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_To John Kenyon_

[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysées:
February 15, 1852.

My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--Robert sends you his Shelley,[12] having a very
few copies allowed to him to dispose of. I think you have Shelley's
other letters, of which this volume is the supplement, and you will not
be sorry to have Robert's preface thrown in, though he makes very light
of it himself.

You never write a word to us, and so I don't mean to send you a letter
to-day--only as few lines as I can drop in a sulky fit, repenting as I
go on. As to politics, you know you have all put me in the corner
because I stand up for universal suffrage, and am weak enough to fancy
that seven millions and a half of Frenchmen have some right to an
opinion on their own affairs. It's really fatal in this world to be
consequent--it leads one into damnable errors. So I shall not say much
more at present. You must bear with me--dear Miss Bayley and all of
you--and believe of me, if I am ever so wrong, that I do at least pray
from my soul, 'May the right prevail!'--loving right, truth, justice,
and the people through whatever mistakes. As it was in the beginning,
from 'Casa Guidi Windows,' so it is now from the Avenue des
Champs-Elysées. I am most humanly liable, of course, to make mistakes,
and am by temperament perhaps over hopeful and sanguine. But I do see
with my own eyes and feel with my own spirit, and not with other