And so you talk, you in England, of Prince Albert’s ‘folly,’ do you really?  Well, among the odd things we lean to in Italy is to an actual belief in the greatness and importance of the future exhibition.  We have actually imagined it to be a noble idea, and you take me by surprise in speaking of the general distaste to it in England.  Is it really possible?  For the agriculturists, I am less surprised at coldness on their part; but do you fancy that the manufacturers and free-traders are cold too?  Is Mr. Chorley against it equally?  Yes, I am glad to hear of Mrs. Butler’s success—­or Fanny Kemble’s, ought I to say?  Our little Wiedeman, who can’t speak a word yet, waxes hotter in his ecclesiastical and musical passion.  Think of that baby (just cutting his eyeteeth) screaming in the streets till he is taken into the churches, kneeling on his knees to the first sound of music, and folding his hands and turning up his eyes in a sort of ecstatical state.  One scarcely knows how to deal with the sort of thing:  it is too soon for religious controversy.  He crosses himself, I assure you.  Robert says it is as well to have the eyeteeth and the Puseyistical crisis over together.  The child is a very curious imaginative child, but too excitable for his age, that’s all I complain of ...  God bless you, my much loved friend.  Write to

Your ever affectionate
E.B.B.

What books by Soulie have appeared since his death?  Do you remember?  I have just got ‘Les Enfants de l’Amour,’ by Sue.  I suppose he will prove in it the illegitimacy of legitimacy, and vice versa.  Sue is in decided decadence, for the rest, since he has taken to illustrating Socialism!

To Miss I. Blagden [Florence:] Sunday morning [about 1850].

My dear Miss Blagden,—­In spite of all your drawing kindness, we find it impossible to go to you on Monday.  We are expecting friends from Rome who will remain only a few days, perhaps, in Florence.  Now it seems to me that you very often pass our door.  Do you not too often leave the trace of your goodness with me?  And would it not be better of you still, if you would at once make use of us and give us pleasure by pausing here, you and Miss Agassiz, to rest and refresh yourselves with tea, coffee, or whatever else you may choose?  We shall be delighted to see you always, and don’t fancy that I say so out of form or ‘tinkling cymbalism.’

Thank you for your intention about the ‘Leader.’  Robert and I shall like much to see anything of John Mill’s on the subject of Socialism or any other.  By the ‘British Review,’ do you mean the North British?  I read a clever article in that review some months ago on the German Socialists, ably embracing in its analysis the fraternity in France, and attributed, I have since heard, to Dr. Hanna, the son-in-law and biographer of Chalmers.  Christian Socialists are by no means a new sect, the Moravians representing the theory with as little offence and