.

But I am not despondent or beaten at all, and I'm at work on your
peacock's feathers--and oh me, they should be put into some great arch
of crystal where one could see them like a large rainbow--I use your
dear little lens deep in and in--and can't exhaust their
wonderfulness.

* * * * *

HOTEL MEURICE, PARIS,
_26th August, '76_.

I'm so very miserable just now that I can't write to you: but I don't
want you to think that I am going so far away without wishing to be
near you again. A fit of intense despondency coming on the top, or
under the bottom, of already far-fallen fatigue leaves me helpless
to-day, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. Oh dear, the one
pleasant thing I've to say is that it will make me know the blessings
of Brantwood and dearness of the Thwaite, twenty fold more, when I get
back.

* * * * *

VENICE, _10th September, '76_.

I am a sad long way from the pretty garden steps of the Thwaite, now,
yet in a way, at home, here also--having perhaps more feeling of old
days at Venice than at any other place in the world, having done so
much work there, and I hope to get my new "Stones of Venice" into
almost as nice a form as "Frondes." I'm going to keep all that I think
Susie would like, and then to put in some little bits to my own
liking, and some other little bits for the pleasure of teasing, and I
think the book will come out quite fresh.

I am settled here for a month at least--and shall be very thankful for
Susie notes, when they cross the Alps to me in these lovely days.

Love to Mary--I wish I could have sent both some of the dark blue
small Veronica I found on the Simplon!

* * * * *

VENICE, _12th September, 1876_.

I must just say how thankful it makes me to hear of this true
gentleness of English gentlewomen in the midst of the vice and cruelty
in which I am forced to live here, where oppression on one side and
license on the other rage as two war-wolves in continual havoc.

It is very characteristic of fallen Venice, as of modern Europe, that
here in the principal rooms of one of the chief palaces in the very
headmost sweep of the Grand Canal there is not a room for a servant
fit to keep a cat or a dog in (as Susie would keep cat or dog, at
least).

*