Robert, too, will tell you that he hates all Buonapartes, past, present, or to come, but then _he_ says _that_ in his self-willed, pettish way, as a manner of dismissing a subject he won't think about--and knowing very well that he doesn't think about it, not mistaking a feeling for a reason, not for a moment. There's the difference between women and men. Well, but you won't come here to knit your brows about politics, but rather to forget all sorts of anxieties and distresses, and be well and happy, I do hope. You deserve a holiday after all that work. God bless you, dear friend. Our united love goes to you and stays with you. Your ever affectionate BA. * * * * * _To Miss Mulock_ [Paris]: 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysées: April 27, [1852]. I am afraid you must think me--what can you have thought of me for not immediately answering a letter which brought the tears both to my eyes and my husband's? I was going to write just _so_, but he said: 'No, do not write yet; wait till we get the book and then you can speak of it with knowledge.' And I waited. But the misfortune is that Messrs. Chapman & Hall waited too, and that up to the present time 'The Head of the Family' has not arrived. Mr. Chapman is slow in finding what he calls his opportunities. Therefore I can't wait any more, no indeed. The voice which called 'Dinah' in the garden--which was true, because certainly I did call from Florence with my whole heart to the writer of these verses[13] (how deeply they moved me!)--will have seemed to you by this time as fabulous as the garden itself. And we had no garden at Florence, I must confess to you, only a terrace facing the grey wall of San Felice church, where we used to walk up and down on the moonlight nights. But San Felice was always a good saint to me, and when I had read and cried over those verses from the 'Athenæum' (my husband wrote them out for me at the reading room) and when I had vainly written to England to find out the poet, and when I had all as vainly, on our visit to England last summer, inquired of this person and that person, it turns out after all that 'Dinah' answers me. Do you not think I am glad? The beautiful verses touched me to the quick, so does your letter. We shall be in London again perhaps in two months for a few weeks, and then you will let us see you, I hope, will you not? And, in the meanwhile, you will believe that we do not indeed think of you as a stranger. Ah, your dream flattered me in certain respects! Yet there was some truth in it, as I have told you, even though you saw in the dreamlight more roses than were growing. Certainly Mr. Chapman will at last send me 'The Head of the Family,' and then I will write again of course. Dear Miss Mulock, may I write myself down now, because I _must_, Affectionately yours and gratefully, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. * * * * * _To Miss Mitford_