Chapter VII: Part 7

We women, in the absence of our cavaliers, who will be away for two days upon some special military service, have planned to spend a day in fairyland and an evening in Bohemia. Is not that a sufficiently sensational beginning to please one of our own newspapers at home? This morning, Bertha and Mrs. Robins having joined us, we all set forth in a tram from the Piazza della Signoria for Fiesole. Half-way up the hillside we stopped at the Domenico, where Fra Angelico lived as a monk, gathering here, as one of his brothers relates, "in abundance the flowers of art which he seemed to have plucked from Paradise." One of the richest of these treasures, the Coronation of the Virgin, has been carried away to the Louvre, but there is still in the choir of the Domenico a lovely memorial of him--a Virgin Enthroned between St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. Behind the group are five guardian angels with tributes of flowers in their hands. This and a Baptism of Christ, by Lorenzo di Credi, are the treasures of the Domenico. We stopped at La Badia and enjoyed the fine view from its terrace, and walked slowly past the Villa Landore, now shut in by tall cypresses, where Walter Savage Landor once lived. Here in these beautiful grounds described by Boccaccio in his "Valley of Ladies," surrounded by his little children and his many pets, Porigi the house-dog, the cat Cincirillo, whose original sin showed itself in a decided taste for birds, the tame martin, and the leveret, Landor spent the most peaceful years of a life that was far from happy. "Aerial Fiesole" he might well name this lovely hillside garden, in which he promised Mr. Francis Hare and his bride "grapes, figs, and nightingale concerts galore." At the Medici Villa, a favorite residence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, we admired once again the unerring taste of old Cosimo, who chose for a summer residence this favorite spot which overhangs Florence. Brunelleschi's superb dome, Giotto's belfry, Santa Maria Novella, beautiful as a bride, Santa Croce, San Marco, and San Spirito, all stood out in fairy-like beauty this lovely May morning.

After stopping at the cathedral on the Piazza of Fiesole, and at Santa Maria Primerana to look at a tabernacle by one of the Della Robbias and a painting by Andrea da Fiesole, Angela insisted that we had done our whole duty as sight-seers and might now begin to enjoy ourselves in earnest. To this Bertha heartily agreed, suggesting that as we had come to Fiesole for a day of rest and recreation in the open, we should lunch on the terrace of the little hotel, and spend the afternoon in the ancient theatre.

We have learned in Florence, even better than in vast Rome, whose historic past appealed to us so insistently on all sides, that it is not in the galleries and churches, interesting as they are, that we find the most pleasure, but in the market-places and on the streets, with their chatter and life, or in sitting, as we sat to-day, on the hotel terrace, with the fertile plain spread before us and the garden at our feet, in which the peasants were singing at their tasks. Beyond are villa-dotted hills, and still beyond, the chain of distant mountains veiled in purple light, which melts into the azure sky with an indescribable charm of its own.

Florence is on the other side of Fiesole, and from the terrace we had a rural view, with nothing but hill, valley, and mountain, excepting the villas, of course, among these Vincigliata, which Katharine says we must see if we would know what a castle of the middle ages is like. Vincigliata is built on the ruins of a castle of the Bisdomini, and contains great collections of ancient furniture and armor. We shall drive out to Vincigliata in a coach and four some day, as this is a favorite afternoon excursion from the Pension C.

Having finished our luncheon, which was quite Italian and really delicious, we strolled down to the old amphitheatre, where we sit on the stone seats and look away toward Florence while Mrs. Robins reads to us Browning's "Old Pictures in Florence" and "Andrea del Sarto," both poems so full of the atmosphere of the beautiful city.

The other day when we were at the Annunziata, at the corner of the Via della Mandorla, we saw the little house where Andrea and his fair and false Lucrezia sat in the evenings and looked over toward "yonder sober, pleasant Fiesole." We seem to see the old-world pair sitting there

"Inside that melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with,"

Andrea with the face of an artist and dreamer, a trifle weak withal, and she with the

"Perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare."

How beautiful this Lucrezia was we know from many a picture of Andrea's. Zelphine and I think that the Madonna del Sacco must have been likest to her. The superb beauty of flesh and blood, line and color, so satisfies us that we do not miss the soul that seems to have been wanting in the original; or did Andrea, artist-like, give to the pictured Lucrezia graces with which his imagination endowed her? We hope so, for if he saw her as Browning represents her in his poem, he must have been indeed the most unhappy of men.

While I write, Angela and Zelphine try to get snap-shots of us as we sit under the trees, and Katharine warns us that we shall soon have to turn our faces homeward, if we wish to be in time for the dinner in Bohemia to which she invites us.

PENSION C., Tuesday Evening.

Our evening in Bohemia was, in its way, quite as much of a success as the day in fairyland. Katharine conducted us through winding streets, whose twistings and turnings we shall never be able to follow without Ariadne's thread, to a café in a cellar, where artists most do congregate. A friend of Katharine's, an exceedingly pretty and vivacious Englishwoman, joined us at table, and amused us very much by telling us that she had sometimes been taken for an American and was said to talk like an American, which evidently pleased her very much. Did I think so? I laughed, and said that she would have to talk many different ways in order to verify the description, as that was a part of our infinite variety. She said that she had recently met a unique American man.

