en better for me in this respect; there on these
days, the only ones when I wish to stay at home and write and study, I
should have had the light. Now, if I consulted the good of my eyes, I
should have the lamp lit on first rising in the morning.

"Every sweet must have its bitter," and the exchange from the
brilliance of the Italian heaven to weeks and months of rain, and such
black cloud, is unspeakably dejecting. For myself, at the end of this
fortnight without exercise or light, and in such a damp atmosphere,
I find myself without strength, without appetite, almost without
spirits. The life of the German scholar who studies fifteen hours out
of the twenty-four, or that of the Spielberg prisoner who could live
through ten, fifteen, twenty years of dark prison with, only half an
hour's exercise in the day, is to me a mystery. How can the brain, the
nerves, ever support it? We are made to keep in motion, to drink the
air and light; to me these are needed to make life supportable, the
physical state is so difficult and full of pains at any rate.

I am sorry for those who have arrived just at this time hoping
to enjoy the Christmas festivities. Everything was spoiled by the
weather. I went at half past ten to San Luigi Francese, a church
adorned with some of Domenichino's finest frescos on the life and
death of St. Cecilia.

This name leads me to a little digression. In a letter to Mr.
Phillips, the dear friend of our revered Dr. Charming, I asked him if
he remembered what recumbent statue it was of which Dr. Charming was
wont to speak as of a sight that impressed him more than anything else
in Rome. He said, indeed, his mood, and the unexpectedness in seeing
this gentle, saintly figure lying there as if death had just struck
her down, had no doubt much influence upon him; but still he believed
the work had a peculiar holiness in its expression. I recognized at
once the theme of his description (the name he himself had forgotten)
as I entered the other evening the lonely church of St. Cecilia in
Trastevere. As in his case, it was twilight: one or two nuns were at
their devotions, and there lay the figure in its grave-clothes, with
an air so gentle, so holy, as if she had only ceased to pray as the
hand of the murderer struck her down. Her gentle limbs seemed instinct
still with soft, sweet life; the expression was not of the heroine,
the martyr, so much as of the tender, angelic woman. I could well
understand the deep