VENICE, Thanksgiving Day, 1873. ... I can’t “do” anything over here except study a little now and then, and I long to get back to my reeky old den at Elmwood. Then I hope to find I have learned something in my two years abroad.... I am looking forward to home now, and shouldn’t wonder if I took up my work at Harvard again, as they wish me to do. We leave Venice probably to-morrow for Verona. Thence to Florence, Rome, and Naples.... As the year 1874 opened, the question of Lowell’s return to college work was mooted. He had felt a little piqued at being suffered to leave, after sixteen years’ continuous service, without any concession from the college. He thought at least he might have been granted leave of absence on half pay, and when no proposal of this sort was made, he sent in a definite resignation. Now the authorities intimated that they hoped he would resume his old place. He was in doubt what he should do. He had tasted the pleasures of freedom; he remembered well the uncongeniality of much of his work; he was painfully conscious of lacking qualities requisite for success in the profession of teaching; he had, moreover, been disturbed by physical disabilities, especially in a blurring of memory and a weakness in his head which alarmed him; the trouble, he decided, was “flying gout,” a disorder to which he had been more or less subject for many years, and which never left him for long after this period. More disturbing still was the “drop of black blood” he had inherited from his mother, which was apt to spread itself over the pupil of his eye, darkening everything, and, as he said, temporarily inducing a mood of suspicion or distrust. On the other hand, he was at a time of life when uncertainties of income were likely to create anxiety rather than to stimulate exertion. His income from the sale of his land had proved less than he anticipated, and he felt the need of a fixed increase. Moreover, he found that college life had become more of a habit than he suspected; the putting of the sea between him and it did not emancipate him, though it gave a temporary exhilaration. He was timid about experiments in living. Yet he was unwilling to allow himself to be governed in such a matter wholly by financial considerations. As he wrote to a friend: “If the worst came, I could sell my house and go into lodgings, which perhaps wouldn’t be so unwise after all. At any rate, I can’t let that be a prevailing motive to decide me about so sacred an office as that of Teacher.”