I have been down in Florence beginning to make my farewells to the many things I have seen too little of.  We start away for Venice about the end of the week.  At the Uffizi I seem to have found out all my future favorites the first day, and very little new has come to me; but most of them go on growing.  The Raphael lady is quite wonderful; I think she was in love with him, and her soul went into the painting though he himself did not care for her; and she looks at you and says, “See a miracle:  he was able to paint this, and never knew that I loved him!” It is wonderful that; but I suppose it can be done,—­a soul pass into a work and haunt it without its creator knowing anything about how it came there.  Always when I come across anything like that which has something inner and rather mysterious, I tremble and want to get back to you.  You are the touchstone by which I must test everything that is a little new and unfamiliar.

From now onwards, dearest, you must expect only cards for a time:  it is not settled yet whether we stop at Padua on our way in or our way out.  I am clamoring for Verona also; but that will be off our route, so Arthur and I may go there alone for a couple of greedy days, which I fear will only leave me dissatisfied and wishing I had had patience to depend on coming again—­perhaps with you!

Uncle N. has written of your numerous visits to him, and I understand you have been very good in his direction.  He does not speak of loneliness; and with Anna and her brood next week or now, he will be as happy as his temperament allows him to be when he has nothing to worry over.

I am proud to say I have gone brown without freckles.  And are you really as cheerful as you write yourself to be?  Dearest and best, when is your holiday to begin; and is it to be with me?  Does anywhere on earth hold that happiness for us both in the near future?  I kiss you well, Beloved.

LETTER XXXVI.

Dearest:  Venice is round me as I write!  Well, I will not waste my Baedeker knowledge on you,—­you too can get a copy; and it is not the panoramic view of things you will be wanting from me:  it is my own particular Venice I am to find out and send you.  So first of all from the heart of it I send you mine:  when I have kissed you I will go on.  My eyes have been seeing so much that is new, I shall want a fresh vocabulary for it all.  But mainly I want to say, let us be here again together quickly, before we lose any more of our youth or our two-handed hold on life.  I get short of breath thinking of it!

So let it be here, Beloved, that some of our soon-to-be happiness opens and shuts its eyes:  for truly Venice is a sleepy place.  I am wanting, and taking, nine hours’ sleep after all I do!

Outside coming over the flats from Padua, she looked something like a manufacturing town at its ablutions,—­a smoky chimney well to the fore:  but get near to her and you find her standing on turquoise, her feet set about with jaspers, and with one of her eyes she ravishes you:  and all her campanile are like the “thin flames” of “souls mounting up to God.”