_--Italy is as beautiful as even I hoped, and
I should wish to stay here several years, if I had a moderate fixed
income. One wants but little money here, and can have with it many
of the noblest enjoyments. I should have been very glad if fate would
allow me a few years of congenial life, at the end of not a few of
struggle and suffering. But I do not hope it; my fate will be the same
to the close,--beautiful gifts shown, and then withdrawn, or offered
on conditions that make acceptance impossible.
TO MADAME ARCONATI.
_Corpus Domini, June_ 22, 1848.--I write such a great number of
letters, having not less than a hundred correspondents, that it seems,
every day, as if I had just written to each. There is no one, surely,
this side of the salt sea, with whom I wish more to keep up the
interchange of thought than with you.
I believe, if you could know my heart as God knows it, and see
the causes that regulate my conduct, you would always love me. But
already, in absence, I have lost, for the present, some of those
who were dear to me, by failure of letters, or false report. After
sorrowing much about a falsehood told me of a dearest friend, I found
his letter at Torlonia's, which had been there ten months, and, duly
received, would have made all right.
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