nce; let me, any way,
answer for myself. I have been well, and we have been quiet and
occupied; reading books, doing work, playing with Wiedeman; and with
nothing from without to vex us much. At the end of it all, we go to
Rome certainly; but we have taken on this apartment for another year,
which Robert decided on to please me, and because it was reasonable on
the whole. We have been meditating Socialism and mysticism of very
various kinds, deep in Louis Blanc and Proudhon, deeper in the German
spiritualists, added to which, I have by no means given up my French
novels and my rapping spirits, of whom our American guests bring us
relays of witnesses. So we don't absolutely moulder here in the
intellect, only Robert (and indeed I have too) has tender recollections
of 'that blaze of life in Paris,' and we both mean to go back to it
presently. No place like Paris for living in. Here, one sleeps,
'perchance to dream,' and praises the pillow.

We had a letter from our friend M. Milsand yesterday; you see he does
not forget us--no, indeed. In speaking of the state of things in France,
which I had asked him to do, he says, he is not sanguine (he never _is_
sanguine, I must tell you, about anything), though entirely dissentient
from _la presse Anglaise_. He considers on the whole that the _status_
is as good as can be desired, as a _stable foundation for the
development of future institutions_. It is in that point of view that he
regards the situation. So do I. As to the English press, I, who am not
'Anglomane' like our friend, I call it plainly either maniacal or
immoral, let it choose the epithet. The invasion cry, for instance, I
really can't qualify it; I can't comprehend it with motives all good and
fair. I throw it over to you to analyse.

With regard to the sudden death of French literature, you all exaggerate
that like the rest. If you look into even the 'Revue des Deux Mondes'
for the year 1852, you will see that a few books are still published.
_Pazienza._ Things will turn up better than you suppose. Newspapers
breathe heavily just now, that's undeniable; but for book literature the
government _never has_ touched it with a finger. I ascertained _that_ as
a fact when I was in Paris.

None of you in England understand what the crisis has been in France;
and how critical measures have been necessary. Lamartine's work on the
revolution of '48 is one of the best apologies for Louis Napoleon; and,
if you want another, ta