X10

Sent letter to Dickenson.

A horrible night of rain & wind, ― & towards 4 A.M. a storm of thunder. Ugh! ― Finished “Yeast.”

No sleep.

Cross & unwell. To Macbeans. ―

All things odious.

Returned to idle & mope ― worked a little at one of the 2 Jerusalem pictures for Musters. Finer, but violent winds.

[gr.], this is a most unhealthful place ― this dreary old prison. ― In the afternoon I worked better, on Musters’s Beirût, G. going out, “να αφησω την φυλακα ολιγον,”1 & returning to write more cheerfully. ― I, at 6 ― alone, to the monotonous Borghese, with its files of red, black, & blue, & white priestlets. ― Up the Corso, & at 7½ to the Falcone, where at least one dines quietly ― I prefer to dine out just now, that G. may have time for writing.

At home by 8½.

I think now, as Spillmann evidently cares “nothing about me ―” I would rather leave the rooms in [S. Lee’s], or some agent’s care, to let them as may be profitable. ― If I can but hang on till Musters drawings are done ― (not to say C. Church’s,) it would be a great thing: & it is certain that in this weather or any similar no movement out of Rome could be made with advantage.

I am obliged to have fires at night always: & when I went out at 6 it was bitterly cold. Yet so heavy is the air, that I cannot rise before 8 ― hardly then.

X11

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. I leave the prison (GT). [↩]