So Bradshaw, as I say, tempted us, and the sight of the short cut in the map (pure delusion those maps are!) beguiled us, and we crossed the 'cold valley' and the 'cold mountain' when we shouldn't have done either, and we have bought experience and paid for it.

Never mind! experience is nearly always worth its price.

And I have nearly lost my cough, and Robert is dosing me indefatigably with cod's liver oil to do away with my thinness....
Robert's best love, with that of your most Gratefully affectionate BA.
* * * * * _To Miss I.Blagden_ [Florence: winter 1852-3.] [_The beginning of the letter is lost_] The state of things here in Tuscany is infamous and cruel.

The old serpent, the Pope, is wriggling his venom into the heart of all possibilities of free thought and action.

It is a dreadful state of things.