Curious that, with all my fairness, somebody said to me to-day, "But you are not quite English, are you?" And I swore by the nine gods of my ancestry that I was nothing else. But the look is in us: my father had a foreign air, but made up for it by so violent a patriotism that Uncle N. used to call him "John Bull let loose." My love to England. Is it showing much autumn yet? My eyes long for green fields again. Since I have been in Italy I had not seen one until the other day from the top of St. Giorgio Maggiore, where one lies in hiding under the monastery walls. All that I see now quickens me to fresh thoughts of you. Yet do not expect me to come back wiser: my last effort at wisdom was to fall in love with you, and there I stopped for good and all. There I am still, everything included: what do you want more? My letter and my heart both threaten to be over-weight, so no more of them this time. Most dearly do I love you. LETTER XL. Beloved: If two days slip by, I don't know where I am when I come to write; things get so crowded in such a short space of time. Where I left off I know not: I will begin where I am most awake--your letter which I have just received. That is well, dearest, that is well indeed: a truce till February! And since the struggle then must needs be a sharp one--with only one end, as we know,--do not vex her now by any overt signs of preparation as if you assumed already that her final arguments were to be as so much chaff before the wind. You do not tell me _what_ she argues, and I do not ask. She does not say I shall not love you enough! To answer businesslike to your questions first: with your forgiveness we stay here till the 25th, and get back to England with the last of the month. Does that seem a very cruel, far-off date? Others have the wish to stay even longer, and it would be no fairness to hurry them beyond a certain degree of reasonableness with my particular reason for impatience, seeing, moreover, that in your love I have every help for remaining patient. It is too much to hope, I suppose, that the "truce" sets you free now, and that you could meet us here after all, and prolong our stay indefinitely? I know one besides myself who would be glad, and would welcome an outside excuse dearly.