verything, walks
and talks with spirits, and impresses Robert with a sense of veracity,
which is more remarkable. I like the man much. He holds the subject on
high grounds, takes the idea and lives on it above the earth. For years
he has given himself to investigation, and has seen the Impossible.
Certainly enough Robert met him and conversed with him, and came back to
tell me what an intelligent and agreeable new American acquaintance he
had made, without knowing that he was Hazard the spiritualist, rather
famous in his department.... Don't fall out of heart with investigation.
It takes patient investigation to establish the number of legs of a
newly remarked fly. Nothing _riles_ me so much as the dogmatism of the
people who pronounce on there being nothing to see, because in half a
dozen experiments, perhaps, they have seen nothing conclusive.

'Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.'

Mediums cheat certainly. So do people who are not mediums. I
congratulate you on liking anybody better. That's pleasant for _you_ at
any rate. My changes are always the other way. I begin by seeing the
beautiful in most people, and then comes the disillusion. It isn't
caprice or unsteadiness; oh no! it's merely _fate_. _My_ fate, I mean.
Alas, my bubbles, my bubbles!

But I'm growing too original, and will break off. My Emperor at least
has not deceived me, and I'm going into the fire for him with a little
'brochure' of political poems, which you shall take at Chapman's with
the last edition of 'Aurora' when you go to England. Thank you a hundred
times from both Robert and me for the interesting relation of Cobden's
sayings on him. If Cobden had not rushed beyond civilisation, I should
like to offer him my little book. I should like it. Self-love is the
great malady of England, and immortal would the statesman be who could
and would tear a wider horizon for the popular mind. As to the rifle
cry, _I_ never doubted (for one) that it had its beginning with
'interested persons.' Never was any cry more ignoble. A rescues B from
being murdered by C, and E cries out, 'What if _A_ should murder _me_!'
That's the logic of the subject. And the sentiment is worthy of the
logic.

I expect to be torn to pieces by English critics for what I have
ventured to write....

Write me one of your amusing letters, and take our love, especially

Your ever affectionate BA'S.

There is no Roman news, people are so scarce