I do not think I am
quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me
so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the
world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and
myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull
together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going
to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall
put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making
them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In
the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a
large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and
beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a
little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side
of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary,
with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of
marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere,
Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this
room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to
be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly,
two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of
Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to
speak to me in her soft German tongue.
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