I pass whole days
abroad; sometimes I take a book, but seldom read it:--why should I,
when every stone talks?
In spring, I shall go often out of town. I have read "La Rome
Souterraine" of Didier, and it makes me wish to see Ardea and Nettuno.
Ostia is the only one of those desolate sites that I know yet. I study
sometimes Niebuhr, and other books about Rome, but not to any great
profit.
In the circle of my friends, two have fallen. One a person of great
wisdom, strength, and calmness. She was ever to me a most tender
friend, and one whose sympathy I highly valued. Like you by nature
and education conservative, she was through thought liberal. With no
exuberance or passionate impulsiveness herself, she knew how to allow
for these in others. The other was a woman of my years, of the most
precious gifts in heart and genius. She had also beauty and fortune.
She died at last of weariness and intellectual inanition. She never,
to any of us, her friends, hinted her sufferings. But they were
obvious in her poems, which, with great dignity, expressed a resolute
but most mournful resignation.
TO R.F.F.
_Rome, Feb_. 23, 1849.--It is something if one can get free foot-hold
on the earth, so as not to be jostled out of hearing the music, if
there should be any spirits in the air to make such.
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