On his arrival at Dijon he wrote to Carlyle, who in answer after giving way to his grief--"my life all laid in ruins, and the one light of it as if gone out,"--continued:--"Come and see me when you get home; come oftener and see me, and speak _more_ frankly to me (for I am very true to y'r highest interests and you) while I still remain here. You can do nothing for me in Italy; except come home improved." But before this letter reached Ruskin, he too had been in the presence of death, and had lost one of his most valued friends. Their journey to Italy had been undertaken chiefly for the sake of Lady Trevelyan's health, as the following extracts indicate: "PARIS, _2nd May, 1866_. "Lady Trevelyan is much better to-day, but it is not safe to move her yet--till to-morrow. So I'm going to take the children to look at Chartres cathedral--we can get three hours there, and be back to seven o'clock dinner. We drove round by St. Cloud and Sèvres yesterday; the blossomed trees being glorious by the Seine,--the children in high spirits. It reminds me always too much of Turner--every bend of these rivers is haunted by him." "DIJON, _Sunday, 6th May, 1866_. "Lady Trevelyan is _much_ better, and we hope all to get on to Neufchatel to-morrow. The weather is quite fine again though not warm; and yesterday I took the children for a drive up the little valley which we used to drive through on leaving Dijon for Paris. There are wooded hills on each side, and we got into a sweet valley, as full of nightingales as our garden is of thrushes, and with slopes of broken rocky ground above, covered with the lovely blue milk-wort, and purple columbines, and geranium, and wild strawberry-flowers. The children were intensely delighted, and I took great care that Constance should not run about so as to heat herself, and we got up a considerable bit of hill quite nicely, and with greatly increased appetite for tea, and general mischief. They have such appetites that I generally call them 'my two little pigs.' There is a delightful French waiting-maid at dinner here--who says they are both 'charmantes,' but highly approves of my title for them nevertheless." "NEUFCHATEL, _10th May_, 1866. "Lady Trevelyan is still too weak to move. We had (the children and I) a delightful day yesterday at the Pierre à Bot, gathering vetches and lilies of the valley in the woods, and picnic afterwards on the lovely mossy grass, in view of all the Alps--Jungfrau, Eiger, Blumlis Alp, Altels, and the rest, with intermediate lake and farmsteads and apple-blossom--very heavenly."