Oh, and of course you will say, "When the time comes, you will be ready." Ah, but before it comes, am I to presume it will be so? What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel? Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct? Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception? Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight, For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action? Must we, walking o'er earth, discerning a little, and hoping Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,-- Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present, Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbor, To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim? And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble repining, Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent? V.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE. Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears. This morning, as usual, _Murray_, as usual, in hand, I enter the Caffè Nuovo; Seating myself with a sense as it were of a change in the weather, Not understanding, however, but thinking mostly of Murray, And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles, _Caffè-latte!_ I call to the waiter,--and _Non c' è latte_, This is the answer he makes me, and this the sign of a battle. So I sit; and truly they seem to think any one else more Worthy than me of attention. I wait for my milkless _nero_, Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons, Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and Gulping in hottest haste, still standing, their coffee,--withdrawing Eagerly, jangling a sword on the steps, or jogging a musket Slung to the shoulder behind. They are fewer, moreover, than usual, Much, and silenter far; and so I begin to imagine Something is really afloat. Ere I leave, the Caffè is empty, Empty too the streets, in all its length the Corso Empty, and empty I see to my right and left the Condotti. Twelve o'clock, on the Pincian Hill, with lots of English, Germans, Americans, French,--the Frenchmen, too, are protected. So we stand in the sun, but afraid of a probable shower; So we stand and stare, and see, to the left of St. Peter's, Smoke, from the cannon, white,--but that is at intervals only,-- Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,--in this there is no misconception,-- Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,--not the Frenchman's?-- That must be doing some work. And so we watch and conjecture.