Once at the Baths of Lucca I was literally nearly struck down to the ground by a single word said in all kindness by a friend whom I had not seen for ten years.

The blue sky reeled over me, and I caught at something, not to fall.

Well, there is no use dwelling on this subject.

I understand your affectionateness and tender consideration, I repeat, and thank you; and love you, which is better.
Now, let us talk of reasonable things.
Beranger lives close to us, and Robert has seen him in his white hat wandering along the asphalte.

I had a notion somehow that he was very old; but he is only elderly, not much indeed above sixty (which is the prime of life now-a-days), and he lives quietly and keeps out of scrapes poetical and political, and if Robert and I had but a little less modesty we are assured that we should find access to him easy.