re
published, which say little for some time of her own work.

_To Miss Mitford_
February 8, 1847.

But, my dearest Miss Mitford, your scheme about Leghorn is drawn out
in the clouds. Now just see how impossible. Leghorn is fifteen miles
off, and though there is a railroad there is no liberty for French
books to wander backwards and forwards without inspection and seizure.
Why, do remember that we are in Italy after all! Nevertheless, I will
tell you what we have done: transplanted our subscription from the
Italian library, which was wearing us away into a misanthropy, or at
least despair of the wits of all Southerns, into a library which has
a tolerable supply of French books, and gives us the privilege
besides of having a French newspaper, the 'Siecle,' left with us every
evening. Also, this library admits (is allowed to admit on certain
conditions) some books forbidden generally by the censureship, which
is of the strictest; and though Balzac appears very imperfectly, I
am delighted to find him at all, and shall dun the bookseller for the
'Instruction criminelle,' which I hope discharges your Lucien as a
'forcat'--neither man nor woman--and true poet, least of all....

The 'Siecle' has for a _feuilleton_ a new romance of Soulie's, called
'Saturnin Fichet,' which is really not good, and tiresome to boot.
Robert and I began by each of us reading it, but after a little while
he left me alone, being certain that no good could come of such a
work. So, of course, ever since, I have been exclaiming and exclaiming
as to the wonderful improvement and increasing beauty and glory of
it, just to justify myself, and to make him sorry for not having
persevered! The truth is, however, that but for obstinacy I should
give up too. Deplorably dull the story is, and there is a crowd of
people each more indifferent than each, to you; the pith of the plot
being (very characteristically) that the hero has somebody exactly
like him. To the reader, it's _all one_ in every sense--who's who, and
what's what. Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac and has read most of
his books, but certainly--oh certainly--he does not in a general way
appreciate our French people quite with our warmth; he takes too high
a standard, I tell him, and won't listen to a story for a story's
sake. I can bear to be amused, you know without a strong pull on my
admiration. So we have great wars sometimes, and I put up Dumas' flag,
or Soulie's, or Eugene Sue's (yet he