,
23d May, 1874
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A number of business letters and the increasing instinct for work here as time shortens, have kept me too long from even writing a mere [Pg 6] mamma-note to you; though not without thought of you daily.
I have your last most lovely line about your sister—and giving me that most touching fact about poor Dr. John Brown, which I am grieved and yet thankful to know, that I may better still reverence his unfailing kindness and quick sympathy. I have a quite wonderful letter from him about you; but I will not tell you what he says, only it is so very, very true, and so very, very pretty, you can't think.
I have written to my bookseller to find for you, and send a complete edition of "Modern Painters," if findable. If not, I will make my assistant send you down my own fourth and fifth volumes, which you can keep till I come for them in the autumn.
There is nothing now in the year but autumn and winter. I really begin to think there is some terrible change of climate coming upon the world for its sin, like another deluge. It will have its rainbow, I suppose, after its manner—promising not to darken the world again, and then not to drown.
Rome
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