_Rome,
December._
Behold me at my desk! I couldn’t bear this place, my own, if it had
not, on every hand, remembrances of you. Here in this very office, you
have sat. The last day or two in Florence, whither Embassy affairs
took me, brought thronging memories of our hours together there. This
morning as the train crawled across the Campagna in the weird twilight
of the moon just before dawn, I gazed out of the window and watched
the ruins rise out of the uncanny plain like tombstones of a dead
civilization,--spectres of decay and times long past. Think of all the
lovers they have looked on since first the aqueducts went marching off
to the hills in gigantic strides.
My precious, when the gray dawn was just breaking, I entered the Grand
Hotel, and then thought of you again, of the night I first called you,
Pollykins, by your own little name, right there in the doorway. Don’t
be disappointed in my letters, if from time to time they tell only
somebody’s feelings, and forget to mention what is happening. Now you
alone are my life. But write and let me know how _you_ feel.
* * * * *