The climate of Rome disagreed with me more than any climate of which I have yet had experience. I had a perpetual consciousness of my bilious tendencies, and when the sirocco blew I found it difficult to bear up against that and the permanent causes of depression I always have to struggle against. The air here is undoubtedly freer and purer, but even here we do not escape from that deadly hot wind, that blast, that I should think came straight from hell, it is so laden with despair.
SOCIETY IN ROME. I liked those pretty lasses, the Ladies T——, very much. All young people interest me, and must be wonderfully displeasing if they do not please me. I met them frequently, but they were naturally full of gayety and life and spirits, which I naturally was not. The little society I went into in Rome oppressed me dreadfully with its ponderous vapidity, and beyond exchanging a few words with these bonnie girls, and admiring their sweet pleasant faces, I had nothing to do with them. There was much talk about the chances of a marriage between Lord W—— and Lady M——, but though her father left no stone unturned to accomplish this great blessing for his pretty daughter, the matter seemed extremely doubtful when the season ended and they all went off to Naples.
As for Mrs. H——, if she had chronicled me, I am afraid it would scarcely have been with good words. I met her at a party at Mrs. Bunsen's (whose husband is the son of Arnold's friend).... The young lady impressed me as one of that numerous class of persons who like to look at a man or woman whose name, for any reason, has been in the public mouth, and probably her curiosity was abundantly satisfied by my being brought up and shown to her. She made no particular impression upon me, but I have no doubt that in sorrow, or joy, or any real genuine condition, instead of what is called society, she might perhaps have interested me. It takes uncommon powers of fascination, or what is even rarer, perfect simplicity, to attract attention or arouse sympathy in the dead atmosphere of modern civilized social intercourse. All is so drearily dry, smooth, narrow, and commonplace that the great deeps of life below this stupid stagnant surface are never seen, heard, or thought of.
If your nieces' constancy in following the round of monotonously recurring amusements of a Dublin season amazes me, they would certainly think it much more amazing to pass one's time as I do, wandering about the country alone, dipping one's head and hands into every wayside fountain one comes to, and sitting down by it only to get up again and wander on to the next spring of living water. The symbol is comforting, as well as the element itself, though it is a mere suggestion of the spiritual wells by which one may find rest and refreshment, and pause and ponder on this dusty life's way of ours.
I rejoice the distress in Ireland is less than was anticipated, and am sorry that I cannot sympathize with your nephew's political views [Colonel Taylor was all his life a consistent and fervent Tory].... Politics appear to me, in a free government, to be the especial and proper occupation of a wealthy landowner; and, in such a country as Ireland, I am sure they might furnish a noble field for the exercise of the finest intelligence and the most devoted patriotism, as well as fill the time with occupation of infinite interest, both of business and benevolence. I should like to be a man with such a work....
My sister's little girl is lovely; she runs about, but does not speak yet. God bless you, my dear friend. Give my love to dear Dorothy. If I can, I will come and see you both at Torquay this next winter. I hope to be in England in November.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Frascati, Wednesday, July 1st, 1846.
... You know of old that the slightest word of blame from you is worse than hot sealing-wax on my skin to me, and that to my self-justifications there is no end. My dear friend, are mental perplexity and despondency, moral difficulty, spiritual apathy, and a general bitter internal struggle with existence, less real trials, less positive troubles, than the most afflicting circumstances generally so classed? I almost doubt it. It may be more difficult to formulate that species of anguish in words, and it may seem a less positive and substantial grief than some others, but the plagues of the soul are real tortures, and I set few sufferings above them, few difficulties and few pains beyond those that have their source not in the outward dispensation of events, but in the inward conditions of our physical and moral constitutions.