But I seriously think I shall die if I stay here much longer.
There's a spirit-malaria that eats into my life. I feel as if all the
volumes of Roman history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has in his
study, were laid right on top of my little heart, so that every time it
beats, it thumps against them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than
dyspepsia. If I could only get out on a New England hillside, where
there were no graves more important than those of grasshoppers and
butterflies! What should I do when I got there? Take off my hat, and
scream for joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with
rich, warm, untainted earth and young life.
But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I shouldn't be writing it, if
I hadn't just come from the catacombs of St. Calixtus. To think of
Albert's insisting upon going there the very first thing! But so he
did, and so we went, and talked solemnly about the Appian Way, and saw
everybody's tombs and ashes, and quoted poetry, until I stuck a pin in
Albert's arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from crying.
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