
which she did not veritably hold--this touches her moral nature,
perhaps the most pellucidly truthful of any I ever knew--but to hold
opinions which she would not have otherwise held. This touches her
intellectual nature, which was as incapable of being mystified or
modified by any suggestion of vanity, self-love, or gratified pride,
as the most judicial-minded judge who ever sat on the bench. Her
intellectual view on the matter _was_, I thought, mystified and
modified by the intensity of her love for the Italian cause, and of
her hatred for the evils from which she was watching the Italians
struggling to liberate themselve