s or months. Forgive me, do. I feel
guilty somehow to the extreme degree, that four letters should have been
written to me, even though I received none of them, because I ought to
have written at least one letter in that time.

Your politics would be my politics on most points; we should run
together more than halfway, if we could stand side by side, in spite of
all your vindictiveness to N. III. My hero--say you? Well, I have more
belief in him than you have. And what is curious, and would be
unaccountable, I suppose, to English politicians in general, the Italian
democrats of the lower classes, the popular clubs in Florence, are
clinging to him as their one hope. Ah, here's oppression! here's a
people trodden down! You should come here and see. It is enough to turn
the depths of the heart bitter. The will of the people forced, their
instinctive affections despised, their liberty of thought spied into,
their national life ignored altogether. Robert keeps saying, 'How long,
O Lord, how long?' Such things cannot last, surely. Oh, this brutal
Austria!

I myself expect help from Louis Napoleon, though scarcely in the way
that the clubs are said to do. When I talk of a club, of course I mean a
secret combination of men--young men who meet to read forbidden
newspapers and talk forbidden subjects. He won't help the Mazzinians,
but he will do something for Italy, you will see. The Cardinals feel
it, and that's why they won't let the Pope go to Paris. We shall see. I
seem to catch sight of the grey of dawn even in the French Government
papers, and am full of hope.

As to Mazzini, he is a noble man and an unwise man. Unfortunately the
epithets are compatible. Kossuth is neither very noble nor very wise. I
have heard and _felt_ a great deal of harm of him. The truth is not in
him. And when a patriot lies like a Jesuit, what are we to say?

For England--do you approve of the fleet staying on at Malta? We are
prepared to do nothing which costs us a halfpenny for a less gain than
three farthings--always excepting the glorious national defences, which
have their end too, though not the one generally attributed....

God bless you, my dear, dear friends! Care in your thoughts for us all!

Your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

_To John Kenyon_

Casa Guidi: May 16 [1853].

My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--You are to be thanked and loved as ever, and
what can we say more? This: Do be good to us by a s