As for me, I have been nearly as ill as possible—­that’s the truth—­suffering so much that the idea of the evil’s recurrence makes me feel nervous.  All the Italians who came near me gave me up as a lost life; but God would not have it so this time, and my old vitality proved itself strong still.  At present I am remarkably well; I had a return of threatening symptoms a fortnight ago, but they passed.  I think I had been talking too much.  Now I feel quite as free and well as usual about the chest, and ‘buoyant’ as to general spirits.  Affairs in Italy seem going well, and Napoleon does not forget us, whatever his townsfolk of a certain class may do.  The French newspapers remember us well, I am happy to see, also.  But, my dear Fanny, who am I to give letters to Garibaldi?  I don’t know him, nor does he know me.  Have you acquaintance with Madame Swartz? She could help Mr. Spicer.  But she has just gone to Rome.  And we are going to Rome.  Did not Sarianna tell you that?  We go on my account to avoid the tramontana here.  People say we are foolhardy on account of the state of the country; but you are aware we are no more frightened of revolutions than M. Charles is of the tiger.  Prices at Rome will be more reasonable at any rate.  Nobody pays high for a probability of being massacred.  What I’m most afraid of after all is lest the ‘Holiness of our Lord’ should agree to reform at the last moment.  It’s too late; it must be too late—­it ought to be too late....

Poor Mr. Landor is in perfect health and in rather good spirits, seeming reconciled to his fate of exile.  In the summer he moaned over it sadly, ‘never could be happy except in England’; and I rather leant to sending him back, I confess.  But Mr. Forster and other friends seemed to think that if he went back he could never be kept from the attack, all would come over again; and really that was probable.  Still, I feared for him before he went to Siena.  It does not do to shake hour-glasses at his age, and though he had been acclimated here by an eleven years’ residence, still—­well; there was nothing for it but to keep him here.  He sighs a little still that it ‘does not agree with him,’ and that Florence is a ‘very ugly town,’ and so on; but still he is evidently much stronger than when he went to Siena, can walk for an hour together (instead of failing at the end of the street), and looks quite vigorous with his snow-white beard and moustache, through which the carnivorous laugh runs and rings.  He doesn’t know yet we are going away.  He will miss Robert dreadfully.  Robert’s goodness to him has really been apostolical.  And think of the effect of a goodness which can quote at every turn of a phrase something from an author’s book!  Isn’t it more bewitching than other goodnesses?  To certain authors, that is....

Dearest Fanny, keep up your spirits, do.  Write to me to say you are less sad.  And love not less your

Affectionate
BA.