My loved friend,--I read your letter with greatest content. I did not
know but that there might seem something offensively strange in the
circumstances I mentioned to you. Goethe says, "There is nothing men
pardon so little as singular conduct, for which no reason is given;"
and, remembering this, I have been a little surprised at the even
increased warmth of interest with which the little American society of
Florence has received me, with the unexpected accessories of husband
and child,--asking no questions, and seemingly satisfied to find me
thus accompanied. With you, indeed, I thought it would be so, because
you are above the world; only, as you have always walked in the beaten
path, though with noble port, and feet undefiled, I thought you might
not like your friends to be running about in these blind alleys. It
glads my heart, indeed, that you do not care for this, and that we may
meet in love.
You speak of our children. Ah! dear friend, I do, indeed, feel we
shall have deep sympathy there. I do not believe mine will be a
brilliant child, and, indeed, I see nothing peculiar about him. Yet he
is to me a source of ineffable joys,--far purer, deeper, than anything
I ever felt before,--like what Nature had sometimes given, but more
intimate, more sweet. He loves me very much; his little heart clings
to mine. I trust, if he lives, to sow there no seeds which are not
good, to be always growing better for his sake. Ossoli, too, will be
a good father. He has very little of what is called intellectual
development, but unspoiled instincts, affections pure and constant,
and a quiet sense of duty, which, to me,--who have seen much of the
great faults in characters of enthusiasm and genius,--seems of highest
value.
When you write by post, please direct "Marchesa Ossoli," as all the
letters come to that address. I did not explain myself on that point.
The fact is, it looks to me silly for a radical like me to be carrying
a title; and yet, while Ossoli is in his native land, it seems
disjoining myself from him, not to bear it. It is a sort of thing that
does not naturally belong to me, and, unsustained by fortune, is but a
_souvenir_ even for Ossoli. Yet it has appeared to me, that for him
to drop an inherited title would be, in some sort, to acquiesce in
his brothers' disclaiming him, and to abandon a right he may passively
wish to maintain for his child. How does it seem to you? I am not
very clear about it. If Ossoli should drop the title, it would be
a suitable moment to do so on becoming an inhabitant of Republican
America.