My dearest Fanny,--I this moment receive your letter, and hasten to answer it lest I should be too late for you in Paris. Dear Fanny, you seem in a chronic transitional state; it's always _crisis_ with you. I can't _advise_; but I do rather _wonder_ that you don't go at once to England and see your friends till you can do your business.... You can get at pictures in England and at artistic society also if you please; and making a _slancio_ into Germany or to Paris would not be impossible to you occasionally. Does this advice sound _too_ disinterested on my part? Never think so. We only stand ourselves on one foot in Florence--forced to go away in the summer; forced to go away in the winter. Robert was so persuaded even last winter (before my illness) of my being better at Rome that he would have taken an apartment there and furnished it, except that I prevented him. Then we have calls from the north, and on most summers we must be in England and Paris. To stay on through the summer in Florence is impossible to us at least. Think of thermometers being a hundred and two in the shade this year! So I consider your case dispassionately, and conclude _we_ are not worth your consideration in reference to prospects connected with any place. We are rolling stones gathering no moss. There's no use for anyone to run after us; but we may roll anyone's way. I say this, penetrated by your affectionate feeling for us. May God bless you and keep you, my dear friend. As for me, I have been nearly as ill as possible--that's the truth--suffering so much that the idea of the evil's recurrence makes me feel nervous. All the Italians who came near me gave me up as a lost life; but God would not have it so this time, and my old vitality proved itself strong still. At present I am remarkably well; I had a return of threatening symptoms a fortnight ago, but they passed. I think I had been talking too much. Now I feel quite as free and well as usual about the chest, and 'buoyant' as to general spirits. Affairs in Italy seem going well, and Napoleon does not forget us, whatever his townsfolk of a certain class may do. The French newspapers remember us well, I am happy to see, also. But, my dear Fanny, who am I to give letters to Garibaldi? I don't know him, nor does he know _me_. Have you acquaintance with Madame Swartz? _She_ could help Mr. Spicer. But she has just gone to Rome. And _we_ are going to Rome. Did not Sarianna tell you that? We go on my account to avoid the tramontana here. People say we are foolhardy on account of the state of the country; but you are aware we are no more frightened of revolutions than M. Charles is of the tiger. Prices at Rome will be more reasonable at any rate. Nobody pays high for a probability of being massacred. What I'm most afraid of after all is lest the 'Holiness of our Lord' should agree to reform at the last moment. It's too late; it must be too late--it ought to be too late....