Truest love to you and yours--your father and mother.

Do help us by a word every now and then.
Affectionately yours, R.B.
* * * * * _To Miss I.Blagden_ [Rome]: 43 Bocca di Leone: January 7 [1859].
My dearest Isa,--Your letter seemed long in coming, as this will seem to you, I fear.

I ought to have answered mine at once, and put off doing so from reason to reason, and from day to day.

Very busy I have been, sending off seven of the nine books of 'Aurora,'[61] having dizzied myself with the 'ifs' and 'ands,' and done some little good I hope at much cost....
As to the Roman climate, we have had some beautiful weather, but Robert was calling his gods to witness (the goddess Tussis among them) that he never felt it so cold in Florence--never.

Fountains frozen, Isa, and the tramontana tremendous.