till the end of October. The living is cheaper than even in Florence, so
that there has been no extravagance in coming here. In fact Florence is
scarcely tenable during the summer from the excessive heat by day and
night, even if there were no particular motive for leaving it. We have
taken a sort of eagle's nest in this place--the highest house of the
highest of the three villages which are called the Bagni di Lucca, and
which lie at the heart of a hundred mountains sung to continually by a
rushing mountain stream. The sound of the river and of the cicale is all
the noise we hear. Austrian drums and carriage-wheels cannot vex us, God
be thanked for it! The silence is full of joy and consolation. I think
my husband's spirits are better already, and his appetite improved.
Certainly little Babe's great cheeks are growing rosier and rosier. He
is out all day when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it
that he is prettier than the whole population of babies here. . . . Then
my whole strength has wonderfully improved--just as my medical friends
prophesied,--and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb
the hills with Robert, and help him to lose himself in the forests.
Ever since my confinement I have been growing stronger and stronger, and
where it is to stop I can't tell really. I can do as much or more than
at any point of my life since I arrived at woman's estate. The air of
the place seems to penetrate the heart, and not the lungs only: it
draws you, raises you, excites you. Mountain air without its
keenness--sheathed in Italian sunshine--think what that must be! And
the beauty and the solitude--for with a few paces we get free of
the habitations of men--all is delightful to me. What is peculiarly
beautiful and wonderful, is the variety of the shapes of the mountains.
They are a multitude--and yet there is no likeness. None, except where
the golden mist comes and transfigures them into one glory. For the
rest, the mountain there wrapt in the chestnut forest is not like that
bare peak which tilts against the sky--nor like the serpent-twine of