SIENA.

October 2d.--Yesterday morning, at six o'clock, we left our ancient

tower, and threw a parting glance--and a rather sad one--over the misty

Val d' Arno. This summer will look like a happy one in our children's

retrospect, and also, no doubt, in the years that remain to ourselves;

and, in truth, I have found it a peaceful and not uncheerful one.

It was not a pleasant morning, and Monte Morello, looking down on

Florence, had on its cap, betokening foul weather, according to the

proverb. Crossing the suspension-bridge, we reached the Leopoldo railway

without entering the city. By some mistake,--or perhaps because nobody

ever travels by first-class carriages in Tuscany,--we found we had

received second-class tickets, and were put into a long, crowded

carriage, full of priests, military men, commercial travellers, and other

respectable people, facing one another lengthwise along the carriage, and

many of them smoking cigars. They were all perfectly civil, and I think

I must own that the manners of this second-class would compare favorably

with those of an American first-class one.

At Empoli, about an hour after we started, we had to change carriages,

the main train proceeding to Leghorn. . . . . My observations along the

road were very scanty: a hilly country, with several old towns seated on

the most elevated hill-tops, as is common throughout Tuscany, or

sometimes a fortress with a town on the plain at its base; or, once or

twice, the towers and battlements of a mediaeval castle, commanding the

pass below it. Near Florence the country was fertile in the vine and

olive, and looked as unpicturesque as that sort of fertility usually

makes it; not but what I have come to think better of the tint of the

olive-leaf than when I first saw it. In the latter part of our journey I

remember a wild stream, of a greenish hue, but transparent, rushing along

over a rough bed, and before reaching Siena we rumbled into a long

tunnel, and emerged from it near the city. . . . .

We drove up hill and down (for the surface of Siena seems to be nothing

but an irregularity) through narrow old streets, and were set down at

the Aquila Nera, a grim-looking albergo near the centre of the town.

Mrs. S------ had already taken rooms for us there, and to these we were

now ushered up the highway of a dingy stone staircase, and into a small,

brick-paved parlor. The house seemed endlessly old, and all the glimpses

that we caught of Siena out of window seemed more ancient still. Almost

within arm's reach, across a narrow street, a tall palace of gray,

time-worn stone clambered skyward, with arched windows, and square

windows, and large windows and small, scattered up and down its side. It

is the Palazzo Tolomei, and looks immensely venerable. From the windows

of our bedrooms we looked into a broader street, though still not very

wide, and into a small piazza, the most conspicuous object in which was a

column, hearing on its top a bronze wolf suckling Romulus and Remus.

This symbol is repeated in other parts of the city, and scours to

indicate that the Sienese people pride themselves in a Roman origin. In

another direction, over the tops of the houses, we saw a very high tower,

with battlements projecting around its summit, so that it was a fortress

in the air; and this I have since found to be the Palazzo Publico. It

was pleasant, looking downward into the little old piazza and narrow

streets, to see the swarm of life on the pavement, the life of to-day

just as new as if it had never been lived before; the citizens, the

priests, the soldiers, the mules and asses with their panniers, the

diligence lumbering along, with a postilion in a faded crimson coat

bobbing up and down on the off-horse. Such a bustling scene, vociferous,

too, with various street-cries, is wonderfully set off by the gray

antiquity of the town, and makes the town look older than if it were a

solitude.

Soon Mr. and Mrs. Story came, and accompanied us to look for lodgings.

They also drove us about the city in their carriage, and showed us the

outside of the Palazzo Publico, and of the cathedral and other remarkable

edifices. The aspect of Siena is far more picturesque than that of any

other town in Italy, so far as I know Italian towns; and yet, now that I

have written it, I remember Perugia, and feel that the observation is a

mistake. But at any rate Siena is remarkably picturesque, standing on

such a site, on the verge and within the crater of an extinct volcano,

and therefore being as uneven as the sea in a tempest; the streets so

narrow, ascending between tall, ancient palaces, while the side streets

rush headlong down, only to be threaded by sure-footed mules, such as

climb Alpine heights; old stone balconies on the palace fronts; old

arched doorways, and windows set in frames of Gothic architecture;

arcades, resembling canopies of stone, with quaintly sculptured statues

in the richly wrought Gothic niches of each pillar;--everything massive

and lofty, yet minutely interesting when you look at it stone by stone.

