I set to work on the model of the "Pietà" with a feeling of assurance devoid of any of those outlooks of fallacious hope that so often preside over and accompany a work badly conceived and not sufficiently studied or thought out, with which the unsatisfied mind seeks to quiet itself, while the artist goes on persuading himself that he will better his idea as his work goes on, instead of which he finds out every day more and more the existence of those difficulties and doubts which increase in intensity as the strength to overcome them diminishes. And àpropos of this, I remember one day when I was making an excursion from Florence to Sant'Andrea, with Bartolini (it was on a Saturday, to stay over until Sunday evening at Villa Fenzi), as we travelled along Bartolini seemed to me gayer and more expansive than usual, and having asked him what was the reason, he would not tell me, but answered, "You will know why at Sant'Andrea; I am going to tell at dinner when every one is present, for it is a thing of great importance, as you will be able to judge perhaps better than any one else." With these words he so roused my curiosity that it made that very short expedition seem a long one. Arrived at the Villa, Sor Emanuele, seeing the master so gay and almost beaming, turned to him and jokingly said these words, "I'll be bound you have found a new and beautiful little model."

BARTOLINI AND THE "ASTYANAX."

"No; and even those I have—and they are beauties—I sent off this very morning. But I am contented, because I had a thorn in my side—a thought that had been tormenting me for more than a year. There was one side of my group—the "Astyanax"—that I did not like. I have tried various ways of correcting it, but in vain; for the evil was fundamental. I have formed a resolution, and ordered my work to be pulled to pieces. I have sacrificed more than a year's time, but I am certain that I shall be the gainer, because the work will come better both as to lines and the quickness of execution. I feel sure that the change is a good one."

Whoever is an artist understands the importance of such an act, and the courage of a man who destroys a work that has cost him more than a year's labour, and admonishes those who are too quick in putting an undigested thought into execution.

I GET ILL AND NERVOUS.

As for me, I felt an admiration as much for that heroic resolution as for his gaiety and indifference, and was persuaded that only men of such a temperament know how to act and comport themselves in that fashion.

I set to work, as I have said, on the group of the "Pietà"; and although the novelty of the idea and harmony of lines gave me every reason to hope for success in my work, yet the impetuosity with which I had gone to work, the difficulty of giving the expression to the Virgin's face in contrast with the divine stillness of the dead Jesus, impossible to find in models—for the most part the negation of all that is sublime in expression,—all this acted so upon my poor brain that I began to hear noises, which gradually increased to such an intensity that they deafened me, and I had to stop working, not being able to go on. The thought of my weakness worked upon me so violently that it produced melancholy, insomnia, and aversion to food. My good friend Dr Alberti, who treated me, advised rest from work and distraction,—but of what kind, as everything bored me? Night and day I continually felt stunned by a buzzing noise in my head, which was most annoying; and what is worse, sounds, noises, and voices, even of the most moderate kind, became insufferable to me. A coachman smacking his whip put me in a tremor, and I ran at the sight of him. At home my poor wife and my little girls were obliged to speak in the lowest voice, and oftentimes by signs. As I have said, sleep had left me, and all taste for food, and I grew thinner before one's very eyes. I could not read two consecutive pages, and could not dream of writing. I used to go out of the house to escape melancholy, and walk for a long distance at a time without knowing where I was going. The buzzing in my head and the noise in the street tortured me. If I saw any one I knew, I avoided him, not to be obliged to answer the same tiresome question as to how I felt. If I went to the studio, my melancholy turned into acute pain on looking at my works which I could not begin to touch, and I felt my heart throb so hard that I cried most bitterly.

I RETURN TO NAPLES.

I could not continue on in this condition, and by advice of the doctor I resolved to go with my family to Naples. I hoped to recover my health in that great gay city, under that splendid sky, in that mild atmosphere pure and impregnated with life, and my hope was strengthened by the remembrance that I had once recovered my health there ten years before. I left on the morning of the Epiphany, the 6th of January 1863, and that night I spent at Rome at the Hotel Cesari. I did not stop in Rome, and saw no one. I saw mechanically—more than anything else, to amuse my poor family—the finest monuments of the Eternal City; and the day after took the road to Naples—a true via crucis, by which I hoped to regain my health. We arrived in Naples between eight and ten o'clock. I ordered the coachman to take us to the Hotel de France. There was no room to be had, so we were conducted to a poor, dirty little inn, with which, being late, we were obliged to content ourselves. The day following, my friend Giuseppe Mancinelli insisted (in spite of my opposition, not wishing to inconvenience him) that we should lodge in his house, Rampa San Potito, near the Museum degli Studii.

Mancinelli was an excellent man, an artist of merit, a good husband and father, and a conscientious and amiable master at the Academy of Fine Arts there. I remember with emotion the fraternal care that he took of us. Poor friend! you too have left us, but the memory of your virtues and love still lives with us, and is a consolation to us in the midst of the coldness of so many who have never known the religion of friendship, or who, if they appeared devoted, only sought to steal the candles offered by the faithful to her altar.