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plague, of death, and last, of desertion; but I lingered fondly on my early
years, and recorded with sacred zeal the virtues of my companions. They
have been with me during the fulfilment of my task. I have brought it to an
end--I lift my eyes from my paper--again they are lost to me. Again I
feel that I am alone.
A year has passed since I have been thus occupied. The seasons have made
their wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful robe of
surpassing beauty. A year has passed; and I no longer guess at my state or
my prospects--loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my inseparable companion.
I have endeavoured to brave the storm--I have endeavoured to school
myself to fortitude--I have sought to imbue myself with the lessons of
wisdom. It will not do. My hair has become nearly grey--my voice, unused
now to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears. My person, with its human
powers and features, seem to me a monstrous excrescence of nature. How
express in human language a woe human being until this hour never knew! How
give intelligible expression to a pang none but I could ever understand!--
No one has entered Rome. None will ever come. I smile bitterly at the
delusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that I
have exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I now
cling with the same fond trust.
Winter has come again; and the gardens of Rome have lost their leaves--
the sharp air comes over the Campagna, and has driven its brute inhabitants
to take up their abode in the many dwellings of the deserted city--frost
has suspended the gushing fountains--and Trevi has stilled her eternal
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