The letter was written, as only the postmark shows, on September 26th, 1859, and was as follows:-- * * * * * "MY DEAR MRS.

TROLLOPE,--I feel doubly ungrateful to you ...

for the music (one of the proofs of your multiform faculty) and for your kind and welcome letter, which I have delayed to thank you for.

My body lags so behind my soul always, and especially of late, that you must consider my disadvantages in whatever fault is committed by me trying to forgive it.
"Certainly we differ in our estimate of the Italian situation, while loving and desiring for Italy up to the same height and with the same heart.
"For me I persist in looking to _facts_ rather than to words official or unofficial, and in repeating that, 'whereas we were bound, now we are free.' "'I think, therefore, I am.' _Cogito, ergo sum_, was, you know, an old formula.

Italy thinks (aloud) at Florence and Bologna; therefore she _is_.