University of Virginia Library

II.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Florence.

Action will furnish belief,—but will that belief be the true one?
This is the point, you know. However, it doesn't much matter
What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the action,
So as to make it entail, not a chance-belief, but the true one.
Out of the question, you say, if a thing isn't wrong, we may do it.
Ah! but this wrong, you see;—but I do not know that it matters.
Eustace, the Ropers are gone, and no one can tell me about them.

Pisa.

Pisa, they say they think; and so I follow to Pisa,
Hither and thither inquiring. I weary of making inquiries;
I am ashamed, I declare, of asking people about it.—
Who are your friends? You said you had friends who would certainly know them.

787


But it is idle, moping, and thinking, and trying to fix her
Image more and more in, to write the old perfect inscription
Over and over again upon every page of remembrance.
I have settled to stay at Florence to wait for your answer.
Who are your friends? Write quickly and tell me. I wait for your answer.