I was alone on foot; I heard no sound; I prayed.
At Florence, I was very ill. For three weeks, my life hung upon
a thread. The effect of the Italian climate on my health is not
favorable. I feel as if I had received a great injury. I am tired
and woe-worn; often, in the bed, I wish I could weep my life away.
However, they brought me gruel, I took it, and after a while rose up
again. In the time of the vintage, I went alone to Sienna. This is a
real untouched Italian place. This excursion, and the grapes, restored
me at that time.
When I arrived in Rome, I was at first intoxicated to be here. The
weather was beautiful, and many circumstances combined to place me in
a kind of passive, childlike well-being. That is all over now, and,
with this year, I enter upon a sphere of my destiny so difficult, that
I, at present, see no way out, except through the gate of death. It
is useless to write of it; you are at a distance and cannot help
me;--whether accident or angel will, I have no intimation. I have no
reason to hope I shall not reap what I have sown, and do not. Yet how
I shall endure it I cannot guess; it is all a dark, sad enigma. The
beautiful forms of art charm no more, and a love, in which there is
all fondness, but no help, flatters in vain.
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