can
hardly die. 'Half of it would kill _me_,' said an admiring friend the
other day. 'What strength you must have!' A questionable advantage,
except that I have also--a Robert, and a Penini!

Dearest friend, I don't know how to tell you of our fullness of sympathy
in your late trials.[41] From a word which reached us from England the
other day, there will be, I do trust, some effectual arrangement to
relieve your friends from their anxieties about you. Then, there should
be an increase of the Government pension by another hundred, that is
certain; only the 'should be' lies so far out of sight in the ideal,
that nobody in his senses should calculate on its occurrence. As to Law,
it's different from Right--particularly in England perhaps--and appeals
to Law are disastrous when they cannot be counted on as victorious,
always and certainly. Therefore you may be wise in abstaining; you have
considered sufficiently, of course. I only hope you are not trammelled
in any degree by motives of delicacy which would be preposterous under
the actual circumstances. You meantime are as nobly laborious as ever.
We have caught hold of fragments in the newspapers from your
'Commonplace Book,' which made us wish for more; and Mr. Kenyon told me
of a kind mention of Robert which was very pleasant to me.

How will it be? Shall you be likely to come to Italy before we set out
to the north--that is, before the middle of May--or shall we cross on
the road, like our letters, or shall we catch you in London, or in Paris
at least? Oh, you won't miss the Exhibition in Paris. That seems
certain.

I know Florence Nightingale slightly. She came to see me when we were in
London last; and I remember her face and her graceful manner, and the
flowers she sent me after afterwards. I honor her from my heart. She is
an earnest, noble woman, and has fulfilled her woman's duty where many
men have failed.

At the same time, I confess myself to be at a loss to see any new
position for the sex, or the most imperfect solution of the 'woman's
question,' in this step of hers. If a movement at all, it is retrograde,
a revival of old virtues! Since the siege of Troy and earlier, we have
had princesses binding wounds with their hands; it's strictly the
woman's part, and men understand it so, as you will perceive by the
general adhesion and approbation on this late occasion of the masculine
dignities. Every man is on his knees before ladies carrying lint,
calling t