To H.S. Boyd

Florence: May 26, 1847.

I should have answered your letter, my dearest friend, more quickly, but when it came I was ill, as you may have heard, and afterwards I wished to wait until I could send you information about the Leaning Tower and the bells[[159]]. The book you required, about the cathedral, Robert has tried in vain to procure for you. Plenty of such books, but not in English. In London such things are to be found, I should think, without difficulty, for instance, 'Murray's Handbook to Northern Italy,' though rather dear (12s.), would give you sufficiently full information upon the ecclesiastical glories both of Pisa and of this beautiful Florence, from whence I write to you.... I will answer for the harmony of the bells, as we lived within a stone's throw of them, and they began at four o'clock every morning and rang my dreams apart. The Pasquareccia (the fourth) especially has a profound note in it, which may well have thrilled horror to the criminal's heart.[[160]] It was ghastly in its effects; dropped into the deep of night like a thought of death. Often have I said, 'Oh, how ghastly!' and then turned on my pillow and dreamed a bad dream. But if the bell founders at Pisa have a merited reputation, let no one say as much for the bellringers. The manner in which all the bells of all the churches in the city are shaken together sometimes would certainly make you groan in despair of your ears. The discord is fortunately indescribable. Well—but here we are at Florence, the most beautiful of the cities devised by man....

In the meanwhile I have seen the Venus, I have seen the divine Raphaels. I have stood by Michael Angelo's tomb in Santa Croce. I have looked at the wonderful Duomo. This cathedral! After all, the elaborate grace of the Pisan cathedral is one thing, and the massive grandeur of this of Florence is another and better thing; it struck me with a sense of the sublime in architecture. At Pisa we say, 'How beautiful!' here we say nothing; it is enough if we can breathe. The mountainous marble masses overcome as we look up—we feel the weight of them on the soul. Tesselated marbles (the green treading its elaborate pattern into the dim yellow, which seems the general hue of the structure) climb against the sky, self-crowned with that prodigy of marble domes. It struck me as a wonder in architecture. I had neither seen nor imagined the like of it in any way. It seemed to carry its theology out with it; it signified more than a mere building. Tell me everything you want to know. I shall like to answer a thousand questions. Florence is beautiful, as I have said before, and must say again and again, most beautiful. The river rushes through the midst of its palaces like a crystal arrow, and it is hard to tell, when you see all by the clear sunset, whether those churches, and houses, and windows, and bridges, and people walking, in the water or out of the water, are the real walls, and windows, and bridges, and people, and churches. The only difference is that, down below, there is a double movement; the movement of the stream besides the movement of life. For the rest, the distinctness of the eye is as great in one as in the other.... Remember me to such of my friends as remember me kindly when unreminded by me. I am very happy—happier and happier.

ELIBET.

Robert's best regards to you always.

To Mrs. Jameson

Palazzo Guidi, Via Maggio, Florence:

August 7, 1847 [postmark].

You will be surprised perhaps, and perhaps not, dearest friend, to find that we are still at Florence. Florence 'holds us with a glittering eye;' there's a charm cast round us, and we can't get away. In the first place, your news of Recoaro came so late that, as you said yourself, we ought to have been there before your letter reached us. Nobody would encourage us to go north on any grounds, indeed, and if anybody speaks a word now in favour of Venice, straight comes somebody else speaking the direct contrary. Altogether, we took to making a plan of our own—a great, wild, delightful plan of plunging into the mountains and spending two or three months at the monastery of Vallombrosa, until the heat was passed, and dear Mr. Kenyon decided, and we could either settle for the winter at Florence or pass on to Rome. Could anything look more delightful than that? Well, we got a letter of recommendation to the abbot, and left our apartment, Via delle Belle Donne, a week before our three months were done, thoroughly burned out by the sun; set out at four in the morning, reached Pelago, and from thence travelled five miles along a 'via non rotabile' through the most romantic scenery. Oh, such mountains!—as if the whole world were alive with mountains—such ravines—black in spite of flashing waters in them—such woods and rocks—travelled in basket sledges drawn by four white oxen—Wilson and I and the luggage—and Robert riding step by step. We were four hours doing the five miles, so you may fancy what rough work it was. Whether I was most tired or charmed was a tug between body and soul. The worst was that, there being a new abbot at the monastery—an austere man jealous of his sanctity and the approach of women—our letter, and Robert's eloquence to boot, did nothing for us, and we were ingloriously and ignominiously expelled at the end of five days. For three days we were welcome; for two more we kept our ground; but after that, out we were thrust, with baggage and expectations. Nothing could be much more provoking. And yet we came back very merrily for disappointed people to Florence, getting up at three in the morning, and rolling or sliding (as it might happen) down the precipitous path, and seeing round us a morning glory of mountains, clouds, and rising sun, such as we never can forget—back to Florence and our old lodgings, and an eatable breakfast of coffee and bread, and a confession one to another that if we had won the day instead of losing it, and spent our summer with the monks, we should have grown considerably thinner by the victory. They make their bread, I rather imagine, with the sawdust of their fir trees, and, except oil and wine—yes, and plenty of beef (of fleisch, as your Germans say, of all kinds, indeed), which isn't precisely the fare to suit us—we were thrown for nourishment on the great sights around. Oh, but so beautiful were mountains and forests and waterfalls that I could have kept my ground happily for the two months—even though the only book I saw there was the chronicle of their San Gualberto. Is he not among your saints? Being routed fairly, and having breakfasted fully at our old apartment, Robert went out to find cool rooms, if possible, and make the best of our position, and now we are settled magnificently in this Palazzo Guidi on a first floor in an apartment which looks quite beyond our means, and would be except in the dead part of the season—a suite of spacious rooms opening on a little terrace and furnished elegantly—rather to suit our predecessor the Russian prince than ourselves—but cool and in a delightful situation, six paces from the Piazza Pitti, and with right of daily admission to the Boboli gardens. We pay what we paid in the Via Belle Donne. Isn't this prosperous? You would be surprised to see me, I think, I am so very well (and look so)—dispensed from being carried upstairs, and inclined to take a run, for a walk, every now and then. I scarcely recognise myself or my ways, or my own spirits, all is so different....