"Why unique?" asked Bertha.

"In being selfish," was the prompt reply. "All the American men I had met before were unselfish, chivalrous, ready to do anything and everything for the comfort and pleasure of the women of their party; but this man, this unique specimen, seemed to forget that we existed."

Now was not that a pleasant hearing, and are you not proud of the reputation of your compatriots?

While we were discussing national traits the cook, in white cap and apron, was broiling our beefsteak and cooking vegetables over his little charcoal fire; these he served to us smoking hot and delicious. The wine was brought on the table in a huge bottle, which was weighed before and afterwards, like the unfortunates who are fattened on cereals and predigested foods, with this difference, that the bottle lost in weight instead of gaining, and we paid for the shortage. We had an _omelette soufflée_ of the lightest for our dessert, after which a man in a white paper cap handed around a tray of sweets, all manner of delicious confections on sticks, for each of which we paid one soldo. It was all delightfully novel and Bohemian, and as we strolled home by the Arno, with the sound of its rushing water in our ears, its shining breast gleaming like silver in the moonlight, we sang old songs, like college-girls, and were so happy that one drop more would have caused our cup of content to overflow in tears--and if tears had been shed it would have been because some of those we care for were not here to share with us the pleasure of this day of days and this night of perfect beauty.

May 18th.

If we think of Dante and Savonarola as we cross the Piazza of the Signoria and walk through the narrow winding streets that lead from it, every old building and quaint corner recalls some line or verse of the Brownings, husband or wife. In the Via Belle Donne we naturally thought of them, as it was in this little street, which opens into the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, that the poet lovers first made their home, and in the Cascine, where we saw some of the lovely Florentine beauties, as Mrs. Browning described them, "lean and melt to music as the band plays," and above all at the Belvedere, that crowns the many terraces of the Boboli Gardens, from which height Florence, with her domes and towers and palaces, framed in by hills of blue velvet, answers to the poet's own picture of the beautiful city, and

"Of golden Arno, as it shoots away
Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four!"

To-day has been devoted to Browning pilgrimages. An American woman at our table rashly asserted that Mr. Browning had made a mistake in his "Statue and the Bust" by placing the lady with the "pale brow spirit-pure" at the window of the Riccardi Palace, as it would be quite impossible for the great Duke Ferdinand to look up from the Piazza of the Annunziata at the casement of the Palazzo Riccardi, now the Prefettura, which is way over on the Piazza San Lorenzo. This statement may seem to you a trifle confusing; but it was sufficiently clear to rouse Zelphine's ire, and after breakfast we set forth determined to clear up the seeming inconsistency. In the Piazza of the Annunziata Duke Ferdinand still "rides by with the royal air," as John of Bologna has represented him, "in subtle mould of brazen shape," his face turned directly toward the one window of the palace, from which a terra-cotta bust should look forth.

"This all answers perfectly to the description," said Angela, "except that there is no bust of the lady at the casement; it seems as if Mr. Browning had made a mistake this time. I really don't care very much, but I can't stand having that flippant, red-haired woman get the better of you, Z."

"She shall not," said Zelphine, with determination in every line of her lithe figure. "Vieusseux to the rescue!"

Zelphine set forth to gain what information might be had from the library shelves, while Angela and I crossed over to the Piazza San Lorenzo, and spent a delightful hour in studying the wonderful frescoes that adorn the chapel of the debatable Palazzo Riccardi.

Here is that most remarkable procession of the Magi winding along a rocky hillside, the perspective of the most original character: Cosimo, Pater Patriæ, well in the foreground, the Three Kings represented by the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor of the East, and, youngest of the three, Lorenzo the Magnificent, on a white charger. You know the painting well, but no photograph can give you any conception of the richness of color and exquisite details of this impossible, fairy-like landscape, in which distant mountains, hovering angels, birds, beasts, and flowers unknown to this lower world, add to the variety and charm of Gozzoli's great work. It is of this fresco that Mr. Ruskin wrote, "Bright birds hover here and there in the serene sky, and groups of angels, hand joined with hand and wing with wing, glide and float through the glades of the unentangled forest."

Angela and I were so absorbed in the beauty of the painting that we had quite forgotten about Zelphine's quest, when a voice at our side exclaimed, triumphantly:

"I have solved the riddle. The palace on the Square of the Annunziata was a Riccardi palace at the time of Mr. Browning's poem, and at the window toward which Duke Ferdinand's eyes are turned there was a bust of a lady as late as 1887. The present Palazzo Riccardi, now the Prefettura, was once a Medici palace; it was sold many years later to the Riccardi family. Here Duke Ferdinand made his feast on the night of the wedding, the one and only time that the lovers met:

"'Face to face the lovers stood,
A single minute and no more,
While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued--
Bowed till his bonnet touched the floor--
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,
As the courtly custom was of yore.'

"Cannot you see it all?" continued Zelphine, breathlessly, quite regardless of the interest that her animated face and eager words were exciting in the little group around us,

"'the pile which the mighty shadow makes,
For Via Largo is three-parts light,
But the palace overshadows one,
Because of a crime which may God requite!'