The Florentines, and the Romans too, have obliterated, as far as they

could, all the interest of their mediaeval structures by covering them

with stucco, so that they have quite lost their character, and affect the

spectator with no reverential idea of age. Here the city is all

overwritten with black-letter, and the glad Italian sun makes the effect

so much the stronger.

We took a lodging, and afterwards J----- and I rambled about, and went

into the cathedral for a moment, and strayed also into the Piazza del

Campo, the great public square of Siena. I am not in the mood for

further description of public places now, so shall say a word or two

about the old palace in which we have established ourselves. We have the

second piano, and dwell amid faded grandeur, having for our saloon what

seems to have been a ball-room. It is ornamented with a great fresco in

the centre of the vaulted ceiling, and others covering the sides of the

apartment, and surrounded with arabesque frameworks, where Cupids gambol

and chase one another. The subjects of the frescos I cannot make out,

not that they are faded like Giotto's, for they are as fresh as roses,

and are done in an exceedingly workmanlike style; but they are allegories

of Fame and Plenty and other matters, such as I could never understand.

Our whole accommodation is in similar style,--spacious, magnificent, and

mouldy.

In the evening Miss S------ and I drove to the railway, and on the

arrival of the train from Florence we watched with much eagerness the

unlading of the luggage-van. At last the whole of our ten trunks and tin

bandbox were produced, and finally my leather bag, in which was my

journal and a manuscript book containing my sketch of a romance. It

gladdened my very heart to see it, and I shall think the better of Tuscan

promptitude and accuracy for so quickly bringing it back to me. (It was

left behind, under one of the rail-carriage seats.) We find all the

public officials, whether of railway, police, or custom-house, extremely

courteous and pleasant to encounter; they seem willing to take trouble

and reluctant to give it, and it is really a gratification to find that

such civil people will sometimes oblige you by taking a paul or two

aside.

October 3d.--I took several strolls about the city yesterday, and find it

scarcely extensive enough to get lost in; and if we go far from the

centre we soon come to silent streets, with only here and there an

individual; and the inhabitants stare from their doors and windows at the

stranger, and turn round to look at him after he has passed. The

interest of the old town would soon be exhausted for the traveller, but I

can conceive that a thoughtful and shy man might settle down here with

the view of making the place a home, and spend many years in a sombre

kind of happiness. I should prefer it to Florence as a residence, but it

would be terrible without an independent life in one's own mind.

U---- and I walked out in the afternoon, and went into the Piazza del

Campo, the principal place of the city, and a very noble and peculiar

one. It is much in the form of an amphitheatre, and the surface of the

ground seems to be slightly scooped out, so that it resembles the shallow

basin of a shell. It is thus a much better site for an assemblage of the

populace than if it were a perfect level. A semicircle or truncated

ellipse of stately and ancient edifices surround the piazza, with arches

opening beneath them, through which streets converge hitherward. One

side of the piazza is a straight line, and is occupied by the Palazzo

Publico, which is a most noble and impressive Gothic structure. It has

not the mass of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, but is more striking.

It has a long battlemented front, the central part of which rises eminent

above the rest, in a great square bulk, which is likewise crowned with

battlements. This is much more picturesque than the one great block of

stone into which the Palazzo Vecchio is consolidated. At one extremity

of this long front of the Palazzo Publico rises a tower, shooting up its

shaft high, high into the air, and bulging out there into a battlemented

fortress, within which the tower, slenderer than before, climbs to a

still higher region. I do not know whether the summit of the tower is

higher or so high as that of the Palazzo Vecchio; but the length of the

shaft, free of the edifice, is much greater, and so produces the more

elevating effect. The whole front of the Palazzo Publico is exceedingly

venerable, with arched windows, Gothic carvings, and all the old-time

ornaments that betoken it to have stood a great while, and the gray

strength that will hold it up at least as much longer. At one end of the

facade, beneath the shadow of the tower, is a grand and beautiful porch,

supported on square pillars, within each of which is a niche containing a

statue of mediaeval sculpture.

