nion of that great experiment; or, rather, what is
yours? I wish it success from the bottom of my heart, but I am a,
little afraid, from their total want of political economy (we have
not a school-girl so ignorant of the commonest principles of demand
and supply as the whole of the countrymen of Turgot from the
executive government downwards), and from a certain warlike tendency
which seems to me to pierce through all their declarations of peace.
We hear the flourish of trumpets through all the fine phrases of the
orators, and indeed it is difficult to imagine what they will do
with their _soi-disant ouvriers_,--workmen who have lost the habit
of labor,--unless they make soldiers of them. In the mean time some
friends of mine are about to accompany your countryman Mr. Elihu
Burritt as a deputation, and doubtless M. de Lamartine will give
them as eloquent an answer as heart can desire,--no doubt he will
keep peace if he can,--but the government have certainly not
hitherto shown firmness or vigor enough to make one rely upon them,
if the question becomes pressing and personal. In Italy matters seem
to be very promising. We have here one of the Silvio Pellico
exiles,--Count Carpinetta,--whose story is quite a romance. He is
just returned from Turin, where he was received with enthusiasm,
might have been returned as Deputy for two places, and did recover
some of his property, confiscated years ago by the Austrians. It
does one's heart good to see a piece of poetical justice transferred
to real life. _Apropos_ of public events, all London is talking of
the prediction of an old theological writer of the name of Fleming,
who in or about the year 1700 prophesied a revolution in France in
1794 (only one year wrong), and the fall of papacy in 1848 at all
events.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

(No date, 1849)

DEAR MR. FIELDS: I must have seemed very ungrateful in being so long
silent. But your magnificent present of books, beautiful in every
sense of the word, has come dropping in volume by volume, and only
arrived complete (Mr. Longfellow's striking book being the last)
about a fortnight ago, and then it found me keeping my room, as I am
still doing, with a tremendous attack of neuralgia on the left side
of the face. I am getting better now by dint of blisters and tonic
medicine; but I can