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delight my eyes.
Some of them are of consummate beauty.
I have made a collection which I long to show you. Of course, in my wanderings I cannot forget the friends, one of whom is dead,1 who initiated me in Rome; and that happiest summer of my life is revived in all that I now see and do, with longings that I could have it all back,—but not, I think, on the condition that I should live the intervening years over again.
The day after leaving
Rome, he wrote to Story from the steamer:—
What I have left undone at Rome haunts me more than all that I enjoyed.
I think perpetually of pictures and statues unseen; but more than this, I am unhappy in opportunities I let slip.
Why did I not press you to go with me to the Capitol and the Vatican?
Why did I not press Wild to a similar service in the picture galleries?
But I have stored away much; Rome now, as when I first saw it, touches me more than any other place.
Then I have been so happy with you. Perhaps it will be long before we meet again; but I cannot forget those latter delicious days.
God bless you!
and give my love to Emelyn and to Edith, and kisses to the boys.
To
Dr. Howe, May 2:—
Crawford's studio interested me much; but I was strongly of opinion that it would be best to abandon all idea of continuing the doors.
His sketches seemed to be in a very crude condition; so that if the doors were finished according to them, I feared they would not come up to his great fame, or sustain the competition with the careful works of other artists; and if the sketches were completed by another hand, then the work would in great measure cease to be Crawford's. His well-filled studio testified to his active, brilliant career.
To Me it was full of peculiar interest.
It was just twenty years before that I had found him poor, struggling on three hundred dollars a year, but showing the genius that has since borne such fruit.
Then it was I predicted that if I ever came again to Rome I should find him living in a palace,—in a palace, but not living, alas!
William W. Story writes of
Sumner's visit to
Rome at this Time:—
After the terrible assault upon him in the Senate chamber, broken down in health and doubting whether he should ever be able to return to his duties in the Senate, he came to Rome, and was my guest during his whole visit.
He was terribly shattered,—finding the greatest difficulty in ascending any stairs, forced constantly to stop and be assisted, and at times suffering sharp, almost intolerable, pain.
But he still took interest in going over the old ground and renewing the old associations, and, despite his broken health, was still a student of everything that came in his way. All the long evenings he lay upon the sofa, and talked of men and things,—politics; of France and Italy and Germany, and of their future; of the old days; of the persons he had met; and had the liveliest interest in the prospects of Italy, and the deepest sympathy in her struggles for freedom.
He spoke with no bitterness of his assailant
