"
In Mrs. Browning's poem of "A Curse for a Nation," where she foretold
the agony in store for America, and which has fallen upon us with the
swiftness of lightning, she was loath to raise her poet's voice against
us, pleading,--
"For I am hound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me."
And in one of her last letters, addressed to an American friend who
had reminded her of her prophecy and of its present fulfilment, she
replied,--"Never say that I have 'cursed' your country. I only _declared
the consequence of the evil_ in her, and which has since developed
itself in thunder and flame. I feel with more pain than many Americans
do the sorrow of this transition-time; but I do know that it _is_
transition, that it _is_ crisis, and that you will come out of the fire
purified, stainless, having had the angel of a great cause walking with
you in the furnace." Are not such burning, hopeful words from such a
source--worthy of the grateful memory of the Americans? Our cause has
lost an ardent supporter in Mrs. Browning; and did we dare rebel against
God's will, we should grieve deeply that she was not permitted to
glorify the Right in America as she has glorified it in Italy.
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