Robert’s father and sister have been paying us a visit during the last three weeks.  They are very affectionate to me, and I love them for his sake and their own, and am very sorry at the thought of losing them, which we are on the point of doing.  We hope, however, to establish them in Paris if we can stay, and if no other obstacle should arise before the spring, when they must leave Hatcham.  Little Wiedeman draws; as you may suppose, he is adored by his grandpapa; and then, Robert! they are an affectionate family and not easy when removed one from another.  Sarianna is full of accomplishment and admirable sense, even-tempered and excellent in all ways—­devoted to her father as she was to her mother:  indeed, the relations of life seem reversed in their case, and the father appears the child of the child....

Perhaps you have not seen Eugene Sue’s ’Mysteres de Paris’—­and I am not deep in the first volume yet.  Fancy the wickedness and stupidity of trying to revive the distinctions and hatreds of race between the Gauls and Franks.  The Gauls, please to understand, are the ‘proletaires,’ and the capitalists are the Frank invaders (call them Cosaques, says Sue) out of the forests of Germany!...

I saw no Mr. Harness; and no Talfourd of any kind.  The latter was a kind of misadventure, as Lady Talfourd was on the point of calling on me when Robert would not let her.  We were going away just then.  Mr. Horne I had the satisfaction of seeing several times—­you know how much regard I feel for him.  One evening he had the kindness to bring his wife miles upon miles just to drink tea with us, and we were to have spent a day with them somehow, half among the fields, but engagements came betwixt us adversely.  She is less pretty and more interesting than I expected—­looking very young, her black glossy hair hanging down her back in ringlets; with deep earnest eyes, and a silent listening manner.  He was full of the ‘Household Words,’ and seems to write articles together with Dickens—­which must be highly unsatisfactory, as Dickens’s name and fame swallow up every sort of minor reputation in the shadow of his path.  I shouldn’t like, for my part (and if I were a fish), to herd with crocodiles.  But I suppose the ‘Household Words’ pay—­and that’s a consideration.  ‘Claudie’ I have not read.  We have only just subscribed to a library, and we have been absorbed a good deal by our visitors....

Write and don’t leave off loving me.  I will tell you of everybody noticeable whom I happen to see, and of George Sand among the first.

Love your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

To Mrs. Jameson

[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysees:  December 10, [1851].

I receive your letter, dearest friend, and hasten to write a few brief words to save the post.

We have suffered neither fear nor danger—­and I would not have missed the grand spectacle of the second of December[7] for anything in the world—­scarcely, I say, for the sight of the Alps.