Italian hours . er wall. These creations in a manner took care of them-selves ; aided by the blue of the sky above the cloister-court theyglowed, they insistently lived; I remember the frigid prowl throughall the rest of the bareness, including that of the big dishon-oured church and that even of the Abbates abysmally resignedtestimony to his mere human and personal situation; and then,with such a force of contrast and effect of relief, the great shel-tered sun-fiares and colour-patches of scenic composition anddesign where a couple of hands centuries ago turned to dust had {37^ ] ITALIAN HOUR
Italian hours . er wall. These creations in a manner took care of them-selves ; aided by the blue of the sky above the cloister-court theyglowed, they insistently lived; I remember the frigid prowl throughall the rest of the bareness, including that of the big dishon-oured church and that even of the Abbates abysmally resignedtestimony to his mere human and personal situation; and then,with such a force of contrast and effect of relief, the great shel-tered sun-fiares and colour-patches of scenic composition anddesign where a couple of hands centuries ago turned to dust had {37^ ] ITALIAN HOURS so wrought the defiant miracle of life and beauty that the eflFectis of a garden blooming among ruins. Discredited somehow,since they all would, the destroyers themselves, the ancient piety,the general spirit and intention, but still bright and assured andsublime — practically, enviably immortal — the other, the stillsubtler, the all aesthetic good faith. 1909. THE AUTUMN IN FLORENCE THE AUTUMN IN FLORENCE. LORENCE too has its season, not lessthan Rome, and I have been rejoicing forthe past six weeks in the fact that this com-paratively crowded parenthesis has nt yetbeen opened. Coming here in the firstdays of October I found the summer stillin almost unmenaced possession, and eversince, till within a day or two, the weightof its hand has been sensible. Properly enough, as the city offlowers, Florence mingles the elements most artfully in the spring— during the divine crescendo of March and April, the weekswhen six months of steady shiver have still not shaken New Yorkand Boston free of the long Polar reach. But the very qualityof the decline of the year as we at present here feel it suits pe-culiarly the mood in which an undiscourageable gatherer of thesense of things, or taster at least of charm, moves through thesemany-memoried streets and galleries and churches. Old things,old places, old people, or at least old races, ever strike us as giv-ing out their secrets mos
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