would
in loneliness live, ah! he is soon alone. Each one loves, each one
lives, and leaves him to his pain." I went away and hid, all summer.
Not content with that, I said, on returning to Rome, I must be busy
and receive people little. They have taken me at my word, and hardly
one comes to see me. Now, if I want play and prattle, I shall have to
run after them. It is fair enough that we all, in turn, should be made
to feel our need of one another.

Never was such a winter as this. Ten weeks now of unbroken sunshine
and the mildest breezes. Of course, its price is to be paid. The
spring, usually divine here, with luxuriant foliage and multitudinous
roses, will be all scorched and dusty. There is fear, too, of want of
food for the poor Roman state.

I pass my days in writing, walking, occasional visits to the
galleries. I read little, except the newspapers; these take up an hour
or two of the day. I own, my thoughts are quite fixed on the daily
bulletin of men and things. I expect to write the history, but because
it is so much in my heart. If you were here, I rather think you would
be impassive, like the two most esteemed Americans I see. They do not
believe in the sentimental nations. Hungarians, Poles, Italians, are
too demonstrative for them, too fiery, too impressible. They like
better the loyal, slow-moving Germans: even the Russian, with his
dog's nose and gentlemanly servility, pleases them better than _my_
people. There is an antagonism of race.

TO E.S.

_Rome, June_ 6, 1849.--The help I needed was external, practical. I
knew myself all the difficulties and pains of my position; they were
beyond present relief; from sympathy I could struggle with them, but
had not life enough left, afterwards, to be a companion of any worth.
To be with persons generous and refined, who would not pain; who
would sometimes lend a helping hand across the ditches of this strange
insidious marsh, was all I could have now, and this you gave.

On Sunday, from our loggia, I witnessed a terrible, a real battle. It
began at four in the morning: it lasted to the last gleam of light.
The musket-fire was almost unintermitted; the roll of the cannon,
especially from St. Angelo, most majestic. As all passed at Porta San
Pancrazio and Villa Pamfili, I saw the smoke of every discharge, the
flash of the bayonets; with a glass could see the men. Both French and
Italians fought with the most obstinate valor. The French could
not use