[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysees:
October 22, [1851].

The pause in writing has come from the confusion in living, my ever
dearest Miss Mitford, and no worse cause. It was a long while before we
could settle ourselves in a private apartment, and we had to stay at the
hotel and wander about like doves turned out of the dove-cote, and
seeking where to inhabit.... We have seen nothing in Paris, except the
shell of it, yet. No theatres--nothing but business. Yet two evenings
ago we hazarded going to a 'reception' at Lady Elgin's, in the Faubourg
St. Germain, and saw some French, but nobody of distinction. It is a
good house, I believe, and she has an earnest face which must mean
something. We were invited, and _are_ invited to go every Monday, and
that Monday in particular, between eight and twelve. You go in a morning
dress, and there is tea. Nothing can be more _sans facon_, and my
tremors (for, do you know, I was quite nervous on the occasion, and
charged Robert to keep close to me) were perfectly unjustified by the
event. You see it was an untried form of society--like trying a Turkish
bath. I expected to see Balzac's duchesses and _hommes de lettres_ on
all sides of me, but there was nothing very noticeable, I think, though
we found it agreeable enough. We go on Friday evening to a Madame
Mohl's, where we are to have some of the 'celebrities,' I believe, for
she seems to know everybody of all colours, from white to red. Then
Mazzini is to give us a letter to George Sand--come what will, we must
have a letter to George Sand--and Robert has one to Emile Lorquet of the
'National,' and Gavarni of the 'Charivari,' so that we shall manage to
thrust our heads into this atmosphere of Parisian journalism, and learn
by experience how it smells. I hear that George Sand is seldom at Paris
now. She has devoted herself to play-writing, and employs a houseful of
men, her son's friends and her own, in acting privately with her what
she writes--trying it on a home stage before she tries it at Paris. Her
son is a very ordinary young man of three-and-twenty, but she is fond of
him....

Never expect me to agree with you in that _cause celebre_ of 'ladies and
gentlemen' against people of letters. I don't like the sort of veneer
which passes in society--yes, I like it, but I don't love it. I know
what the thing is worth as a matter of furniture-accomplishment, and
there an end. I should rather look at the scratched silent violin in the
corner, with the sense that music has come out of it or will come. I am
grateful to the man who has written a good book, and I recognise
reverently that the roots of it are in him. And, do you know, I was not
disappointed at all in what I saw of writers of books in London; no, not
at all. Carlyle, for instance, I liked infinitely more in his
personality than I expected to like him, and I saw a great deal of him,
for he travelled with us to Paris and spent several evenings with us, we
three together. He is one of the most interesting men I could imagine
even, deeply interesting to me; and you come to understand perfectly,
when you know him, that his bitterness is only melancholy, and his scorn
sensibility. Highly picturesque too he is in conversation. The talk of
writing men is very seldom as good.

And, do you know, I was much taken, in London, with a young authoress,
Geraldine Jewsbury. You have read her books. There's a French sort of
daring, half-audacious power in them, but she herself is quiet and
simple, and drew my heart out of me a good deal. I felt inclined to love
her in our half-hour's intercourse. And I liked Lady Eastlake too in
another way, the 'lady' of the 'Letters from the Baltic,' nay, I liked
her better than the 'lady'....

Do write to me and tell me of your house, whether you are settling down
in it comfortably[4]. In every new house there's a good deal of bird's
work in treading and shuffling down the loose sticks and straws, before
one can feel it is to be a nest. Robert laughs at me sometimes for
pushing about the chairs and tables in a sort of distracted way, but
it's the very instinct of making a sympathetical home, that works in me.
We were miserably off in London. I couldn't tuck myself in anyhow. And
we enjoy in proportion these luxurious armchairs, so good for the
Lollards.

People say that the troops which pass before our windows every few days
through the 'Arc de l'Etoile' to be reviewed will bring the President
back with them as 'emperor' some sunny morning not far off. As to
waiting till _May_, nobody expects it. There is a great inward
agitation, but the surface of things is smooth enough. Be constant, be
constant! Constancy is a rare virtue even where it is not an undeniable
piece of wisdom. Vive Napoleon II.!

As to the book, ah, you are always, and have always been, too good to
_me_, that's quite certain; and if you are not too good to my husband,
it is only because I am persuaded in my secret soul nobody _can_ be too
good to him.

He sends you his warm regards, and I send you a kiss of baby's, who is
finishing his Babylonish education, unfortunate child, by learning a
complement of French. I assure you he understands everything you can say
to him in English as well as Italian, so that he won't be utterly
denationalised.

God bless you. Say how you are and write soon.

Your ever affectionate
E.B.B.