Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe, Florence Howe Hall, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, in two volumes, with portraits and other illustrations: volume 1

For Death's eternal city
Has yet some happy street;
'Tis in the Via Felice
My friend and I shall meet.

In the summer of 1851 she turned her face westward. The call of husband, children, home, was imperative; yet so deep was the spell which Rome had laid upon her that the parting was fraught with “pain, amounting almost to anguish.” She was oppressed by the thought that she might never again see all that had grown so dear. Looking back upon this time, she says, “I have indeed seen Rome and its wonders more than once since that time, but never as I saw them then.”

The homeward voyage was made in a sailing-vessel, in company with Mr.Mailliard and Mrs. Mailliard. They were a month at sea. In the long quiet mornings Julia read Swedenborg's Divine love and wisdom; in the afternoons Eugene Sue's Mysteres de Paris, borrowed from a steerage passenger. There was whist in the evening; when her companions had gone to rest she would sit alone, thinking over the six months, weaving into song their pleasures and their pains. The actual record of this second Roman winter is found in “Passion flowers.”