"This crime was the murder of Duke Alessandro by his distant cousin Lorenzino, and this, you see, fixes the fact beyond dispute that the feast was given by the Duke in this great Riccardi palace on the Square of San Lorenzo. Isn't it all wonderful and thrilling, and is there any place in the world so filled to the very brim with interest and romance as Florence?"

"No place except Rome," said Angela, true to her first love.

"Yes, but the history seems less remote here; everything seems nearer and closer, more intimate--you understand what I mean, Margaret."

When Zelphine appeared at the lunch table, flushed with the joy of victory and quite ready to annihilate her scoffing adversary, whom Angela disrespectfully designated as "Red-top," she found, to her dismay, that the lady had left for Venice before noon. This is surely one of the incompletenesses of life. To think of that misguided woman proceeding on her way to scatter misinformation broadcast, when Zelphine could have set her right in five minutes!

When Bertha heard of Zelphine's disappointment, she was most sympathetic, and proposed, as a congenial and solacing occupation, that we should return that afternoon to the Square of San Lorenzo and try to find the old stall where Mr. Browning, on a memorable June day, bought for a lira the little volume that contained the whole story of "The Ring and the Book."

The piazza, a market for old clothes, old furniture, and all manner of cooking-utensils, still answers to Mr. Browning's description, and here, close to the statue, which is of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, father of the first Cosimo, is just such a table full of nondescript rubbish as the one upon which the poet found the parchment-covered book which furnished him with his plot. Then at Bertha's suggestion, to humor our fancies as to the associations of the time and place, we followed in the poet's footsteps, as he described himself, walking and reading,

"on, through street and street,
At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge;
Till, by the time I stood at home again
In Casa Guidi by Felice Church,
Under the doorway where the black begins
With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold,
I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth
Gathered together, bound up in this book."

To my surprise, when we reached the doorway of the Casa Guidi, Bertha also entered "where the black begins," and began to ascend "the staircase cold."

"Where are you going?" we called after her, standing within the doorway.

"Follow me," said Bertha. "I have some friends who live in an apartment in the Casa Guidi, and we are all invited to afternoon tea here."

"Why didn't you tell us before?" asked Angela, "so that we might have made ourselves a little smart?"

"Because I wanted to give you all a surprise. My friend asked me to bring you any afternoon, so I sent a messenger to tell her that we were coming, to make sure of her being at home, as she often spends the afternoon up in the Boboli Gardens with her baby."

Alas! Bertha's artist friends do not live in the Browning apartment, as that, by some irony of fate, is in the possession of an Austrian family; but as Zelphine said, with a rapturous look in her eyes, it was worth much to pass over the stairs that had known the footsteps of the two poets. Mr. and Mrs. Cobbe's apartment is on what we should call the fourth floor, which here they more encouragingly designate the third. Charming airy rooms, at the top of many stairs, we found the home of the two American artists, where a warm welcome awaited us. Later, refreshments were served to us in the large room that corresponds to Mrs. Browning's drawing-room on the floor below; but whether we ate and drank ordinary cakes and tea, or were regaled with nectar and ambrosia, Zelphine and I cannot tell you. It was all so delightfully homelike and yet so filled with associations that this afternoon in the Casa Guidi will always be one of our most cherished memories, and we parted with our compatriots feeling that the old palace was an appropriate setting for artist as well as for poet lovers.

PENSION C., FLORENCE, May 20th.

What will you say when I tell you that since writing my last letter to you I have received a proposal of marriage? M. le Marquis de B. di T., of ancient Roman lineage and irreproachable family connections, laid his heart, his hand, and his fortune at my feet--for Angela. Are you amused at my rôle? I assure you that it was not in the smallest degree amusing at the time, and the fact that the _prétendant_ acted in a highly honorable manner, and did not consult Angela definitively before speaking to her stern guardian, added to the difficulties of my position. I explained, at some length, that affairs of the heart are arranged by the young people themselves in America, always, of course, with the consent of their parents and guardians--for this last unqualified statement I trust that I may be forgiven--to which I added that if Miss Haldane returned the Count's affection, we would both write to her father. After delivering myself of a series of appropriate phrases I sent for Angela, and awaited the result of the interview between the two young persons with some anxiety, as you may believe. You will be laughing at me and reflecting upon the inconsistency of women when I tell you that I felt quite disturbed over Angela's absolute and unequivocal dismissal of the Count's suit. He has been growing in favor with me ever since that fairy-like afternoon at the Boboli Gardens, and when he came to take a solemn and ceremonious farewell of me, assuring me that he had spent the happiest hours of his life in _our_ society, and was so exquisitely courteous, so evidently anxious to save me from embarrassment, I found myself liking him almost as much as Ludovico. We shall miss him sadly, and, to add to our sorrows, Ludovico, loyal friend that he is, has gone with the Count.

"Did you send him away, too, heartless one?" I asked Angela.

She looked at me reproachfully, her lovely blue eyes full of tears, and replied, with gentle dignity, "How can you be so unkind, Margaret? You know very well that I did not."

