I must tell you what Landor said about Louis Napoleon.  You are aware that he loathed the first Napoleon and that he hates the French nation; also, he detests the present state of French affairs, and has foamed over in the ‘Examiner’ ‘in prose and rhyme’ on the subject of them.  Nevertheless, he who calls ‘the Emperor’ ‘an infernal fool’ expresses himself to this effect about the President:  ’I always knew him to be a man of wonderful genius.  I knew him intimately, and I was persuaded of what was in him.  When people have said to me, “How can you like to waste your time with so trifling a man?” I have answered:  “If all your Houses of Parliament, putting their heads together, could make a head equal to this trifling man’s head it would be well for England.”

It was quite unexpected to me to hear Mr. Landor talk so.

He, Mr. Landor, is looking as young as ever, as full of life and passionate energy.

Did Mr. Horne write to you before he went to Australia?  Did I speak to you about his going?  Did you see the letter which he put into the papers as a farewell to England?  I think of it all sadly.

Mazzini came to see us the other day, with that pale spiritual face of his, and those intense eyes full of melancholy illusions.  I was thinking, while he sate there, on what Italian turf he would lie at last with a bullet in his heart, or perhaps with a knife in his back, for to one of those ends it will surely come.  Mrs. Carlyle came with him.  She is a great favorite of mine:  full of thought, and feeling, and character, it seems to me.

London is emptying itself, and the relief will be great in a certain way; for one gets exhausted sometimes.  Let me remember whom I have seen.  Mrs. Newton Crosland, who spoke of you very warmly; Miss Mulock, who wrote ‘The Ogilvies’ (that series of novels), and is interesting, gentle, and young, and seems to have worked half her life in spite of youth; Mr. Field we have not seen, only heard of; Miss ——­, no—­but I am to see her, I understand, and that she is an American Corinna in yellow silk, but pretty.  We drove out to Kensington with Monckton Milnes and his wife, and I like her; she is quiet and kind, and seems to have accomplishments, and we are to meet Fanny Kemble at the Procters some day next week.  Many good faces, but the best wanting.  Ah, I wish Lord Stanhope, who shows the spirits of the sun in a crystal ball, could show us that!  Have you heard of the crystal ball?[14] We went to meet it and the seer the other morning, with sundry of the believers and unbelievers—­among the latter, chief among the latter, Mr. Chorley, who was highly indignant and greatly scandalised, particularly on account of the combination sought to be established by the lady of the house between lobster salad and Oremus, spirit of the sun.  For my part, I endured both luncheon and spiritual phenomena with great equanimity.  It was very curious altogether to my mind, as a sign of the times, if in no other respect of philosophy.  But I love the marvellous.  Write a word to me, I beseech you, and love me and think of me, as I love and think of you.  God bless you.  Robert’s love.