Publication InformationTurin Dc 8 1861

Page 1

Dear Baird

Professor Matteucci has interested himself in the matter of an agent for the Smithsonian Exchanger for Italy and informs me that Mr Louis Boeuf, bookseller at Genoa "se change de recevoir et de distribuer tous les ouvrages qui lui seront remis de l'Amerique pour l'Italie?".

Mr Matteucci requests me to mention the Library of the University at Genoa as an establishment altogether fit to be put on your list of recipients of books. He speaks of [...]

of that University as among the best conducted in Italy.

We have had a charming summer. We are just under the Alps, & a few hours bring me to the roots of them. A glorious panorama it is, and I am in a constant fever to get into them. It is in fact, but a secret, that in August the wife of me was carried across a glacier three hours wide, and 11,000 feet above the sea, by eight men. I and my niece, a brave little girl of 14, trolling along by the side of her, and then a matter of

five hours down the mountain.

I can't yet believe that we are to have war with England, though all my diplomatic brethren believe we are, but this is too blue a subject to write about.

We spent a pleasant week at Florence during the Exposition, which was respectable. There were good stuffed skins of different sorts of wild cattle, which would have delighted you, and many remarkable minerals, but otherwise not much in your line.

I suppose the war interferes with your operations sadly, at any rate it does with mine,

I have received more than 500 applications from military men who have tried in vain to get knocked on the head in Italy, & now want a chance in America, and these, to very few of which I can give the least encouragement, are a very heavy tax on my time-

I get no letters from the U.S., and have not confidence enough in the newspaper to feel that I am much the wiser for reading them. In short, the whole thing to me is a nightmare that I try, to no purpose, to wake out of. When I allow myself to dwell on it, I am frantic with rage at the authors of this mischief. What will be the end of it. Love from Mrs Marsh & myself to you all

Yours trulyG P Marsh

Prof Baird.

References in this letter:

In addition to significant contributions to experimental physiology and physics, Carlo Matteucci (1811-1868) was active in Italian politics. He was a worked for the Liberal cause during the 1848 struggle and was made Senator for Life. In 1862 he became Minister of Education.