It appears that this is all that Zelphine and I are to hear on this most exciting subject, although we are naturally devoured with curiosity to know more. If only Count B. had not declared himself just at this time, when we were all so happy together in this beautiful Florence! I am quite sure that the affair was brought to a crisis by Angela's charming appearance last Sunday in a ravishing costume of pale blue muslin, her golden crescent of hair adorned with one of the Tuscan hats that we buy for next to nothing at the Mercato Vecchio. This particular hat was of silvery blue turned up with white roses, and became her almost as well as a coronet--so I am sure the Count thought. To-day there is nothing gay in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, as the skies, suiting themselves to our mood, are heavy and gray, and the Arno is dull green instead of lovely blue.

The Convent of San Marco was decided upon as an appropriate place in which to spend this morning, and there, walking through the cloisters, adorned with their exquisite frescoes, Zelphine and I to some extent renewed our interest in life. Angela has gone off on a sketching trip to Certosa with Katharine Clarke. She has been wishing ever since she first saw it to get a sketch of the Michael Angelo well in the convent garden, and then I think that she is glad to be away from our questioning eyes for a day. Poor child! she looks pale and wan; the excitement of the last weeks has been too much for her. We are thinking seriously of leaving for Venice soon. Of course we have not seen half the things we wish to see in Florence, but we can never be quite as happy here as we have been, and Miss Morris writes from Venice, urging us to join her there for the full o' the moon.

Zelphine and I talked over our plans as we strolled through the cloisters, and in the little convent garden tried to fancy the great preacher of San Marco sitting under the "damask rose-tree," with his disciples gathered around him. The spirit of Savonarola dominates San Marco as that of St. Francis holds one spellbound in Assisi.

Some of the little cells of the brothers are adorned with exquisite frescoes by Fra Angelico, which must often have cheered their sad hearts. We stood in Savonarola's own small room, which is marked by a memorial tablet, and here in the adjoining chapel are his rosary and the crucifix before which he knelt in prayer.

Curious and unexpected, savoring more of the pride of life than of the humility of the spirit, in one of the cells of San Marco is an elaborate genealogical tree giving the descent of the monks. It was with some difficulty that we deciphered the name of Savonarola, now almost obliterated by the kisses of the faithful.

One of the most beautiful paintings in the convent is a Last Supper, by Ghirlandajo, in the smaller refectory. This picture, with its lovely details, decorated background, and well-spread board, does not represent poor men or fishermen at meat; but in Italy one becomes accustomed to the rich surroundings of Madonnas, saints, and apostles. Realism is not demanded; it is enough if one finds reverence and devotion; and as Mr. Henry James says of this picture, "the figures in their varied naturalness have a dignity and sweetness of attitude which admits of numberless reverential constructions." The grouping is charming, and through open arcades one looks beyond at a garden of full-fruited orange-trees, clusters of fruit are scattered over the table, strange birds fly through the air, and a peacock perched on the wall looks down upon the sacred feast. I shall always recall this painting, so lovely in composition, so rich in color, when I think of San Marco--this and Fra Angelico's beautiful Annunciation, which is familiar to us all. We shall not see them soon again, or any of the other pictures that we love so well in the Uffizi and the Pitti and the Belle Arti; instead, we shall be studying the Carpaccios in Venice.

May 23d.

The skies have cleared to-day and life looks brighter, yet this is the anniversary of a most tragic event, the execution of Savonarola. The great Piazza della Signoria has been crowded with people all morning; there have been processions, and services in the churches, and hundreds of men and women going to offer their tribute of flowers to the memory of the great martyr for conscience' sake, until the tablet that marks the spot where Savonarola's body was burned is heaped with wreaths, crosses, and bunches of roses of various colors. Some of these offerings have cards attached to them with Savonarola's name written on them; upon others are inscriptions and sentiments, the one that most impressed us being "To Savonarola, a Martyr to Democratic Christianity." If time has its revenges, it has also its justifications!

XVII

HAPS AND HAPPENINGS

BEAU RIVAGE, VENICE, May 25th.

As we first saw Venice from the train, across a stretch of green marsh, its domes, spires, churches, and bridges seemed to rise out of the water just as you see them in Turner's pictures, with such an atmosphere as that great artist knew how to paint, veiling the delicate ethereal beauty of this bride of the sea. We were aroused from our rapt contemplation of the scene before us by the bustle and commotion of the arrival of the train and questions about luggage, hotels, and the proper fees to be given to the men who pushed our gondola off from the landing. If ever trunks are endurable it is when, as in Venice, one glides away with them in a gondola over summer seas.

There was some sort of a celebration last night, something special, I mean, for Venice must always appear more or less _en fête_. When we stepped into a gondola after dinner, the many boats with their gay pennons of all colors and the skiffs with their rich brown and yellow sails made the Grand Canal appear like a carnival of nations. And what a background for a carnival is the Canalazzo, as the Venetians call it, with its long vista of palaces, their _pali_ painted in various colors, the Dogana surmounted by its curious weathercock, Fortune, aptly typifying the vicissitudes of Venice, Santa Maria della Salute glowing in the evening light with the shades of a bride rose, San Giorgio of a deep red, the Doge's Palace with its long, low water-front, the Bridge of Sighs spanning the dark canal that lies between a palace and a prison, and out on the open Piazzetta the two huge granite pillars which we see in so many pictures! One of these pillars is surmounted by the statue of St. Theodore, an ancient and now deposed patron saint of Venice, the other by the Lion of St. Mark, eager, watchful, dominant, clearly defined against the blue of the sky--for here the twilight lasts long, and far into the night the sky is of an exquisite, translucent blue such as one usually sees far north, much farther north than Venice. This is a part of the atmospheric charm, which makes it as impossible to describe this city of pearl and opaline tints and golden and crimson glows as it is to put the colors of a sunset on paper. Later the moon rose, and we floated over a silver sea, while strains of music, the cries of the gondoliers, and the songs of pleasure-parties were wafted to us across the water. Zelphine's eyes shone with rapturous delight; the excitement of the stimulating air and the beauty of the scene sent the red blood to Angela's cheeks until they flushed to as deep a rose as under the fire of the Count de B.'s most extravagant compliments, and I--well, I have no idea of how I looked, I only know that I felt as if every craving for beauty that I had known in all my life was satisfied entirely.

