Snow yet lingers on these
mountain-tops, after forty days of hottest sunshine, last night broken
by a few clouds, prefatory to a thunder storm this morning. It has
been so hot here, that even the peasant in the field says, "_Non porro
piu resistere_," and slumbers in the shade, rather than the sun. I
love to see their patriarchal ways of guarding the sheep and tilling
the fields. They are a simple race. Remote from the corruptions of
foreign travel, they do not ask for money, but smile upon and bless me
as I pass,--for the Italians love me; they say I am so "_simpatica._"
I never see any English or Americans, and now think wholly in Italian:
only the surgeon who bled me, the other day, was proud to speak a
little French, which he had learned at Tunis! The ignorance of this
people is amusing. I am to them a divine visitant,--an instructive
Ceres,--telling them wonderful tales of foreign customs, and even
legends of the lives of their own saints. They are people whom I could
love and live with. Bread and grapes among them would suffice me.
TO HER MOTHER.
_Rome, Nov_. 16, 1848.--* * * Of other circumstances which complicate
my position I cannot write.
Pages:
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330