[_Part of this letter has been cut out_]

We heard yesterday from the editor of the 'Examiner,' Mr. Forster, who
expects some terrible consequence of present circumstances in England,
as far as I can understand. The alliance with France is full of
consolation. There seems to be a real heart-union between the peoples.
What a grand thing the Napoleon loan is! It has struck the English with
admiration.

I heard, too, among other English news, that Walter Savage Landor, who
has just kept his eightieth birthday, and is as young and impetuous as
ever, has caught the whooping cough by way of an illustrative accident.
Kinglake ('E[=o]then') came home from the Crimea (where he went out and
fought as an amateur) with fever, which has left one lung diseased. He
is better, however....

Dearest Mrs. Martin, dearest friends, be both of you well and strong.
Shall we not meet in Paris this early summer?

May God bless you! Your ever affectionate

BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Jameson_

Florence: February 24, 1855.

The devil (say charitable souls) is not as bad as he is painted, and
even I, dearest Mona Nina, am better than I seem. In the first place,
let me make haste to say that I _never received_ the letter you sent me
to Rome with the information of your family affliction, and that, if I
had, it could never have remained an unnoticed letter. I am not so
untender, so unsympathising, not so brutal--let us speak out. I lost
several letters in Rome, besides a good deal of illusion. I did not like
Rome, I think I confessed to you. In the second place, when your last
letter reached me--I mean the letter in which you told me to write to
you directly--I _would_ have written directly, but was so very unwell
that you would not have wished me even to try if, absent in the flesh,
you had been present in spirit. I have had a severe attack on the
chest--the worst I ever had in Italy--the consequence of exceptionally
severe weather--bitter wind and frost together--which quite broke me up
with cough and fever at night. Now I am well again, only of course much
weakened, and grown thin. I mean to get fat again upon cod's liver oil,
in order to appear in England with some degree of decency. You know I'm
a lineal descendant of the White Cat, and have seven lives accordingly.
Also I have a trick of falling from six-storey windows upon my feet, in
the manner of the traditions of my race. Not only I die hard, but I