's heart is pulled at through different English
ties and can't get the right rest, and I think we shall move
northwards--try France a little, after a time. The present year has
been full of petty vexation to us about the difficulty of going to
England, and it becomes more and more doubtful whether we can attain
to the means of doing it. There are four of us and the child, you
see, and precisely this year we are restricted in means, as far as our
present knowledge goes; but I can't say yet, only I do very much
fear. Nobody will believe our promises, I think, any more, and my
poor Arabel will be in despair, and I shall lose the opportunity of
_authenticating_ Wiedeman; for, as Robert says, all our fine stories
about him will go for nothing, and he will be set down as a sham
child. If not sham, how could human vanity resist the showing him off
bodily? That sounds reasonable....

Certainly you are disinterested about America, and, of course, all
of us who have hearts and heads must feel the sympathy of a greater
nation to be more precious than a thick purse. Still, it is not just
and dignified, this vantage ground of American pirates. Liking the
ends and motives, one disapproves the means. Yes, even _you_ do; and
if I were an American I should dissent with still more emphasis. It
should be made a point of honour with the nation, if there is no
point of law against the re publishers. For my own part, I have every
possible reason to thank and love America; she has been very kind to
me, and the visits we receive here from delightful and cordial persons
of that country have been most gratifying to us. The American minister
at the court of Vienna, with his family, did not pass through Florence
the other day without coming to see us--General Watson Webbe-with
an air of moral as well as military command in his brow and eyes. He
looked, and talked too, like one of oar dignities of the Old World.
The go-ahead principle didn't seem the least over-strong in him, nor
likely to disturb his official balance. What is to happen next in
France? Do you trust still your President? He is in a hard position,
and, if he leaves the Pope where he is, in a dishonored one. As for
the change in the electoral law and the increase of income, I see
nothing in either to make an outcry against. There is great injustice
everywhere and a rankling party-spirit, and to speak the truth and act
it appears still more difficult than usual. I was sorry, do you kno