To-day we have driven out to Fiesole, and seen the massive walls of the ancient Etruscan city. These ramparts, which are called “Cyclopean constructions,” are said to be at least three thousand years old, and yet look as though they might endure to the end of time. From a hill above the town we had a large and lovely view of the beautiful valley of the Arno, and looked down upon Florence, lapped in its midst, small, compact, yet beautiful and stately. I never beheld a more enchanting picture than the broad and bright one there spread before me: the blue mountains, the gleaming river, the green and smiling valley; hills covered with olives and myrtles; roads winding between hedges of roses to innumerable villas, nestled in flowery nooks, or crowning breezy heights. Oh, this was enchantment of fairy-land, no dream of poetry; it was in very truth a paradise on earth.
On our return we visited the house of Michael Angelo, which is reverently kept by his descendants, as nearly as possible, in the same state in which he left it. It is a handsome, quaint old house, quiet, shadowy, and somewhat sombre, still pervaded with the awe-inspiring atmosphere of the colossal genius of that Titanic artist.
As I stood in his studio, or in the little cabinet where he used to write, and saw before me the many objects once familiar to his eye and hand, I felt that it was but yesterday that he was borne forth from his beloved home, and that it was the first funereal stillness and sadness which pervaded it now.
We afterwards drove to “Dante’s stone,” a slab of marble by the side of the way, on which he used to sit in the long summer evenings, rapt in mournful meditations, and dreaming his immortal dreams. It is now as sacred to his memory as the stone above his grave.
For the past two afternoons we have driven in the Cascine, by far the most delightful drive and place of reunion I have ever seen. It is much smaller and, of course, less magnificent than Hyde Park, but pleasanter, I think, in having portions more sheltered, wild, and quiet for riders and promenaders. In the centre of the grounds, opposite the Grand Duke’s farm-house, is an open space where the band is stationed, and the carriages come together to exchange compliments and hear music. Here are always to be seen many splendid turnouts, open carriages filled with elegantly-dressed ladies; gallant officers and gay dames on horseback; flower-girls, bearing about the most delicious lilies and roses, pinks and lilacs, mignonette and heliotrope, freighting the golden evening air with their intoxicating fragrance and amazing you with their paradisian profusion,—altogether a cheering and charming scene, colored and animated by the very soul of innocent pleasure.
This afternoon we met Charles Lever, riding with his wife and two daughters. They are all fine riders, were well mounted, and looked a very happy family party. Mr. Lever is much such a man as you would look to see in the author of Charles O’Malley,—hale and hearty, careless, merry, and a little dashing in his air.
This evening I have spent with the Brownings, to whom I brought letters. They live in that Casa Guidi which Mrs. Browning has already immortalized by the grandest poem ever penned by woman....
Mr. and Mrs. Browning have taken up their residence in Florence, a place in every way congenial to them. I know that thousands of her unknown friends across the water will rejoice to hear that the health of Mrs. Browning improves with every year spent in Italy. Yet she is still very delicate,—but a frail flower, ceaselessly requiring all the sheltering and fostering care, all the wealth and watchfulness of love, which is round about her....
Yesterday I saw, for the first time, the grand, antique group of Niobe and her children. Of these wonderful figures, by far the most noble and pathetic are those of the mother and the young daughter she is seeking to shield. Oh, the proud anguish, the wild, hopeless, maternal agony, of that face haunts me, and will haunt me forever.