think. I
don't, for the rest, like Dr. Cumming; his books seem to me very narrow.
Isn't the tendency with us all to magnify the great events of our own
time, just as we diminish the small events? For me, I am heretical in
certain things. I expect _no_ renewal of the Jewish kingdom, for
instance. And I doubt much whether Christ's 'second coming' will be
personal. The end of the world is probably the end of a dispensation.
What I expect is, a great development of Christianity in opposition to
the churches, and of humanity generally in opposition to the nations,
and I look out for this in much quiet hope. Also, and in the meanwhile,
the war seems to be just and necessary. There is nothing in it to
regret, except the way of conducting it....

Write to me soon again, and tell me as much of both of you as you can
put into a letter.

May God bless you always!

With Robert's warm regards, both of you think of me as

Your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Braun_

Florence: May 13, [1855].

My dearest Madame Braun,--You have classed me and ticketed me before
now, I think, as among the ungrateful of the world; yet I am grateful,
grateful, grateful! When your book[42] came (how very kind you were to
send it to me!) and when I had said so some five times running, in came
somebody who was _fanatico per Roma_, and reverential in proportion for
Dr. Braun, who with some sudden appeal to my sensibility--the softer
just then that I was only just recovering strength after a sharp winter
attack--swept the volume off the table and carried it off out of the
house to study the contents at leisure. I expected it back the next
week, but it lingered. And I really hadn't the audacity to write to you
and say, 'Thank you, but I have looked as yet simply at the title-page.'
Well, at last it comes home, and I turn the leaves, examine, read,
approve, like Ludovisi and the Belvedere, with a double pleasure of
association and become _qualified_ properly to thank you and Dr. Braun
from Robert and myself for this gift to us and valuable contribution to
archaeological literature. I am only sorry I did not get to Rome after
the book; it would have helped my pleasure so, holding up the lanthorn
in dark places. So much suggestiveness in combination with so much
specific information makes a book (or a man) worth knowing.

Of late, other hindrances have come to writing this, in the shape of
various labours o