ng my own words to the music. Was it wise, or wrong?

But we have had and are having some cold, some tramontana, and I have
kept house ever since. Only in Rome there's always hope of a good warm
scirocco. We talk of seeing Naples before we turn home to our Florence,
to keep feast for Dante.

It is delightful to hear of all you are _permitted_ to do for England
meanwhile in matters of art, and one of these days we shall go north to
take a few happy hours of personal advantage out of it all. Not this
year, however, I think. We have done duty to the north too lately. Now
it seems to me we have the right (of virtue, in spite of what I said on
another page, or rather, _because_ I said it in good human
inconsistency), the right to have and hold our Italy in undisturbed
possession. I never feel at home anywhere else, or to _live_ rightly
anywhere else at all. It's a horrible want of patriotism, of course,
only, if I were upon trial, I might say in a low voice a few things to
soften the judgment against me on account of that sin. Ah! we missed you
at Havre! If you had come it would have been something pleasant to
remember that detestable place by, besides the salt-water which profited
one's health a little. We were in Paris too some six weeks in all
(besides eight weeks at Havre!) and Paris has a certain charm for me
always. If we had seen you in Paris! But no, you must have floated past
us, close, close, yet we missed you.

A good happy new year we wish to Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin, as to yourself,
and, dear Mr. Ruskin, to your mother I shall say that my child is
developing in a way to make me very contented and thankful. Yes, I thank
God for him more and more, and _she_ can understand that, I know. His
musical faculty is a decided thing, and he plays on the piano quite
remarkably for his age (through his father's instruction) while I am
writing this. He is reading aloud to me an Italian translation of 'Monte
Cristo,' and with a dramatic intelligence which would strike you, as it
does perhaps, that I should select such a book for a child of nine years
old to read at all. It's rather young to be acclimated to French novels,
is it not? But the difficulty of getting Italian books is great, and
there's a good deal in the early part of 'Monte Cristo,' the prison
part, very attractive. His voice was full of sobs when poor Dantes was
consigned to the Chateau d'If. "Do you mean to say, mama, that _that
boy_ is to stay there all his life?"