"I will explain this to you very simply and, as befits a German, frankly. At that time I had fully decided to go to England. I was called thither by ancient ties of friendship, by the most ample promises of powerful friends, by the devoted favour of the most prosperous of kings. I had chosen this country as my adopted fatherland; the resting-place of my declining years [he was forty-one at the time]. I was invited, nay I was importuned in repeated letters and was promised gold almost in mountains. From all this I, hitherto a man of severe habits, a despiser of wealth, conceived a picture in my mind of such a power of gold as ten streams of Pactolus could hardly have washed down. And I was afraid that if I should return to your Eminence I might change my mind. "For if you so weakened, so fired my mind at that first interview, what would you not have done, if I had come into closer and more permanent relations? For what heart of adamant would not be moved by the gentle courtesy of your manner, your honeyed speech, your curious learning, your counsel so friendly and so sincere; especially by the evident good-will of so great a prelate. I already felt my decision perceptibly weakening and began even to repent of my plan and yet I was ashamed to seem so inconstant a person. I felt my love for the City, which I had hardly thrust aside, silently growing again, and in short, had I not torn myself away from Rome at once, never should I have left it. I snatched myself away, lest I should be blown back again and rather flew to England than journeyed thither. [Flying we have seen, was Erasmus' favourite method of travelling on paper.] "Now, then, you will ask, have I repented of my decision? Do I regret that I did not follow the advice of so loving a counsellor? Lying is not my trade. The thing affects me variously. I cannot help a longing for Rome as often as the great multitude of attractions there crowds upon my thoughts." Then he enumerates freedom, libraries, literary associations, and so on. "These things make it impossible that any fortune, however kind, could banish this Roman longing from my heart. As to England, though my fortune has not been so bad as to make me regret it, yet, to tell the truth, it has not at all corresponded either to my wishes or the promises of my friends."