But poor dear Miss Mitford, if we don't forgive what's meant as
kindness, how are we to forgive what's meant as injury? In my first
agitation I felt it as a real vexation that I couldn't be angry with
her. How could I, poor thing? She has always loved me, and been so
anxious to please me, and this time she seriously thought that Robert
and I would be delighted. Extraordinary defect of comprehension!

Still, I did not, I could not, conceal from her that she had given me
great pain, and she replied in a tone which really made me almost feel
ungrateful for being pained, she said 'rather that her whole book had
perished than have given me a moment's pain.' How are you to feel after
_that_?

For the rest, it appears that she had merely come forward to the rescue
of my reputation, no more than so. Sundry romantic tales had been in
circulation about me. I was 'in widow's weeds' in my habitual
costume--and, in fact, before I was married I had grievously scandalised
the English public (the imaginative part of the public), and it was
expedient to 'tirer de l'autre cote.'

Well, I might have laughed at _that_--but I didn't. I wrote a very
affectionate letter, for I really love Miss Mitford, though she
understands me no more under certain respects than you in England
understand Louis Napoleon and the French nation. Love's love. She meant
the best to me--and so, do you, who have a much more penetrating sense
of delicacy, forgive her for my sake, dear friend....

Of the memoirs of Madame Ossoli, I know only the extracts in the
'Athenaeum.' She was a most interesting woman to me, though I did not
sympathise with a large portion of her opinions. Her written works are
just _naught_. She said herself they were sketches, thrown out in haste
and for the means of subsistence, and that the sole production of hers
which was likely to represent her at all would be the history of the
Italian Revolution. In fact, her reputation, such as it was in America,
seemed to stand mainly on her conversation and oral lectures. If I
wished anyone to do her justice, I should say, as I have indeed said,
'Never read what she has written.' The letters, however, are individual,
and full, I should fancy, of that magnetic personal influence which was
so strong in her. I felt drawn in towards her, during our short
intercourse; I loved her, and the circumstances of her death shook me to
the very roots of my heart. The comfort is, that she lost little in this