dare to go out in the sun. The hour is sufficiently
conclusive against dangerous enthusiasm. Poor France, poor France!
News of the dreadful massacre at Paris just reaches us, and the
letters and newspapers not arriving to-day, everybody fears a
continuation of the crisis. How is it to end? Who 'despairs of the
republic?' Why, _I_ do! I fear, I fear, that it cannot stand in
France, and you seem to have not much more hope. My husband has a
little, with melancholy intermediate prospects; but my own belief
that the people have had enough of democratic institutions and will be
impatient for a kingship anew. Whom will they have? How did you feel
when the cry was raised, 'Vive l'Empereur'? Only Prince Napoleon is a
Napoleon cut out in paper after all. The Prince de Joinville is said
to be very popular. It makes me giddy to think of the awful precipices
which surround France--to think, too, that the great danger is on the
question of _property_, which is perhaps divided there more justly
than in any other country of Europe. Lamartine has comprehended
nothing, that is clear, even if his amount of energy had been
effectual.... Yes, do send me the list of Balzac, _after_ 'Les Miseres
de la Vie Conjugale,' I mean. I left him in the midst of 'La Femme de
Soixante Ans,' who seemed on the point of turning the heads of all
'la jeunesse' around her; and, after all, she did not strike me as so
charming. But Balzac charms me, let him write what he will; he's an
inspired man. Tell me, too, exactly what Sue has done after 'Martin.'
I read only one volume of 'Martin.' And did poor Soulie finish his
'Dramas'? And after 'Lucretia' what did George Sand write? When Robert
and I are ambitious, we talk of buying Balzac in full some day, to put
him up in our bookcase from the convent, if the carved-wood angels,
infants and serpents, should not finish mouldering away in horror at
the touch of him. But I fear it will rather be an expensive purchase,
even here. Would that he gave up the drama, for which, as you observe,
he has no faculty whatever. In fact, the faculty he has is the very
reverse of the dramatic, ordinarily understood.... Dearest Mr. Kenyon
is called quite well and delightful by the whole world, though he
suffered from cough in the winter; and he is bringing out a new book
of poems, a 'Day at Tivoli,' and others; and he talks energetically of
coming to Florence this autumn. Also, we have hopes of Mr. Chorley. I
congratulate you on the go