Via Bocca di Leone, Rome: December 21, 1853.

My dearest Mona Nina,--I have been longer than I thought to be in Rome
without writing to you, especially when I have a letter of yours for
which to thank you. My fancy was to wait till I had seen Gerardine in
her own home, and then to write to you, but I have called on her three
times, and the three Fates have been at it each time to prevent my
getting in. Still, we have met _here_, and I would rather not wait any
longer for whatever might be added to what I have seen and know
already....

Ah, dearest friend! you have heard how our first step into Rome was a
fall, not into a catacomb but a fresh grave[29], and how everything here
has been slurred and blurred to us, and distorted from the grand antique
associations. I protest to you I doubt whether I shall get over it, and
whether I ever shall feel that this is Rome. The first day at the bed's
head of that convulsed and dying child; and the next two, three, four
weeks in great anxiety about his little sister, who was all but given up
by the physicians; the English nurse horribly ill of the same fever, and
another case in this house. It was not only sympathy. I was selfishly
and intensely frightened for my own treasures; I wished myself at the
end of the world with Robert and Penini twenty times a day. Rome has
been very peculiarly unhealthy; and I heard a Monsignore observe the
other morning that there would not be much truce to the fever till March
came. Still, I begin to take breath again and be reasonable. Penini's
cheeks are red as apples, and if we avoid the sun, and the wind, and the
damp, and, above all if God takes care of us, we shall do excellently.
_I_, of course, am in a flourishing condition; walk out nearly every day
and scarcely cough at all. Which isn't enough for me, you see. Dear
friend, we have not set foot in the Vatican. Oh, barbarians!

But we have seen Mrs. Kemble, and I am as enchanted as I ought to be,
and even, perhaps, a little more. She has been very kind and gracious to
me; she was to have spent an evening with us three days since, but
something intervened. I am much impressed by her as well as attracted to
her. What a voice, what eyes, what eyelids full of utterance!

Then we have had various visits from Mr. Thackeray and his daughters.
'She writes to me of Thackeray instead of Raffael, and she is at Rome'!
But she _isn't_ at Rome. There's the sadness of it. We got to Gibson's
studio, which is close by, and saw his coloured Venus. I don't like her.
She has come out of her cloud of the ideal, and to my eyes is not too
decent. Then in the long and slender throat, in the turn of it, and the
setting on of the head, you have rather a grisette than a goddess. 'Tis
over pretty and _petite_, the colour adding, of course, to this effect.
Crawford's studio (the American sculptor) was far more interesting to me
than Gibson's. By the way, Mr. Page's portrait of Miss Cushman is really
something wonderful--soul and body together. You can show nothing like
it in England, take for granted. Indeed, the American artists consider
themselves a little aggrieved when you call it as good as a Titian.
'_Did_ Titian ever produce anything like it?' said an admirer in my
hearing. Critics wonder whether the colour will _stand_. It is a theory
of this artist that time does not _tone_, and that Titian's pictures
were painted as we see them. The consequence of which is that his
(Page's) pictures are undertoned in the first instance, and if they
change at all will turn black[30]. May all Boston rather turn black,
which it may do one of these days by an eruption from the South, when
'Uncle Tomison' gets strong enough.

We have been to St. Peter's; we have stood in the Forum and seen the
Coliseum. Penini says: 'The sun has tome out. I think God knows I want
to go out to walk, and _so_ He has sent the sun out.' There's a child
who has faith enough to put us all to shame. A vision of angels wouldn't
startle him in the least. When his poor little friend died, and we had
to tell him, he inquired, fixing on me those earnest blue eyes, 'Did
papa _see_ the angels when they took away Joe?' And when I answered 'No'
(for I never try to deceive him by picturesque fictions, I should not
dare, I tell him simply what I believe myself), 'Then did Joe _go up_ by
himself?' In a moment there was a burst of cries and sobs. The other day
he asked me if I thought _Joe had seen the Dute of Wellyton_. He has a
medal of the Duke of Wellington, which put the name into his head.
By-the-bye, Robert yesterday, in a burst of national vanity, informed
the child that this was the man who beat Napoleon. 'Then I sint he a
velly naughty man. What! he beat Napoleon _wiz a stit_?' (with a stick).
Imagine how I laughed, and how Robert himself couldn't help laughing.
So, the seraphs judge our glories!

If you have seen Sir David Brewster lately I should like to know whether
he has had more experience concerning the tables, and has modified his
conclusions in any respect. I myself am convinced as I can be of any
fact, that there is an _external intelligence_; the little I have seen
is conclusive to me. And this makes me more anxious that the subject
should be examined with common fairness by learned persons. Only the
learned won't learn--that's the worst of them. Their hands are too full
to gather simples. It seems to me a new development of law in the human
constitution, which has worked before in exceptional cases, but now
works in general.

Dearest friend, I do not speak of your own anxious watch and tender
grief, but think of them deeply. Believe that I love you always and in
all truth.

Your
E.B.B.