conceptions.
Do you know the 'Ahasuerus'?

I wonder if the Empress pleases you as well as the Emperor. For my part,
I approve altogether, and none the less that he has offended Austria by
the mode of announcement. Every cut of the whip in the face of Austria
is an especial compliment to me--or, _so I feel it_. Let him head the
democracy and do his duty to the world, and use to the utmost his great
opportunities. Mr. Cobden and the Peace Society are pleasing me
infinitely just now in making head against the immorality (that's the
word) of the English press. The tone taken up towards France is immoral
in the highest degree, and the invasion cry would be idiotic if it were
not something worse. The Empress, I heard the other day from good
authority, is 'charming and good at heart.' She was educated 'at a
respectable school at Bristol' (Miss Rogers's, Royal Crescent, Clifton),
and is very 'English,' which doesn't prevent her from shooting with
pistols, leaping gates, driving 'four-in-hand,' and upsetting the
carriage when the frolic requires it, as brave as a lion and as true as
a dog. Her complexion is like marble, white, pale and pure; her hair
light, rather 'sandy,' they say, and she powders it with gold dust for
effect; but there is less physical and more intellectual beauty than is
generally attributed to her. She is a woman of 'very decided opinions.'
I like all that, don't you? and I liked her letter to the Prefet, as
everybody must. Ah, if the English press were in earnest in the cause of
liberty, there would be something to say for our poor trampled-down
Italy--much to say, I mean. Under my eyes is a people really oppressed,
really groaning its heart out. But these things are spoken of with
measure.

We are reading Lamartine and Proudhon on '48. We have plenty of French
books here; only the poets are to seek--the moderns. Do you catch sight
of Moore in diary and letters? Robert, who has had glimpses of him, says
the 'flunkeyism' is quite humiliating. It is strange that you have not
heard more of the rapping spirits. They are worth hearing of were it
only in the point of view of the physiognomy of the times, as a sign of
hallucination and credulity, if not more. Fifteen thousand persons in
all ranks of society, and all degrees of education, are said to be
_mediums_, that is _seers_, or rather hearers and recipients, perhaps.
Oh, I can't tell you all about it; but the details are most curious. I
understand that Dick