ould interpose as the real _seventh_ but was left out. I
did not send it to you the day after my note, though sorely tempted to
do so, because it seemed to me likely to annul any small chance of
'Athenaeum' tolerance which might fall to me. Would it have done so, do
you think?

'A great deed in this world of ours!
Unheard of the pretence is.
It plainly threatens the Great Powers;
Is fatal in all senses.
A just deed in the world! Call out
The rifles! ... be not slack about
The National Defences.'

Certainly if I don't guess 'the Sphinx' right, some of your English
guessers in the 'Times' and elsewhere fail also, as events prove. The
clever 'Prince-Napoleon-for-Central-Italy' guess,[67] for instance, has
just fallen through, by declaration of the 'Moniteur.' Most absurd it
was always. At one time the Prince might have taken the crown by
acclamation. He was almost _rude_ about it when he was in Tuscany. And
even after the peace, members of the present Government were not averse,
were much the contrary indeed. At that time the autonomy was still dear,
we had not made up our minds to the fusion. Now, _e altra cosa_, and to
imagine that a man like the French Emperor would have waited till now,
producing, by the opportunities he has given, the present complication,
_in order_ to impose the Prince, is absurd on the very face of it.

While standers-by guess, the comfort is that circumstances ripen. We are
in spirits about our Italy. The dignity, the constancy, the calm, are
admirable, as the unanimity of the people is wonderful. Even the
contadini have rallied to the Government, and the cry of enthusiasm to
which the cross of Savoy was uncovered in the market place of Siena
yesterday was a thrilling thing. Also we will fight, be it understood,
whenever fighting shall be necessary. At present, the right arm of
Austria is broken; she cannot hold the sword since Solferino, at least
in central Italy. Let those who doubt our debt to France remember where
we were last year, and see what our political life is now--real, vivid,
unhindered! Our moral qualities are our own, but our practical
opportunities come from another; we could not have made them by force of
moral qualities, great as those are allowed to be. And how striking the
growth of this people since 1848. Massimo d' Azeglio said to Robert and
me, 'It is '48 over again with matured actors.' But it is even more than
that: it is '48 over aga