I must say to my dearest Sarianna how delighted we are at the thought of seeing her in Florence.  I wish it had been before the autumn, but since autumn is decided for we must be content to reap our golden harvest at the time for such things.  Certainly the summer heat of Florence is terrible enough—­only we should have carried you with us into the shade somewhere to the sea or to the mountains—­and Robert has, of course, told you of our Spezzia plan.  The ’fatling of the flock’ has been sheared closely of his long petticoats.  Did he tell you that?  And you can’t think how funny the little creature looks without his train, his wise baby face appearing to approve of the whole arrangement.  He talks to himself now and smiles at everybody, and admired my roses so much the other day that he wanted to eat them; having a sublime transcendental notion about the mouth being the receptacle of all beauty and glory in this world.  Tell your dear father that certainly he is a ‘sweet baby,’ there’s no denying it.  We lay him down on the floor to let him kick at ease, and he makes violent efforts to get up by himself, and Wilson declares that the least encouragement would set him walking.  Robert’s nursing does not mend his spirits much.  I shall be very glad to get him away from Florence; he has suffered too much here to rally as I long to see him do, because, dearest Sarianna, we have to live after all; and to live rightly we must turn our faces forward and press forward and not look backward morbidly for the footsteps in the dust of those beloved ones who travelled with us but yesterday.  They themselves are not behind but before, and we carry with us our tenderness living and undiminished towards them, to be completed when the round of this life is complete for us also.  Dearest Sarianna, why do I say such things, but because I have known what grief is?  Oh, and how I could have compounded with you, grief for grief, mine for yours, for I had no last words nor gestures, Sarianna.  God keep you from such a helpless bitter agony as mine then was.  Dear Sarianna, you will think of us and of Florence, my dear sister, and remember how you have made us a promise and have to keep it.  May God bless you and comfort you.  We think of you and love you continually, and I am always your most affectionate

BA.

In July the move from Florence, of which Mrs. Browning speaks in the above letter, was effected, the place ultimately chosen for escape from the summer heat in the valley of the Arno being the Bagni di Lucca.  Here three months were spent, as the following letters describe.  By this time the struggle for Italian liberty had ended in failure everywhere.  The battle of Novara, on March 23, had prostrated Piedmont, and caused the abdication of its king, Charles Albert.  The Tuscan Republic had come and gone, and the Grand Duke had re-entered his capital under the protection of Austrian bayonets.  Sicily had been reduced to subjection to the Bourbons of Naples.  On July 2 the French entered Rome, bringing back the Pope cured of his leanings to reform and constitutional government; on the 24th, Venice, after an heroic resistance, capitulated to the Austrians.  The struggle was over for the time; the longing for liberty becomes, of necessity, silent; and we hear little, for a space, of Italian politics.  For the moment it might seem justifiable to despair of the republic.