The great Piazza del Campo is the market-place of Siena. In the morning

it was thronged with booths and stalls, especially of fruit and vegetable

dealers; but as in Florence, they melted away in the sunshine, gradually

withdrawing themselves into the shadow thrown from the Palazzo Publico.

On the side opposite the palace is an antique fountain of marble,

ornamented with two statues and a series of bas-reliefs; and it was so

much admired in its day that its sculptor received the name "Del Fonte."

I am loath to leave the piazza and palace without finding some word or

two to suggest their antique majesty, in the sunshine and the shadow; and

how fit it seemed, notwithstanding their venerableness, that there should

be a busy crowd filling up the great, hollow amphitheatre, and crying

their fruit and little merchandises, so that all the curved line of

stately old edifices helped to reverberate the noise. The life of

to-day, within the shell of a time past, is wonderfully fascinating.

Another point to which a stranger's footsteps are drawn by a kind of

magnetism, so that he will be apt to find himself there as often as he

strolls out of his hotel, is the cathedral. It stands in the highest

part of the city, and almost every street runs into some other street

which meanders hitherward. On our way thither, U---- and I came to a

beautiful front of black and white marble, in somewhat the same style as

the cathedral; in fact, it was the baptistery, and should have made a

part of it, according to the original design, which contemplated a

structure of vastly greater extent than this actual one. We entered the

baptistery, and found the interior small, but very rich in its clustered

columns and intersecting arches, and its frescos, pictures, statues, and

ornaments. Moreover, a father and mother had brought their baby to be

baptized, and the poor little thing, in its gay swaddling-clothes, looked

just like what I have seen in old pictures, and a good deal like an

Indian pappoose. It gave one little slender squeak when the priest put

the water on its forehead, and then was quiet again.

We now went round to the facade of the cathedral. . . . . It is of black

and white marble, with, I believe, an intermixture of red and other

colors; but time has toned them down, so that white, black, and red do

not contrast so strongly with one another as they may have done five

hundred years ago. The architecture is generally of the pointed Gothic

style, but there are likewise carved arches over the doors and windows,

and a variety which does not produce the effect of confusion,--a

magnificent eccentricity, an exuberant imagination flowering out in

stone. On high, in the great peak of the front, and throwing its colored

radiance into the nave within, there is a round window of immense

circumference, the painted figures in which we can see dimly from the

outside. But what I wish to express, and never can, is the multitudinous

richness of the ornamentation of the front: the arches within arches,

sculptured inch by inch, of the deep doorways; the statues of saints,

some making a hermitage of a niche, others standing forth; the scores of

busts, that look like faces of ancient people gazing down out of the

cathedral; the projecting shapes of stone lions,--the thousand forms of

Gothic fancy, which seemed to soften the marble and express whatever it

liked, and allow it to harden again to last forever. But my description

seems like knocking off the noses of some of the busts, the fingers and

toes of the statues, the projecting points of the architecture, jumbling

them all up together, and flinging them down upon the page. This gives

no idea of the truth, nor, least of all, can it shadow forth that solemn

whole, mightily combined out of all these minute particulars, and

sanctifying the entire space of ground over which this cathedral-front

flings its shadow, or on which it reflects the sun. A majesty and a

minuteness, neither interfering with the other, each assisting the

other; this is what I love in Gothic architecture. We went in and walked

about; but I mean to go again before sketching the interior in my poor

water-colors.

October 4th.--On looking again at the Palazzo Publico, I see that the

pillared portal which I have spoken of does not cover an entrance to the

palace, but is a chapel, with an altar, and frescos above it. Bouquets

of fresh flowers are on the altar, and a lamp burns, in all the daylight,

before the crucifix. The chapel is quite unenclosed, except by an

openwork balustrade of marble, on which the carving looks very ancient.