Miss Morris, who had already experienced her first thrills of delight "upon such a night as this," watched us in silence and we were thus spared the distraction of voluble enthusiasm; of deep, restrained enthusiasm there was quite enough for one gondola.

May 27th.

We are lodged in a pleasant, airy hotel on the Grand Canal where it begins to widen out toward the sea, and opposite the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore. This hotel is not absolutely in the canal, like most of the houses of this "water-logged town," as some Western traveller dubbed it, but has a strip of pavement in front, just enough dry land to make us realize that we still belong to the earth. On general principles I should say that the Venetians never sleep, for over the stone flagging between our hotel and the Canalazzo people are tramping all night, laughing, chatting, and singing. And we, in sympathy with them, sit by the windows for hours, feeling that the nights are too radiantly beautiful to be devoted to so prosaic a business as sleeping, which, as Angela remarks, "can be done in any old place." The child has so considerately refrained from having "the time of her life" in Italy and from measuring things generally by "galores," that we occasionally allow her to indulge in an innocent bit of slang.

May 28th.

Our days glide by as swiftly as those of the "pilgrim stranger" in the hymn that we used to sing at Sunday School. We spend our mornings in churches or at the Accademia, revelling in the gorgeous canvases of Tintoretto, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Carpaccio. The color in Carpaccio's Presentation of Christ in the Temple is beautiful, and as vivid as if it had been painted yesterday, quite equal to Ghirlandajo's in his Adoration of the Magi, which we saw at the Foundling Hospital in Florence. The Child in Carpaccio's Presentation is a happy, smiling human baby, and the three little angels playing upon musical instruments are charming. The most fascinating of these cherubs, however, are in Giovanni Bellini's Madonnas at the Church of the Redentore and at the Frari. Zelphine has bought a dozen photographs of her favorite cherub in the picture in which the Madonna holds the sleeping Babe upon her lap, while the two darling cherubs play to him on mandolins. The little fellow on the right is not as pretty and chubby as his brother; but to prevent jealousy between the two I have bought some of his pictures for my collection.

Of course we spend many hours in and around St. Mark's, for, like the bride of the Scriptures, this church is beautiful within and without. The day after our arrival, on our way home from the Posta and the Rialto, through the Merceria, a part of Venice in which one may really walk a considerable distance, we suddenly stepped into the Piazza of San Marco, with its fluttering pigeons, its arcades, its Clock-tower, and at the end the marvellous façade of the church, rich in color, its gilded mosaics glittering in the sun and the "glorious team of horses" dashing toward us. Since then, wherever we may be going, we always seem to cross the Square of St. Mark, and by sunlight or twilight or moonlight, or even electric light, by which we saw San Marco last night when we went to Florian's for ices, it is always bewilderingly beautiful. Rich and varied, "gorgeous in the wild, luxurious fancies of the East," is St. Mark's; almost too gorgeous it would be, had not time softened and mellowed its vivid colors, and if its setting were not against a sea and sky of surpassing brilliancy.

Our afternoons and evenings are spent on the water or at the Lido, where we have tea in the garden, or with one of our Philadelphia friends who has a cabin, after the Venetian fashion, on this narrow strip of land that runs out into the ocean. It is hot now at mid-day, and one needs to keep out of the sun between the hours of one and four; but after that there is usually a breeze and always coolness at the Lido.

We spent some hours to-day in the Palazzo Rezzonico, which now belongs to Mr. Robert Barrett Browning. One large room on the second floor is filled with furniture and pictures from the Casa Guidi in Florence, among other things Mrs. Browning's little table upon which she wrote her songs for Italy, and her small, old-fashioned, green leather writing-desk, which looked as if she had left it but yesterday, with pen and paper and some pressed flowers inside. On one side of the room, toward the canal, in a recess in the wall, is a little shrine that the poet's son has placed here in memory of his mother. In gold letters on a white ground are the well-known lines from the tablet upon the Casa Guidi.

The poet Browning spent the last weeks of his life in a suite of rooms on the lower floor of the Palazzo Rezzonico, and here he died, which fact is recorded upon a tablet on the outside wall. We stopped to reread the inscription upon the gray palace wall. A young girl who was with her mother in a gondola quite near was reading aloud in English the Italian words upon the tablet, "Robert Browning died in this house, December 12, 1889," and the impressive and quite untranslatable "Venezia pose." With a questioning look at us she repeated the familiar lines from "De Gustibus":

"Open my heart and you will see,
Graven inside of it, 'Italy,'"

adding, "But I don't see where the poetry comes in."

