"I have neither ability, energy, nor purpose," she writes. "It is
impossible to do anything, so I am forced to set it aside for the
present; whether to take it up again or not in the future remains
to be seen."

In the autumn she goes on the Continent, visiting the Hague, which
"completely fascinates" her, and where she feels "stronger and more
cheerful" than she has "for many a day." Then Paris, which this time
amazes her "with its splendor and magnificence. All the ghosts of
the Revolution are somehow laid," she writes, and she spends six
weeks here enjoying to the full the gorgeous autumn weather, the
sights, the picture galleries, the bookshops, the whole brilliant
panorama of the life; and early in December she starts for Italy.

And now once more we come upon that keen zest of enjoyment, that
pure desire and delight of the eyes, which are the prerogative of
the poet,--Emma Lazarus was a poet. The beauty of the world,--what
a rapture and intoxication it is, and how it bursts upon her in the
very land of beauty, "where Dante and Petrarch trod!" A magic glow
colours it all; no mere blues and greens anymore, but a splendor of
purple and scarlet and emerald; "each tower, castle, and village
shining like a jewel; the olive, the fig, and at your feet the roses,
growing in mid-December." A day in Pisa seems like a week, so crowded
is it with sensations and unforgettable pictures. Then a month in
Florence, which is still more entrancing with its inexhaustible
treasures of beauty and art; and finally Rome, the climax of it all,--


"wiping out all other places and impressions, and opening
a whole new world of sensations. I am wild with the