'Time was when heads were off a man would die.' A man--yes.

But a woman! _We_ die hard, you know.
Here, an end.

I hope you will write to me some day, and ease me by proving to me that I have ceased to be bitter to the palate of your soul.

Believe this--that, rather than be a serious sadness to you, I would gladly sit on in the pillory under the aggressive mud of that mob of 'Saturday Reviewers,' who take their mud and their morals from the same place, and use voices hoarse with hooting down un-English poetesses, to cheer on the English champion, Tom Sayers.

For me, I neither wish for the 'belt'[78] nor martyrdom; but if I were ambitious of anything, it might be to be wronged where, for instance, Cavour is wronged.
* * * * * _To Miss I.Blagden_ [Rome], Friday [end of March 1860].
My ever dearest Isa, I am scarcely in heart yet for writing letters, and did not mean to write to-day.