So you see our Americans can dance even while the Republic goes to pieces.  I think I would not do it.  Not that I despair of America—­God forbid!  If the North will be faithful to its conscience there will be only an increase of greatness after a few years, even though it may rain blood betwixt then and now.  Mr. Story takes it all very quietly.  He would be content to let the South go, and accept the isolation of the North as final.  ‘We should do better without the South,’ said he.  I don’t agree in this.  I think that the unity of the State should be asserted with a strong hand, and the South forced to pay taxes and submit to law.

Mdme. Swab [Schwabe] told me that a friend of hers had travelled with Klapka from Constantinople, and that K. had said, ’there would not be war till next year,—­diplomacy would take its course for the present year.’  Perhaps he did not speak sincerely.  I can’t understand how the Austrian provinces will hold out in mere talk for twelve months more.  Do you mark the tone of the ‘Opinion Nationale’ on Austria, and about Hungary being a natural ally of France, and also what is said in the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ which always more or less reflects the face of the French Government?  Then it seems to me that the Emperor’s speech is not eminently pacific, though he ‘desires peace.’  I hear from rather good authority what I hope is possible, that Teliki accepted as a condition of his liberation, not simply that he would not personally act against Austria, but that he would use his endeavours to prevent any action on the part of his compatriots.  Men are base.

Mr. Prinsep[97] is here.  Last autumn he made a walking tour into Cornwall with Alfred Tennyson, to tread in the steps of King Arthur.  Tennyson was dreadfully afraid of being recognised and mobbed, and desired to be called ‘the other gentleman,’ which straightway became convertible now and then into ‘the old gentleman,’ much to his vexation.  But Mr. Prinsep is in the roses and lilies of youth, and comparatively speaking, of course, the great Laureate was an ancient.  He is in considerable trouble, too by their building a fort in front of his house on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight.  I couldn’t help saying that he deserved it for having written ‘Riflemen, arm!’ It’s a piece of pure poetical justice, really.

Here I end.

Write to me, my Isa, and do me good with your tender, warm thoughts.  Do you think I have no comfort in feeling them stroke me softly through the dark and distance?

May God love you, dearest Isa!

Always your loving
BA.

Robert’s true love, and Pen’s.

The weather is wonderfully warm.  In fact, the winter has been very mild—­milder than usual for even Rome.

* * * * *

To Miss E.F.  Haworth

126 Via Felice, Rome:  Tuesday, [about January 1861].