orce for such a book; the power is
considerable. For Balzac, Balzac may have gone out of the world as
far as we are concerned. Isn't it hard on us? exiles from Balzac! The
bookseller here, having despaired of the republic and the Grand Duchy
both, I suppose, and taking for granted on the whole that the world
must be coming shortly to an end, doesn't give us the sign of a new
book. We ought to, be done with such vanities. There! and almost I
have done my paper without a single word to you of the _baby_! Ah, you
won't believe that I forgot him even if I pretend, so I won't. He is
a lovely, fat, strong child, with double chins and rosy cheeks, and
a great wide chest, undeniable lungs, I can assure you. Dr. Harding
called him 'a robust child' the other day, and 'a more beautiful child
he never saw.' I never saw a child half as beautiful, for my part....
Dear Mr. Chorley has written the kindest letter to my husband. I much
regard him indeed. May God bless you. Let me ever be (with Robert's
thanks and warm remembrance),

Your most affectionate
BA.

Flush's jealousy of the baby would amuse you. For a whole fortnight
he fell into deep melancholy and was proof against all attentions
lavished on him. Now he begins to be consoled a little and even
condescends to patronise the cradle.

Footnote 1: As they did until the 8,000 had been increased to 35,000.]

[Footnote 188: A revolution, fomented chiefly by the Leghornese,
expelled the Grand Duke in March 1849; about seven weeks later a
counter-revolution, chiefly by the peasantry, recalled him.]

_To Miss Browning_
[Florence:] May 2, 1849.

Robert gives me this blank, and three minutes to write across it.
Thank you, my very dear Sarianna, for all your kindness and affection.
I understand what I have lost. I know the worth of a tenderness such
as you speak of, and I feel that for the sake of my love for Robert
she was ready out of the fullness of her heart to love _me_ also. It
has been bitter to me that I have unconsciously deprived him of the
personal face-to-face shining out of her angelic nature for more than
two years, but she has forgiven me, and we shall all meet, when it
pleases God, before His throne. In the meanwhile, my dearest Sarianna,
we are thinking much of you, and neither of us can bear the thought of
your living on where you are. If you could imagine the relief it would
be to us--to me as well as to Robert--to be told frankly what we ought
to do, where we