PARIS, _August 27, 1842_.
I find awaiting me here a letter which is not so fierce as your recent
ones have been. You might have sent it to me down there. Such a rare
treat could not be too soon received. I hasten to congratulate you on
your Greek studies, and to begin with something that interests you, I
will tell you what in Greek are called persons who, like you, have hair
of which they are justly proud. It is _euplokamos_. _Eu_ means well,
_plokamos_, a curl of hair. The two words together form an adjective.
Homer has said somewhere: νυμφη δε εὑπλοκαμοσα Καλυψὡ, _Calypso, nymph
of the luxuriant tresses_. Is it not very pretty? Ah! for the love of
Greek, etc.
I regret exceedingly that you start so late in the season for Italy. You
run the risk of seeing everything through odious rain-storms, which
deprive the most beautiful mountains in the world of half their
splendour; and you will be obliged to take my word for it when I praise
the radiant skies of Naples. Neither will you have any good fruit to
eat, but must content yourself instead with fig-eaters, birds so called
because they live on figs.