t not think I am
ungrateful for them when I can't answer. You can have no idea how
impossible it is for me to do all the work necessary even for memory
of the things I came here to see; how much escapes me, how much is
done in a broken and weary way. I am the only author on art who does
the work of illustration with his own hand; the only one
therefore--and I am not insolent in saying this--who has learned his
business thoroughly; but after a day's drawing I assure you one cannot
sit down to write unless it be the merest nonsense to please Joanie.
Believe it or not, there is no one of my friends whom I write so
scrupulously to as to you. You may be vexed at this, but indeed I
can't but try to write carefully in answer to all your kind words,
and so sometimes I can't at all. I _must_ tell you, however, to-day,
what I saw in the Pompeian frescoes--the great characteristic of
falling Rome, in her furious desire of pleasure, and brutal
incapability of it. The walls of Pompeii are covered with paintings
meant only to give pleasure, but nothing they represent is beautiful
or delightful, and yesterday, among other calumniated and caricatured
birds, I saw one of my Susie's pets, a peacock; and he had only eleven
eyes in his tail. Fancy the feverish wretchedness of the humanity
which in mere pursuit of pleasure or power had reduced itself to see
no more than eleven eyes in a peacock's tail! What were the Cyclops to
this?

I hope to get to Rome this evening, and to be there settled for some
time, and to have quieter hours for my letters.

[Footnote 7: The death of Miss Margaret Beever.]

* * * * *

ROME, HOTEL DE RUSSIE, _8th May, '74_.

I have your sweet letter about Ulysses, the leaves, and the Robins. I
have been feeling so wearily on this journey, the want of what--when I
had it, I used--how often! to feel a burden--the claim of my mother
for at least a _word_, every day. Happy, poor mother, with two
lines--and I--sometimes--nay--often--thinking it hard to have to stay
five minutes from what I wanted to do--to write them.

I am despising, now, in like senseless way, the privilege of being
able to write to you and of knowing that it will please you to
hear--even that I can't tell you anything! which I cannot, this
morning--but only, it is a little peace and rest to me to write to my
Susie.

* * * * *