Although Zelphine, amiable as she is, is quite capable of withering and shrivelling with a glance any one who speaks slightingly of Robert Browning's poetry, she turned to the girl and said quite pleasantly, "No, there are no rhymes or jingles, only the deep thought of a great poet who loved Italy truly."

"Oh," exclaimed the girl, "I did not understand."

"Evidently," said Zelphine, as we rowed out into the Grand Canal, "and for the same reason that Kipling's girl of 'the rag and the bone and the hank of hair' did not understand."

We really should have become used to people who do not understand, we meet so many of them.

RIVA SAN LORENZO, VERONA,
Sunday, June 5th.

You will be surprised to learn that we have quitted our beloved Venice, and quite suddenly, which is, I believe, the only way that we could have disentangled ourselves from the allurements of that fairy city. In the last week quite a number of our friends arrived from Florence and elsewhere, and there have been afternoon teas at the Lido and at Mrs. Allen's little apartment on the Grand Canal nearly opposite the palace of his superseded majesty, Don Carlos of Spain, water-parties every night, and just as we were stepping into a gondola yesterday morning, _en route_ for Padua, a note was handed to Zelphine containing a charming invitation from Mrs. B., to take tea and spend the afternoon with her at the Palazzino Tasso. She has been at Borca in the Dolomites for a fortnight, and wrote that she would be at home in time to receive us on Monday afternoon. So you see how difficult it was for us to get away from this fascinating place; but having planned to take this little _giro_ with Miss Morris, we set our faces resolutely westward.

We spent a day at Padua, which is on the way to Verona, as there are some frescoes by Mantegna, Titian, Giotto, and Palma Vecchio that Miss Morris was particularly anxious to see. Our visit to the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua, which with its seven domes is larger than San Marco, was not entirely satisfactory, as a high mass was being celebrated before the altar above which are the Donatello bronzes, and we were obliged to return in the afternoon or give up all thought of seeing those superb reliefs. At the Scuola del Carmine we were abundantly compensated for all other disappointments, as here we found a series of frescoes representing events in the life of the parents of the Blessed Virgin, as realistic in design and as frank in execution as the Giotto paintings in Assisi. We wondered in what fertile brain had originated the pathetic story here represented by Giotto and his pupils. Miss Morris says that she intends to look up the story of Joachim and Anna in the lives of the saints, assuring us that we shall find a continuation of their domestic trials and experiences on the walls of the Brera at Milan. No frescoes except those at Assisi have interested us as much as these, not on account of their beauty, but for their human feeling. These early Paduan masters treated sacred subjects with realistic simplicity and yet with perfect reverence and devotional spirit.

On the piazza of the Cappella San Giorgio is Donatello's fine bronze statue of General Gattamelata. This statue, the Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and the Colleoni in Venice are considered the greatest equestrian statues in the world. Beautiful as is this Gattamelata, which possesses all the spirit and grace of Donatello, it does not compare with the Colleoni. No man of bronze or marble ever sat his horse with the strength and ease with which the grand, dominant figure of the Italian _condottiere_ sits his superb charger and rides out boldly into space. Miss Morris says that we may be pleased to know that Mr. Ruskin quite agreed with us about the Colleoni.

As Verona is only a two hours' ride from Padua, we reached here in time to gain a general view of its fine old sculptured buildings, arches, and bridges, and to see in the glow of sunset Diocletian's famous amphitheatre, which looks almost as large as the Coliseum and is more complete, as its stones have not been carted off so ruthlessly for the building of palaces.

This morning we saw the Casa di Romeo and the balconied home of Giulietta, sorry-looking abodes for youth and beauty such as theirs, although some of the carvings on these old buildings and the exterior frescoes still suggest bygone grandeur. A beautiful outside stairway in the Piazza dei Signori near the Scaliger tombs so charmed Miss Morris that she stopped to sketch it, while we visited the cathedral and several churches.

We are now sitting upon a balcony--the place of all others to sit upon a balcony, even if there is not a Romeo in sight--listening to the song of the rushing Adige which flows beneath us, and looking out upon the mountains beyond. Zelphine and I are writing, while Miss Morris and Angela make water-color sketches of the scene before us, and try to get on their brushes some of the soft, rich shades of brown and yellow that time and the light of the setting sun have given to the ancient palace of the Scaligers and to the fourteenth-century bridge that spans the river a short distance from this hotel. On the terrace beneath our balcony some Italians are dining and chatting gaily. When the lovely sunset glow has quite faded out and the evening light has deepened to twilight, we shall join them and dine _al fresco_.

To-morrow we take a train for Milan, that is, if the sketches are satisfactory; if not, we may stay here another day.

HOTEL DE L'EUROPE, June 7th.

Instead of writing to you from Milan, I am sending you another letter from Venice. A strange thing happened yesterday, or, rather, two strange things have happened. Zelphine came to my room at the Riva San Lorenzo late on Sunday night, her face wearing the anxious look that betokens an uneasy mind.

"What is the matter, Zelphine?" I asked. "You look as if you were trying to make up your mind." We have long since decided that this is the mental process that is most wearing to the brain of the traveller, and I was not surprised when she said, "Yes, that is the trouble. I have attempted three separate times to answer Emily B.'s note, and I simply cannot do it."

