are different; their works inclose a charm which is not artistic.  Fra Angelico, after being a great disappointment to me in some of his large set pictures in the Academia and elsewhere, shows himself lovely in fresco (though I think the “crumb” element helps him).  His great Crucifixion is big altogether, and has so permanent a force in its aloofness from mere drama and mere life.  In San Marco, the cells of the monks are quite charming, a row of little square bandboxes under a broad raftered corridor, and in every cell is a beautiful little fresco for the monks to live up to.  But they no longer live there now:  all that part of San Marco has become a peep-show.

I liked being in Savonarola’s room, and was more susceptible to the remains of his presence than I have been to Michel Angelo or anyone else’s.  Michel Angelo I feel most when he has left a thing unfinished; then one can put one’s finger into the print of the chisel, and believe anything of the beauty that might have come out of the great stone chrysalis lying cased and rough, waiting to be raised up to life.

Yesterday Arthur and I walked from here to Fiesole, which we had neglected while in Florence—­six miles going, and more like twelve coming back, all because of Arthur’s absurd cross-country instinct, which, after hours of river-bends, bare mountain tracks, and tottering precipices, brought us out again half a mile nearer Florence than when we started.

At Fiesole is the only church about here whose interior architecture I have greatly admired, austere but at the same time gracious—­like a Madonna of the best period of painting.  We also went to look at the Roman baths and theater:  the theater is charming enough, because it is still there:  but for the baths—­oblongs of stone don’t interest me just because they are old.  All stone is old:  and these didn’t even hold water to give one the real look of the thing.  Too tired, and even more too lazy, to write other things, except love, most dear Beloved.

LETTER XXXIV.

Dearest:  We were to have gone down with the rest into Florence yesterday:  but soft miles of Italy gleamed too invitingly away on our right, and I saw Arthur’s eyes hungry with the same far-away wish.  So I said “Prato,” and he ran up to the fattore’s and secured a wondrous shandry-dan with just space enough between its horns to toss the two of us in the direction where we would go.  Its gaunt framework was painted of a bright red, and our feet had only netting to rest on:  so constructed, the creature was most vital and light of limb, taking every rut on the road with flea-like agility.  Oh, but it was worth it!

We had a drive of fourteen miles through hills and villages, and castellated villas with gardens shut in by formidably high walls—­always, a charm:  a garden should always have something of the jealous seclusion of a harem.  I am getting Italian landscape into my system, and enjoy it more and more.