The Government is steadily solving, or attempting to solve, that difficult modern problem of possible Socialism which has been knocking at all our heads and hearts so long. That is its vexation.  It is a Government for the ’bus people, the first settled and serious Government that ever attempted their case.  Its action is worth all the pedantry of the doctrinaires and the middling morals of the juste milieu; and I, who am a Democrat, will stand by it as long as I can stand, which isn’t very long just now, as I told you.

Dearest Mona Nina, I am so uneasy about dear Mr. Kenyon, who has been ill again—­is ill, I fear.  He is in London—­more’s the pity! and Miss Bayley is with him.  He gives me sad thoughts.

Do write of yourself.  Don’t you be sad, dearest friend.  Oh, I do wish you could have come, and let us love you and talk to you—­but on the 16th of June, at any rate.

Your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

To Mrs. Jameson

[Paris]:  Monday, May 6, 1856 [postmark].

My dearest Mona Nina,—­Your letter makes me feel very uncomfortable.  We are in real difficulty about our dear friend Mr. Kenyon, the impulse being, of course, that Robert should go at once, and then the fear coming that it might be an annoyance, an intrusion, something the farthest from what it should be at all.  If you had been more explicit—­you—­and we could know what was in your mind when you ‘ask’ Robert to come, my dear friend, then it would be all easier.  If we could but know whether anything passed between you and Miss Bayley on this subject, or whether it is entirely out of your own head that you wish Robert to come.  I thought about it yesterday, till I went to bed at eight o’clock with headache.  Shall I tell you something in your ear?  It is easier for a rich man to enter, after all, into the kingdom of heaven than into the full advantages of real human tenderness.  Robert would give much at this moment to be allowed to go to dearest Mr. Kenyon, sit up with him, hold his hand, speak a good loving word to him.  This would be privilege to him and to me; and love and gratitude on our parts justified us in asking to be allowed to do it.  Twice we have asked.  The first time a very kind but decided negative was returned to us on the part of our friend.  Yesterday we again asked.  Yesterday I wrote to say that it would be consolation to us if Robert might go—­if we might say so without ‘teasing.’  To-morrow, in the case of Miss Bayley sending a consent, even on her own part, Robert will set off instantly; but without an encouraging word from her—­my dear friend, do you not see that it might really vex dearest Mr. Kenyon?  Observe, we have no more right of intruding than you would have if you forced your way upstairs.  It’s a wretched world, where we can’t express an honest affection honestly without half appearing indelicate to ourselves; nothing proves more how the dirt of the world is up to our chins, and I think I had my headache yesterday really and absolutely from simple disgust.