"Oh, I took for granted that you had mailed that note on Saturday evening."

"No, Margaret, I have never written it at all. The truth is, I want to see Mrs. B. so much that I have almost decided to return to Venice to-morrow, instead of going on to Milan."

"That is rather against your principles, Zelphine, you are so much opposed to doubling journeys and retracing steps," I said, trying to appear judicial in my tone, although I was delighted at the idea of returning to Venice, even for an afternoon.

"Yes, I know," said Zelphine, quite penitently, "but I may not soon again have a chance of seeing Emily B. I could meet you in Milan in a day or two."

"No, Zelphine," I said, in the tone of one who confers a distinguished favor, "I will go back to Venice with you. Angela may prefer to stay here, if Miss Morris remains."

"Angela will go with you," said our youngest, opening her door, which was scarcely necessary, as the transom was already open. "There is a blue necklace in one of those fascinating shops up on the piazza near the Clock-tower that I have been regretting ever since we left Venice. I thought it would be an extravagance to buy it, but nothing is extravagant when you want it so much, and when this is the very last chance to get it."

"Nothing," said Zelphine, laughing at Angela's comforting sophistry, "when your father's purse is always ready to honor your demands upon it. But what will Miss Morris say?"

That lady came to her door as if in answer to Zelphine's question, saying, "I have been wishing that I had bought another of the pretty lace collars that they are positively giving away in one of the little shops opposite the Church of San Zaccaria. I shall not return to buy it, but will commission Angela to bring it to Milan for me."

With so many good reasons for returning to Venice, I am sure that you will agree with me in thinking that it would have been flying in the face of Providence and turning our backs upon the gifts of the gods not to have retraced our steps.

I must confess to a positive thrill of delight when I again beheld the shining water-ways of Venice. Even the great warehouses, with their heaps of gorgeous dyes and stuffs, have a picturesqueness of their own; the palaces, no matter how dilapidated they may be, stand out rich and sumptuous in the sunshine; luxuriant vines depend from their balconies and drape the seamed and cracked walls; great barges heavy with their golden freight of fruit and melons go by; and ever on the steps are the children, "those untiring spectators of life." Why those children playing on the very edge of doom do not all come to an untimely end no man knows. The very small children are often fastened by a strap to the arm of the mother or grandmother, who knits placidly while her nursling plays on the steps near the water; but for those little boys who hop in and out of boats and hang over the piers as they gaze into the canals there must be an especially detailed guardian angel--the same, probably, who saved Mr. Cross from instant death when he fell into the Grand Canal. By the way, we are stopping at the Hôtel de l'Europe, where he and George Eliot spent their honeymoon, and where this accident occurred which might have ended so tragically. You may remember that at the time there was some foolish talk about suicide; but we, who stand on these balconies and terraces overhanging the water, realize that drowning and suicidal intent do not need to go hand in hand in Venice.

Our afternoon at the Palazzino Tasso was delightful. We had tea and much pleasant conversation with Mrs. B., in her pretty drawing-room. As she has lived long in Venice, and in consequence of her own literary connections has met most of the writers who have come here, she had many pleasant and amusing recollections to relate of the Storys, Mr. Browning, and many other great folk.

We were afterwards taken into the large garden, where dear old-fashioned pinks and tall annunciation lilies filled the air with delicious fragrance. Mrs. B. generously broke off for us great heads of lily-blooms, which we carried off with us, sweet mementos of an afternoon that was well worth coming back to Venice for.

As we drew near our hotel we noticed on the terrace a portly figure that had a familiar look, as it stood there silhouetted against the façade of the Europe. A strange light shone from Zelphine's eyes; but it was Angela who broke the silence by exclaiming, "That gentleman on the landing really looks like Mr. Leonard!"

"It _is_ Mr. Leonard," I said, as we drew nearer, and thus we recognized him first, although he was waiting there for us. He naturally did not expect to see a gondola full of women bearing tall lily-stalks in their hands, looking for all the world like part of a Venetian pageant. The smile that irradiated Walter Leonard's face, when he finally recognized the three Botticelli ladies as those he had come to seek, was beautiful to behold. The mingling of surprise and delight on Zelphine's face entirely exonerated her from any complicity in this sudden appearance, although Angela and I chaff her unmercifully about her determination to return to see Mrs. B., and ask her if she does not believe more strongly than ever in telepathy. It was a rather curious coincidence, was it not? Yet, to quote a very trite saying, "truth is stranger than fiction."

VILLA D'ESTE, LAKE COMO, June 15th.

Since my letter of June 7th, telling you of Mr. Leonard's sudden arrival in Venice, I have not sent you a line, not even an announcement of the engagement which of course soon followed. How or when the important affair was settled I know not. I can only tell you that the happy pair came to me with shining faces and asked for my blessing, which I freely gave. Angela has so far withheld her approval of the match, and is evidently very jealous of the "suitor," as she is pleased to call Mr. Leonard. She had begun to look upon Zelphine as her particular property, and Mr. Leonard's attempts to propitiate this unrelenting goddess are really quite pathetic. He offers her flowers every time that he brings them to Zelphine, and then, as he is far too polite to overlook my claims as chaperon-in-chief, I come in for my share of votive offerings.

