A year has passed since I have been thus occupied. The seasons have made their wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful robe of surpassing beauty. A year has passed; and I no longer guess at my state or my prospects⁠—loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my inseparable companion. I have endeavoured to brave the storm⁠—I have endeavoured to school myself to fortitude⁠—I have sought to imbue myself with the lessons of wisdom. It will not do. My hair has become nearly grey⁠—my voice, unused now to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears. My person, with its human powers and features, seem to me a monstrous excrescence of nature. How express in human language a woe human being until this hour never knew! How give intelligible expression to a pang none but I could ever understand!⁠—No one has entered Rome. None will ever come. I smile bitterly at the delusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that I have exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I now cling with the same fond trust.