love me, and let me be as ever your affectionate BA. Robert's regards always. Say particularly how you are, and may God bless you, dearest Miss Mitford, and make you happy. [Footnote 171: Novels by George Sand.] _To Miss Mitford_ Florence: April 15, [1848]. ... My Flush has recovered his beauty, and is in more vivacious spirits than I remember to have seen him. Still, the days come when he will have no pleasure and plenty of fleas, poor dog, for Savonarola's martyrdom here in Florence is scarcely worse than Flush's in the summer. Which doesn't prevent his enjoying the spring, though, and just now, when, by medical command, I drive out two hours every day, his delight is to occupy the seat in the carriage opposite to Robert and me, and look disdainfully on all the little dogs who walk afoot. We drive day by day through the lovely Cascine (where the trees have finished and spread their webs of full greenery, undimmed by the sun yet), first sweeping through the city, past such a window where Bianca Capello looked out to see the Duke go by,[172] and past such a door where Lapo stood, and past the famous stone where Dante drew his chair out to sit.[173] Strange, to have all that old-world life about us, and the blue sky so bright besides, and ever so much talk on our lips about the new French revolution, and the King of Prussia's cunning, and the fuss in Germany and elsewhere. Not to speak of our own particular troubles and triumphs in Lombardy close by. The English are flying from Florence, by the way, in a helter skelter, just as they always do fly, except (to do them justice) on a field of battle. The family Englishman is a dreadful coward, be it admitted frankly. See how they run from France, even to my dear excellent Uncle Hedley, who has too many little girls in his household to stay longer at Tours. Oh, I don't _blame_ him exactly. I only wish that he had waited a little longer, the time necessary for being quite reassured. He has great stakes in the country--a house at Tours and in Paris, and twenty thousand pounds in the Rouen railway. But Florence will fall upon her feet we may all be certain, let the worst happen that can. Meanwhile, republicans as I and my, husband are by profession, we very anxiously, anxiously even to pain, look on the work being attempted and done just now by the theorists in Paris; far from half approving of it we are, and far from being absolutely confident of the durability of the other half. Tell me what you think, and if you are not anxious too. As to communism, surely the practical part of _that_, the only not dangerous part, is attainable simply by the consent of individuals who may try the experiment of associating their families in order to the cheaper employment of the means of life, and successfully in many cases. But make a government scheme of _even so much_, and you seem to trench on the individual liberty. All such patriarchal planning in a government