Of the "deeper things" I can really say nothing--except that I feel their truth, and am grateful for them. But may I not applaud (even the Pope is "applauded," you know) such a perfect touch as--for instance--in Chapter XVI--"the final softening of that sweet austerity which hid Lucy's heart of gold"; and again "Italy without the _forestieri_" "like surprising a bird on its nest"; and the scene beheld of Eleanor--Lucy pressing the terra-cotta to her lips;--and Italy "having not enough faith to make a heresy"--(true, too, of France, is it not?) and Chapter XXIII--"a base and plundering happiness"; and the scene of the confessional; and that sudden phrase of Eleanor's in her talk with Manisty that makes the whole world--and the whole book--right, "_She loves you!"_ That is art.... But, above all, my dear lady, acknowledgments and praise for the hand that created "Lucy"--that recreated, rather--my dear countrywoman! Truly, that is an accomplishment and one that will endear its author to the whole new world. And again one asks whether the readers that now are write such generous, such encouraging things to the makers of tales, as the readers of twenty years ago! If not, I cannot but think it is a loss. For praise is a great tonic, and helps most people to do their best. * * * * * It was during our stay on the Alban hills that I first became conscious in myself, after a good many springs spent in Italy, of a deep and passionate sympathy for the modern Italian State and people; a sympathy widely different from that common temper in the European traveler which regards Italy as the European playground, picture-gallery, and curiosity-shop, and grudges the smallest encroachment by the needs of the new nation on the picturesque ruin of the past. Italy in 1899 was passing through a period of humiliation and unrest. The defeats of the luckless Erythrean expedition were still hot in Italian memory. The extreme Catholic party at home, the sentimental Catholic tourist from abroad, were equally contemptuous and critical; and I was often indignantly aware of a tone which seemed to me ungenerous and unjust toward the struggling Italian State, on the part of those who had really most cause to be grateful for all that the youngest--and oldest--of European Powers had done in the forty years since 1860 to furnish itself with the necessary equipment, moral, legal, and material, of a modern democracy.