“If I might call you my Beloved! and so chain myself to you, I think I should have all your firmness and double my strength.  I will not; for I will not have what I do not deserve.  I think of you reading this, till I try to get to you; my heart is like a bird caught in the hands of a cruel boy.  By what I have done I know I do not love you.  Must we half-despise a man to love him?  May no dear woman that I know ever marry the man she first loves!  My misery now is gladness, is like rain-drops on rising wings, if I say to myself ‘Free! free, Emilia!’ I am bound for three years, but I smile at such a bondage to my body.  Evviva! my soul is free!  Three years of freedom, and no sounding of myself—­three years of growing, and studying; three years of idle heart!—­Merthyr!  I throb to think that those three years—­true man! my hero, I may call you!—­those three years may make me worthy of you.  And if you have given all to Italy, that a daughter of Italy should help to return it, seems, my friend, so tenderly sweet—­here is the first drop from my eyes!

“I would break what you call a Sentiment:  I broke my word to Wilfrid.  But this sight of money has a meaning that I cannot conquer.  I know you would not wish me to for your own pleasure; and therefore I go.  I hope to be growing; I fly like a seed to Italy.  Let me drill, and take sharp words, and fret at trifles!  I lift my face to that prospect as if I smelt new air.  I am changeing—­I have no dreams of Italy, no longings, but go to see her like a machine ready to do my work.  Whoever speaks to me, I feel that I look at them and know them.  I see the faults of my country—­Oh, beloved Breseians! not yours, Florentines! nor yours, dear Venice!  We will be silent when they speak of the Milanese, till Italy can say to them, ‘That conduct is not Italian, my children.’  I see the faults.  Nothing vexes me.

“Addio!  My friend, we will speak English in dear England!  Tell all that I shall never forget England!  My English Merthyr! the blood you have shed is not for a woman.  The blood that you have shed, laurels spring from it!  For a woman, the blood spilt is sickly and poor, and nourishes nothing.  I shudder at the thought of one we knew.  He makes Love seem like a yellow light over a plague-spotted city, like a painting I have seen.  Goodbye to the name of Love for three years!  My engagement to Mr. Pericles is that I am not to write, not to receive letters.  To you I say now, trust me for three years!  Merthyr’s answer is already in my bosom.  Beloved!—­let me say it once—­when the answer to any noble thing I might ask of you is in my bosom instantly, is not that as much as marriage?  But be under no deception.  See me as I am.  Oh, good-bye! good-bye!  Good-bye to you!  Good-bye to England!

          “I am,

        “Most humbly and affectionately,
          “Your friend,
        “And her daughter by the mother’s side,

          “Emilia Alessandra Belloni.”