Was it reaction from all this excitement--the depression that follows past danger--that made me feel low and miserable afterwards? I know I walked along towards Lavenza in listlessness, and when a gendarme stopped to question me, and asked for my passport, I had not even energy to tell him how I came there. Even the intense desire to see that spot once more,--to walk that garden and sit upon that terrace,--all had left me; it was as though the waves had drowned the spirit, and left the limbs to move unguided. He led me beside the walls of the villa, by the little wicket itself, and still I felt no touch of feeling, no memory came back on me; I was indifferent to all! and yet _you_ know how many a weary mile I have come just to see them once more,--to revisit a spot where the only day-dream of my life lingered, and where I gave way to the promptings of a hope that have not often warmed this sad heart. What a sluggish swamp has this nature of mine become, when it needs a hurricane of passion to stir it! Here I am, living, breathing, walking, and sleeping, but without one sentiment that attaches me to existence; and yet do I feel as though whatever endangered life, or jeoparded fame would call me up to an effort and make me of some value to myself. I went yesterday to see my old studio: sorry things were those strivings of mine,--false endeavors to realize conceptions that must have some other interpreter than marble. Forms are but weak appeals, words are coarse ones; music alone, my dear friend, is the true voice of the heart's meanings. How a little melody that a peasant girl was singing last night touched me! It was one that _she_ used to warble, humming as we walked, like some stray waif thrown up by memory on the waste of life. So then, at last, I feel I am not a sculptor; still as little, with all your teaching, am I a scholar. The world of active life offers to me none of its seductions; I only recognize what there is in it of vulgar contention and low rivalry. I cannot be any of the hundred things by which men eke out subsistence, and yet I long for the independence of being the arbiter of my own daily life. What is to become of me? Say, dearest, best of friends,--say but the word, and let me try to obey you. What of our old plans of 'savagery'? The fascinations of civilized habits have made no stronger hold upon me since we relinquished that grand idea. Neither you nor I assuredly have any places assigned us at the feast of this old-world life; none have bidden us to it, nor have we even the fitting garments to grace it!