Italian Days and Ways

Your most interesting letter, Sir Philosopher, reached me at Gibraltar, and served to give me a homelike feeling in that alien land of Spain. Any one who can write letters as interesting as yours, from your library, with the mercury at zero outside, and nothing more refreshing to look upon from the window than snow and sleet, does not need to wander in sunny lands and among ancient ruins for an inspiration. No, travel would be absolutely wasted upon you, who require only a cigar and a wood fire to encourage your "reveries of a bachelor."
You wish to know what are my first impressions of Italy, and how we three women get on together? To be perfectly candid with you, we ourselves are not wandering in sunny lands at present, and the cheerful 10 blaze of your library fire would prove most welcome to benumbed fingers and pinched noses.
Our welcome to Genoa was not particularly cheerful. It had been raining for days; the sky was heavy with clouds, and the air chilly and damp. We can well understand why the prudent and all-informing Baedeker advises invalids visiting Genoa at this time to guard against raw winds and abrupt changes of temperature.