sation
of certain institutions, it will be a proof of very peculiar ignorance.
This power of organisation is _French_, and not Catholic. You look for
it in vain in Rome, for instance, except where the organisation comes
from France. The _soeurs de charite_, who are of all Catholic nations,
are organised entirely by the French. The institutions here are branch
institutions. In Rome the tendency of everything is to confusion and
'individuality' with separate pockets. Lamoriciere was in despair at it
all, and even now people talk of his resigning, though he gave a dinner
the other day to his staff, with the toast of '_Henri Cinq_.'

Individuality is an excellent thing in its place, and an infamous thing
out of it. In England we have some very successful efforts at
organisation--the post office, which is nearly perfect, and society, in
which the demarcation between class and class is much too perfect to be
humane. In other respects we are apt to fail.

We do not fail, however, in organisation only with regard to these
charitable institutions. We are very hard and unsympathetic in them. A
distinguished woman has been here lately--a Miss Cobbe (a fellow-worker
with Miss Carpenter)--who, having overworked herself, was forced by her
physician to come here for three months and rest, under dire penalties.
She went to Isa Blagden's, and returned to England and her work just
now. She is very acute, and so perfectly without Continental prejudices,
that she didn't pretend to much interest even in our Italian movement,
having her heart in England and with the poor. But she was much struck,
not merely with the order of foreign institutions, but with their
superior tenderness and sympathy. The account she gave of the English
workhouses and hospitals was very sad, very cruel, corresponding, in
fact, to what I have heard from other quarters.

Ah, Sarianna, 'charming old men' who call the Tuscans angels, except
that they lie (what an exception!), can be mistaken like others. _That_
passes for 'liberality,' does it? We are not angels, and we don't
lie--there's no more lying in Italy than in England, I begin to affirm.
Also, M. Tassinari was in prison, not a week but a month--and well did
he deserve it. We deal now in French coinage, and are to see no more
pauls after the middle of next month. Robert thinks it will destroy the
last vestige of our cheapness, but I am very favorable to a unification
of international coinage. It agrees with m