Letter XXXV

Beloved: Rain swooped down on us from on high during the night, and the
country is cut into islands: the river from a rocky wriggling stream has
risen into a tawny, opaque torrent that roars with a voice a mile long and
is become quite unfordable. The little mill-stream just below has broken
its banks and poured itself away over the lower vineyards into the river;
a lot of the vines look sadly upset, generally unhinged and unstrung, yet
I am told the damage is really small. I hope so, for I enjoyed a real
lash-out of weather, after the changelessness of the long heat.

I have been down in Florence beginning to make my farewells to the many
things I have seen too little of. We start away for Venice about the end
of the week. At the Uffizi I seem to have found out all my future
favorites the first day, and very little new has come to me; but most of
them go on growing. The Raphael lady is quite wonderful; I think she was
in love with him, and her soul went into the painting though he himself
did not care for her; and she looks at you and says, "See a miracle: he
was able to paint this, and never knew that I loved him!" It is
wonderful that; but I suppose it can be done,--a soul pass into a work
and haunt it without its creator knowing anything about how it came
there. Always when I come across anything like that which has something
inner and rather mysterious, I tremble and want to get back to you. You
are the touchstone by which I must test everything that is a little new
and unfamiliar.