Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/163

Rh much danger of her being turned away as of her being retained against her will.

In correspondence with Miss Mitford, early in 1853, Mrs. Browning, after referring to the fact that her husband's drama, Colombe's Birthday, was to be produced at the Haymarket in April, with Miss Helen Faucit (now Lady Martin) in the character of the heroine, recurs to her admiration for Napoleon III. Many people find it difficult to comprehend how a woman of Mrs. Browning's calibre could ever have admired and trusted the author of the coup d'étât, but an analysis of her mental temperament renders a comprehension of her ideas on this subject comparatively easy. In the first place must be borne in mind the tenacity with which she clung to a belief when once she had accepted it. She had regarded the First Napoleon as the mighty doer of a divine mission, and the Third as his successor in that line, but as unsullied with the crimes of the first Emperor. The aid and maintenance which he gave to the cause of Italian liberty, crowned the third of the Bonapartes in her eyes with a halo of glory, and completed the subjugation of her mind; henceforth, all that he did was justified in her sight. Not unnaturally, the mist of glory in which she beheld her hero enveloped, surrounded and included his entourage. To Miss Mitford she says of the Emperor: "I approve altogether, none the less that he has offended Austria, in the mode of arrangement; every cut of the whip in the face of Austria being a personal compliment to me—at least, so I consider it. Let him head the democracy, and do his duty to the world, and use to the utmost his great opportunities. Mr. Cobden and the Peace Society are pleasing me infinitely just now in making head against