Well, all this has blackened Rome to me.

I can't think about the Caesars in the old strain of thought; the antique words get muddled and blurred with warm dashes of modern, every-day tears and fresh grave-clay.

Rome is spoiled to me--there's the truth.
Still, one lives through one's associations when not too strong, and I have arrived at almost enjoying some things--the climate, for instance, which, though perilous to the general health, agrees particularly with me, and the sight of the blue sky floating like a sea-tide through the great gaps and rifts of ruins.

We read in the papers of a tremendously cold winter in England and elsewhere, while I am able on most days to walk out as in an English summer, and while we are all forced to take precautions against the sun.

Also Robert is well, and our child has not dropped a single rose-leaf from his radiant cheeks.