Such things I could tell you—­things to moisten your eyes—­to wring that burning eloquence of yours from your lips.  But Robert waits to take this letter.  Penini has adorned our terrace with two tricolour flags, the Italian tricolour and the French.  May God bless you, dear friend.  Speak again for Italy.  If you could see with what eyes the Italian speaks of the ‘English.’  Our love to you, Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin—­if we may—­because we must.  Write to us, do.

Ever affectionately yours,
R.B. and E.B.B.

* * * * *

To Miss Browning

Florence:  [about June 1859.]

My dearest Sarianna,—­There is a breath of air giving one strength to hold one’s pen at this moment.  How people can use swords in such weather it’s difficult to imagine.  We have been melting to nothing, like the lump of sugar in one’s tea, or rather in one’s lemonade, for tea grows to be an abomination before the sun.  The heat, which lingered unusually, has come in on us with a rush of flame for some days past, suggesting, however, the degree beyond itself, which is coming.  We stay on at Florence because we can’t bear to go where the bulletin twice a day from the war comes less directly; and certainly we shall stay till we can’t breathe here any more.  On which contingency our talk is to go somewhere for two months.  Meanwhile we stay.

You can’t conceive of the intense interest which is reigning here, you can’t realise it, scarcely.  In Paris there is vivid interest, of course, but that is from less immediate motives, except with persons who have relations in the army.  Here it is as if each one had a personal enemy in the street below struggling to get up to him.  When we are anxious we are pale; when we are glad we have tears in our eyes.  This ‘unnecessary’ and ‘inexcusable’ war (as it has been called in England) represents the only hope of a nation agonising between death and life.  You talk about our living or dying, but we live or die.  That’s the difference between you and us.

We shall live, however.  The hope is rising into triumph.  Nobody any more will say that the Italians fight ill.  Remember that Garibaldi has with him simply the volunteers from all parts of Italy, not the trained troops.  He and they are heroic (as with such conviction and faith they were sure to be), and the trained troops not less so.  ’Worthy of fighting side by side with the French,’ says the Emperor; while the French are worthy of their fame.  ‘The great military power’ crumbles before them, because souls are stronger than bodies always.  There is no such page of glory in the whole history of France.  Great motives and great deeds.  The feeling of profound gratitude to Napoleon III., among this people here, is sublime from its unanimity and depth....