Whether you will like Robert’s new book I don’t know, but I am sure you will admit the originality and power in it.  I wish we had the option of giving it to you, but Chapman & Hall never seem to think of our giving copies away, nor leave them at our disposal.  There is nothing Italian in the book; poets are apt to be most present with the distant.  A remark of Wilson’s[200] used to strike me as eminently true—­that the perfectest descriptive poem (descriptive of rural scenery) would be naturally produced in a London cellar.  I have read ‘Shirley’ lately; it is not equal to ‘Jane Eyre’ in spontaneousness and earnestness.  I found it heavy, I confess, though in the mechanical part of the writing—­the compositional savoir faire—­there is an advance.  Robert has exhumed some French books, just now, from a little circulating library which he had not tried, and we have been making ourselves uncomfortable over Balzac’s ‘Cousin Pons.’  But what a wonderful writer he is!  Who else could have taken such a subject, out of the lowest mud of humanity, and glorified and consecrated it?  He is wonderful—­there is not another word for him—­profound, as Nature is.  S I complain of Florence for the want of books.  We have to dig and dig before we can get anything new, and I can read the newspapers only through Robert’s eyes, who only can read them at Vieusseux’s in a room sacred from the foot of woman.  And this isn’t always satisfactory to me, as whenever he falls into a state of disgust with any political regime, he throws the whole subject over and won’t read a word more about it.  Every now and then, for instance, he ignores France altogether, and I, who am more tolerant and more curious, find myself suspended over an hiatus (valde deflendus), and what’s to be said and done?  M. Thiers’ speech—­’Thiers is a rascal; I make a point of not reading one word said by M. Thiers.’  M. Prudhon—­’Prudhon is a madman; who cares for Prudhon?’ The President—­’The President’s an ass; he is not worth thinking of.’  And so we treat of politics.

I wish you would write to us a little oftener (or rather, a good deal) and tell us much of yourself.  It made me very sorry that you should be suffering in the grief of your sister—­you whose sympathies are so tender and quick!  May it be better with you now!  Mention Lady Byron.  I shall be glad to hear that she is stronger notwithstanding this cruel winter.  We have lovely weather here now, and I am quite well and able to walk out, and little Wiedeman rolls with Flush on the grass of the Cascine.  Dear kind Wilson is doatingly fond of the child, and sometimes gives it as her serious opinion that ’there never was such a child before.’  Of course I don’t argue the point much.  Now, will you write to us?  Speak of your plans particularly when you do.  We have taken this apartment on for another year from May.  May God bless you!  Robert unites in affectionate thanks and thoughts of all kinds, with your