d the world? It's about the only thing that I don't thoroughly
believe you _can_ do. But (not to be impertinent) I want to hear so
much! I want first and chiefly to hear of your health; and occupations
next, and next your plans for the summer. Louis Napoleon is
astonishing the world, you see, by his firmness and courage;
and though really I don't make out the aim and end of his French
republicans in going to Rome to extinguish the republic there, I wait
before I swear at him for it till my information becomes fuller. If
they have at Rome such a republic as we have had in Florence, without
a public, imposed by a few bawlers and brawlers on many mutes and
cowards, why, the sooner it goes to pieces the better, of course.
Probably the French Government acts upon information. In any case, if
the Romans are in earnest they may resist eight thousand men.[1] We
shall see. My _faith_ in every species of Italian is, however, nearly
tired out. I don't believe they are men at all, much less heroes
and patriots. Since I wrote last to you, I think we have had two
revolutions here at Florence, Grand Duke out, Grand Duke in.[188] The
bells in the church opposite rang for both. They first planted a tree
of liberty close to our door, and, then they pulled it down. The same
tune, sung under the windows, did for 'Viva la republica!' and 'Viva
Leopoldo!' The genuine popular feeling is certainly for the Grand Duke
('O, santissima madre di Dio!' said our nurse, clasping her hands,
'how the people do love him!'); only nobody would run the risk of a
pin's prick to save the ducal throne. If the Leghornese, who put up
Guerazzi on its ruins, had not refused to pay at certain Florentine
cafes, we shouldn't have had revolution the second, and all this
shooting in the street! Dr. Harding, who was coming to see me, had
time to get behind a stable door, just before there was a fall against
it of four shot corpses; and Robert barely managed to get home
across the bridges. He had been out walking in the city, apprehending
nothing, when the storm gathered and broke. Sad and humiliating it all
has been, and the author of 'Vanity Fair' might turn it to better uses
for a chapter. By the way, we have just been reading 'Vanity Fair.'
Very clever, very effective, but cruel to human nature. A painful
book, and not the pain that purifies and exalts. Partial truths after
all, and those not wholesome. But I certainly had no idea that
Mr. Thackeray had intellectual f