lous
prudence and economy, and declares that it is past belief and precedent
that we should not burn the candles at both ends, and the next moment
will have it that we remind her of the children in a poem of Heine's who
set up housekeeping in a tub, and inquired gravely the price of coffee.
Ah, but she has left Pisa at last--left it yesterday. It was a painful
parting to everybody. Seven weeks spent in such close neighbourhood--a
month of it under the same roof and in the same carriages--will fasten
people together, and then travelling _shakes_ them together. A more
affectionate, generous woman never lived than Mrs. Jameson[123] and it
is pleasant to be sure that she loves us both from her heart, and not
only _du bout des levres_. Think of her making Robert promise (as he has
told me since) that in the case of my being unwell he would write to her
instantly, and she would come at once if anywhere in Italy. So kind, so
like her. She spends the winter in Rome, but an intermediate, month at
Florence, and we are to keep tryst with her somewhere in the spring,
perhaps at Venice. If not, she says that she will come back here, for
that certainly she will see us. She would have stayed altogether
perhaps, if it had not been for her book upon art which she is engaged
to bring out next year, and the materials for which are to be _sought_.
As to Pisa, she liked it just as we like it. Oh, it is so beautiful and
so full of repose, yet not _desolate_: it is rather the repose of sleep
than of death. Then after the first ten days of rain, which seemed to
refer us fatally to Alfieri's 'piove e ripiove' came as perpetual a
divine sunshine, such cloudless, exquisite weather that we ask whether
it may not be June instead of November. Every day I am out walking while
the golden oranges look at me over the walls, and when I am tired Robert
and I sit down on a stone to watch the lizards. We have been to your
seashore, too, and seen your island, only he insists on it (Robert does)
that it is not Corsica but Gorgona, and that Corsica is not in sight.
_Beautiful_ and blue the island was, however, in any case. It might have
been Romero's instead of either. Also we have driven up to the foot of
the mountains, and seen them reflected down in the little pure lake of
Ascuno, and we have seen the pine woods, and met the camels laden with
faggots all in a line. So now ask me again if I enjoy my liberty as you
expect. My head goes round sometimes, that is