Zelphine is so pleased with her own estate that she wishes to see all her friends equally happy. When Angela is pale or tired, she looks at her compassionately, and whispers to me that she is evidently regretting the Count de B. If Angela regrets any one, it is not the Count. She has long and frequent letters from Ludovico, from which she reads me choice bits, and there is always a message for me. Angela and I are naturally thrown very much upon our own resources, and the last days in Venice would have been rather dull for her had they not been enlivened by a number of entertainments given by our friends there in honor of the _fidanzati_. At one particularly charming afternoon tea, at the Lido, Angela was so much admired by a young Italian that I should have had another Count de B. affair on my hands had we not left Venice soon after. Zelphine and Walter Leonard would have been satisfied to stay on indefinitely, spending their afternoons and evenings floating about in gondolas and their mornings in the shops buying presents for the children at home, whom the mamma elect has already adopted with enthusiasm. We were, however, fairly driven away from Venice last week by the heat and the mosquitoes, which are said to be unusually venomous this year. We have noticed that in whatever place we happen to be stopping, the disagreeables are always _unusual_.

Having spent most of the beautiful springtime in cities, we concluded to come directly to this pretty place on Lake Como, from whence we can make day-trips to Milan, which is only a little over an hour from here. The Villa d'Este, once a royal villa, now a delightfully comfortable hotel, was for some years the home of the discarded wife of "the most elegant gentleman in Europe." The entrance-hall and stairways are handsome and imposing, and the rooms spacious and airy. We breakfast in the _salle de conversation_ and dine in a great banqueting-hall. The grounds of the villa are quite extensive, and during her residence here Queen Caroline interested herself in improving them in every way, so Dr. A. tells me, for, to add to our pleasure, my "Doctor Antonio" from San Remo is spending the month of June here. He knows every inch of this beautiful region and promises us many excursions in his motor car.

Picturesque as is the view of the lake and mountains from the front piazza and terrace, the part of the grounds that we most enjoy is the hillside behind the house, which abounds in mountain streams and cascades over which rustic bridges have been thrown, and where many wildwood paths lead to vine-covered pavilions, temples of love and temples of fame, these latter adorned with busts of distinguished men--all so odd and foreign, and so different from our idea of pleasure-grounds!

Adjoining the grounds of the Villa d'Este are those of the Villa Maximilian, which was the home of the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian and his wife during the early and happy years of their married life. The estate now belongs to a wealthy Milanese gentleman, who has had the good taste to make few changes in the house and gardens. This afternoon we all rowed across the lake to the Villa Pliniana on the opposite shore. This really classic spot owes its name to a remarkable spring of water near by, which Pliny speaks of in his letters. To-morrow we expect to make an all-day excursion to Bellagio and Cadenabbia. There are so many attractive resorts on the shores of this lake that we have not yet planned for a day in Milan at the Brera, whose wonders we hope to enjoy in the good company of Miss Morris.

June 17th.

I have a most humiliating confession to make: yesterday, in getting off the boat at this landing, I made a misstep and sprained my ankle. It is not a serious affair, I fancy, "pas grand chose," as Dr. A. says, but it is most vexatious, as we may be obliged to stay here for a fortnight, and we really need a couple of weeks in Paris to get Zelphine's trousseau and make other preparations for the wedding, which is to be in London the second week in July. I think the groom elect is secretly rejoiced over this delay, although openly most sympathetic and considerate, as it gives him a longer time here with Zelphine, and really, if I had looked all over Europe for a fitting scene for an accident, and with a view to lovers, I could not have found a more suitable place than this. Mr. Leonard says that I apologize so abjectly for what is not my fault, but my misfortune, that I remind him of a story that Dr. William H. Furness used to tell of a saintly old lady who frequently and formally apologized to her assembled family for being so long a-dying.

It is inglorious, as Zelphine says, to have had an accident here that I might much more conveniently have had stepping off a ferry-boat in New York or Brooklyn, to which Angela adds, "Yes, it would have been so much more up-to-date to have been thrown from an auto car, and it would certainly have been more dangerous."

I retail these bits of conversation to prove to you that my companions are disposed to be patient and even merry over my misfortune and their delay. And I, aside from the inconvenience, have nothing to complain of. I suffer little pain, under Dr. A.'s skilful treatment, and here I am, laid up in lavender on a sofa, in a room so spacious and elegant that I think it must have been Queen Caroline's boudoir. The walls and ceiling are decorated with Loves and Graces, and the long windows open out upon a balcony from which there is a fine view of the lake and the mountains beyond. I have more books than I could read in a month, sent me by the English people in the house. Zelphine and Angela bring me flowers and fruits, delicious great black cherries and a fruit unknown to us which they call _nespole_. These last I fear were stolen from Maximilian's garden, as the _nespole_ hang most temptingly over the terraces there.

Dr. A. entertains me with interesting traditions of the neighborhood. This morning he brought me an old French book which gives a history of this villa, which was not, as I had supposed, a former possession of the princely house of Este, one of whose villas we saw at Tivoli. The name seems to have been purely a fancy on the part of the Queen. I am to have some passages translated for my benefit from a recent book written by an Italian upon Queen Caroline and her life at the Villa d'Este.