Yet still beat noble hearts."
I have found many among the youth of England, of France, of Italy, also, full of high desire; but will they have courage and purity to fight the battle through in the sacred, the immortal band? Of some of them I believe it, and await the proof. If a few succeed amid the trial, we have not lived and loved in vain.
To these, the heart and hope of my country, a happy new year! I do not know what I have written; I have merely yielded to my feelings in thinking of America; but something of true love must be in these lines. Receive them kindly, my friends; it is, of itself, some merit for printed words to be sincere.
LETTER XIX.
The Climate of Italy.—Review of First Impressions.—Rome in its various Aspects.—The Pope.—Cemetery of Santo Spirito.—Ceremonies at the Chapels.—The Women of Italy.—Festival of St. Carlo Borromeo.—An Incident in the Chapel.—English Residents in the Seven-hilled City.—Mrs. Trollope a Resident of Florence.—The Pope as he communicates with his People.—The Position of Affairs.—Lesser Potentates.—The Inauguration of the New Council.—The Ceremonies thereto appertaining.—The American Flag in Rome.—A Ball.—A Feast, and its Reverse.—The Funeral of a Councillor.
Rome, December 17, 1847.
This 17th day of December I rise to see the floods of sunlight blessing us, as they have almost every day since I returned to Rome,—two months and more,—with scarce three or four days of rainy weather. I still see the fresh roses and grapes each morning on my table, though both these I expect to give up at Christmas.
This autumn is something like, as my countrymen say at home. Like what, they do not say; so I always supposed they meant like their ideal standard. Certainly this weather corresponds with mine; and I begin to believe the climate of Italy is really what it has been represented. Shivering here last spring in an air no better than the cruel cast wind of Puritan Boston, I thought all the praises lavished on
"Italia, O Italia!"