This is grand.

Would that England, that pattern of moral nations, would forget herself for the sake of something or someone beyond.

_That_ would be grand.
I wish you were here, my dear Mr.Chorley, since I am wishing in vain, though we are almost at the close of our stay in this pretty country.

We have a villa with beautiful sights from all the windows; and there, on the hill opposite, live Mr.and Mrs.Story, and within a stone's throw, in a villino, lives the poor old lion Landor, who, being sorely buffeted by his family at Fiesole, far beyond 'kissing with tears' (though Robert did what he could), took refuge with us at Casa Guidi one day, broken-hearted and in wrath.

He stays here while we stay, and then goes with us to Florence, where Robert has received the authorisation of his English friends to settle him in comfort in an apartment of his own, with my late maid, Wilson (who married our Italian man-servant), to take care of him; and meanwhile the quiet of this place has so restored his health and peace of mind that he is able to write awful Latin alcaics, to say nothing of hexameters and pentameters, on the wickedness of Louis Napoleon.