Albergo Crocolle, Napoli,
Marzo 12, 1874.
...We left Rome after a fortnight’s visit to the Storys, which was very pleasant quoad the old friends, but rather wild and whirling quoad the new. Two receptions a week, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, were rather confusing for wits so eremitical as mine. I am not equal to the grande monde....
We have been twice to the incomparable Museum, which is to me the most interesting in the world. There is the keyhole through which we barbarians can peep into a Greek interior—provincial Greek, Roman Greek if you will, but still Greek.
To C. E. Norton.
Hotel de Lorraine,
7 Rue de Beaune, Paris, 11 May, 1874.
...I expected to arrive here a fortnight earlier than I did, for the fine weather began just as we were leaving Rome, and I dawdled as one always does in that lovely air. I had one delightful drive out to the Tavolato with Story, Dexter, Wild, and Tilton the day before we left. We lunched under an arbor of dried canes, drank vino asciulto, ate a frittata and endless eggs al tegame, and were like boys on a half-holiday. What a light that was half shadow, and what shadows that were all light were over everything!...
They explain all our bad weather here, and it is nearly all bad, by the simple formula ce sont les giboulées, and you see I have been lucky enough to get from a doctor in Rome a phrase that makes me more content under the unseasonable performances of my own personal meteorology. I have already accumulated a heap of catalogues, but have bought no books. I shall buy a few more....
To W. D. Howells.
Paris, 13 May, 1874.