  London, British Museum, May 3, 1858. I shall be in Paris, I think, on Wednesday morning. I fell, last Wednesday, into a pretty kettle of fish. I was invited to a dinner of the Literary Fund, presided over by Lord Palmerston, and just as I was starting, received notice that, inasmuch as my name had been placed opposite a toast on the literature of Continental Europe, I must be prepared to make a speech. I yielded, with the pleasure that you may imagine, and for a long quarter of an hour talked nonsense in bad English, to an assembly of three hundred men of letters, or so-called such, and more than a hundred women, admitted to the honor of observing us eat tough chicken and leathery tongue. I was never so surfeited with silliness, as M. de Pourceaugnac said. I received a visit yesterday from a lady and her husband, who brought me some autograph letters from the emperor Napoleon to Josephine, which they wished to sell. They are very singular, for their entire subject is love. They are perfectly authentic, being written on stamped paper and bearing the post-marks. What I fail to understand is why Josephine |
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