shillings five days, which I call quite morbid in its degree and extent, and which is altogether unpoetical according to the traditions of the world.  So we have been dragging in by inches our chairs and tables throughout the summer, and by no means look finished and furnished at this late moment, the slow Italians coming at the heels of our slowest intentions with the putting up of our curtains, which begin to be necessary in this November tramontana.  Yet in a month or three weeks we shall look quite comfortable—­before Christmas; and in the meantime we heap up the pine wood and feel perfectly warm with these thick palace walls between us and the outside air.  Also my husband’s new edition is on the edge of coming out, and we have had an application from Mr. Phelps, of Sadler’s Wells, for leave to act his ’Blot on the ‘Scutcheon,’ which, if it doesn’t succeed, its public can have neither hearts nor intellects (that being an impartial opinion), and which, if it succeeds, will be of pecuniary advantage to us.  Look out in the papers....  My love and my husband’s go to you, our dear friends.  Let me be always

Your affectionate and grateful
BA.

While Italy shows herself so politically demoralised, and the blood of poor Russia smokes from the ground, the ground seems to care no more for it than the newspapers, or anybody else.

Such a jar of flowers we have to keep December.  White roses, as in June.

[Footnote 183:  Abd-el-Kader surrendered to the French in Algeria early in 1848, under an express promise that he should be sent either to Alexandria or to St. Jean d’Acre; in spite of which he was sent to France and kept there as a prisoner for several years.]

[Footnote 184:  Louis Napoleon was elected President of the French Republic by a popular vote on December 10.]

To Miss Mitford Florence:  December 16, [1848].

...  You are wondering, perhaps, how we are so fool-hardy as to keep on furnishing rooms in the midst of ‘anarchy,’ the Pope a fugitive, and the crowned heads packing up.  Ah, but we have faith in the softness of our Florentines, who must be well spurred up to the leap before they do any harm.  These things look worse at a distance than they do near, although, seen far and near, nothing can be worse than the evidence of demoralisation of people, governors, and journalists, in the sympathy given everywhere to the assassination of poor Rossi.[185] If Rossi was retrocessive, he was at least a constitutional minister, and constitutional means of opposing him were open to all, but Italy understands nothing constitutional; liberty is a fair word and a watchword, nothing more; an idea it is not in the minds of any.  The poor Pope I deeply pity; he is a weak man with the noblest and most disinterested intentions.  His faithful flock have nearly broken his heart by the murder of his two personal friends, Rossi and Palma, and the threat, which they sent him by embassy, of murdering