bert has seen him in his white hat
wandering along the asphalte. I had a notion somehow that he was very
old; but he is only elderly, not much indeed above sixty (which is the
prime of life now-a-days), and he lives quietly and keeps out of scrapes
poetical and political, and if Robert and I had but a little less
modesty we are assured that we should find access to him easy. But we
can't make up our minds to go to his door and introduce ourselves as
vagrant minstrels, when he may probably not know our names. We never
_could_ follow the fashion of certain authors who send their books about
without intimations of their being likely to be acceptable or not, of
which practice poor Tennyson knows too much for his peace. If, indeed, a
letter of introduction to Beranger were vouchsafed to us from any benign
quarter, we should both be delighted, but we must wait patiently for
the influence of the stars. Meanwhile, we have at last sent our letter
(Mazzini's) to George Sand, accompanied with a little note signed by
both of us, though written by me, as seemed right, being the woman. We
half despaired in doing this, for it is most difficult, it appears, to
get at her, she having taken vows against seeing strangers in
consequence of various annoyances and persecutions in and out of print,
which it's the mere instinct of a woman to avoid. I can understand it
perfectly. Also, she is in Paris for only a few days, and under a new
name, to escape from the plague of her notoriety. People said to us:
'She will never see you; you have no chance, I am afraid.' But we
determined to try. At last I pricked Robert up to the leap, for he was
really inclined to sit in his chair and be proud a little. 'No,' said I,
'you _shan't_ be proud, and I _won't_ be proud, and we _will_ see her. I
won't die, if I can help it, without seeing George Sand.' So we gave our
letter to a friend who was to give it to a friend, who was to place it
in her hands, her abode being a mystery and the name she used unknown.
The next day came by the post this answer:

Madame,--J'aurai l'honneur de vous recevoir dimanche prochain
rue Racine 3. C'est le seul jour que je puisse passer chez
moi, et encore je n'en suis pas absolument certaine. Mais j'y
ferai tellement mon possible, que ma bonne etoile m'y aidera
peut-etre un peu.

Agreez mille remerciments de coeur, ainsi que Monsieur
Browning, que j'espere voir avec vous, pour la sympathie que