will have no more doubters of the immortality of
souls, and no more need of Platos to prove it.

We have come here to dip _me_ in warm sea-water, in order to an
improvement in strength, for I have been very weak and unwell of late,
as perhaps Mrs. Jameson has told you. But the sea and the change have
brought me up again, as I hope they may yourself, and now I am looking
forward to getting back to Italy for the winter, and perhaps to Rome.

Did you know Lady Elgin in Paris? She has been hopelessly, in the
opinion of her physicians, affected by paralysis, but is now better, her
daughter writes to me. A most remarkable person Lady Elgin is. We left
her sitting in her garden, not able to speak--to articulate one
word--but with one of the most radiant happy faces I ever saw in man or
woman. I think I remember that you knew her. Her salon was one of the
most agreeable in Paris, and she herself, with her mixture of learning
and simplicity, one of the most interesting persons in it....

Dearest Madame Braun, I won't think of the possibility even of your
writing to me, so little do I expect to hear. Indeed, I would not write
if I considered it would entail writing upon _you_. Only believe that I
tenderly regard and think of you, and always shall. May God bless you,
my dear friend! Your attached

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

* * * * *

The following letter was written at Paris during the stay there which
intervened between leaving Havre and the return to Florence:

* * * * *

_To Miss I. Blagden_

6 Rue de Castiglione, Place Vendome, Paris:
October 2 [1858].

My dearest Isa,--I am saddened, saddened by your letter. We both are.
Indeed, this last news from India must have struck--I know it did.
Still, to your generous nature, long regret for your dear Louisa will be
impossible; and you, so given to forget yourself, will come to forget a
grief which is only your own. For she was in the world as not of it, in
a painful sense; she was cut off from the cheerful, natural development
of ordinary human beings; and if, as was probable, the conviction of
this dreary fact had fastened on her mind, the result would have been
perhaps demoralising, certainly depressing, more and more. Rather praise
God for her therefore, dearest Isa, that she is gone above the cloud,
gone where she can exercise active virtues and charities, instead of
being the mild patient object of the