Nothing could be more convenient for the devotions of the crowd in the

piazza, and no doubt the daily prayers offered at the shrine might be

numbered by the thousand,--brief, but I hope earnest,--like those

glimpses I used to catch at the blue sky, revealing so much in an

instant, while I was toiling at Brook Farm. Another picturesque thing

about the Palazzo Publico is a great stone balcony quaintly wrought,

about midway in the front and high aloft, with two arched windows opening

into it.

After another glimpse at the cathedral, too, I realize how utterly I have

failed in conveying the idea of its elaborate ornament, its twisted and

clustered pillars, and numberless devices of sculpture; nor did I mention

the venerable statues that stand all round the summit of the edifice,

relieved against the sky,--the highest of all being one of the Saviour,

on the topmost peak of the front; nor the tall tower that ascends from

one side of the building, and is built of layers of black and white

marble piled one upon another in regular succession; nor the dome that

swells upward close beside this tower.

Had the cathedral been constructed on the plan and dimensions at first

contemplated, it would have been incomparably majestic; the finished

portion, grand as it is, being only what was intended for a transept.

One of the walls of what was to have been the nave is still standing, and

looks like a ruin, though, I believe, it has been turned to account as

the wall of a palace, the space of the never-completed nave being now a

court or street.

The whole family of us were kindly taken out yesterday, to dine and spend

the day at the Villa Belvedere with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Story. The

vicinity of Siena is much more agreeable than that of Florence, being

cooler, breezier, with more foliage and shrubbery both near at hand and

in the distance; and the prospect, Mr. Story told us, embraces a diameter

of about a hundred miles between hills north and south. The Villa

Belvedere was built and owned by an Englishman now deceased, who has left

it to his butler, and its lawns and shrubbery have something English in

their character, and there was almost a dampness in the grass, which

really pleased me in this parched Italy. Within the house the walls are

hung with fine old-fashioned engravings from the pictures of

Gainsborough, West, and other English painters. The Englishman, though

he had chosen to live and die in Italy, had evidently brought his native

tastes and peculiarities along with him. Mr. Story thinks of buying this

villa: I do not know but I might be tempted to buy it myself if Siena

were a practicable residence for the entire year; but the winter here,

with the bleak mountain-winds of a hundred miles round about blustering

against it, must be terribly disagreeable.

We spent a very pleasant day, turning over books or talking on the lawn,

whence we could behold scenes picturesque afar, and rich vineyard

glimpses near at hand. Mr. Story is the most variously accomplished and

brilliant person, the fullest of social life and fire, whom I ever met;

and without seeming to make an effort, he kept us amused and entertained

the whole day long; not wearisomely entertained neither, as we should

have been if he had not let his fountain play naturally. Still, though

he bubbled and brimmed over with fun, he left the impression on me

that . . . . there is a pain and care, bred, it may be, out of the very

richness of his gifts and abundance of his outward prosperity. Rich, in

the prime of life, . . . . and children budding and blossoming around him

as fairly as his heart could wish, with sparkling talents,--so many, that

if he choose to neglect or fling away one, or two, or three, he would

still have enough left to shine with,--who should be happy if not

he? . . . .

Towards sunset we all walked out into the podere, pausing a little while

to look down into a well that stands on the verge of the lawn. Within

the spacious circle of its stone curb was an abundant growth of

maidenhair, forming a perfect wreath of thickly clustering leaves quite

round, and trailing its tendrils downward to the water which gleamed

beneath. It was a very pretty sight. Mr. Story bent over the well and

uttered deep, musical tones, which were reverberated from the hollow

depths with wonderful effect, as if a spirit dwelt within there, and

(unlike the spirits that speak through mediums) sent him back responses

even profounder and more melodious than the tones that awakened them.

Such a responsive well as this might have been taken for an oracle in old

days.

We went along paths that led from one vineyard to another, and which

might have led us for miles across the country. The grapes had been

partly gathered, but still there were many purple or white clusters

hanging heavily on the vines. We passed cottage doors, and saw groups of

contadini and contadine in their festal attire, and they saluted us

graciously; but it was observable that one of the men generally lingered

on our track to see that no grapes were stolen, for there were a good

many young people and children in our train, not only our own, but some

from a neighboring villa. These Italian peasants are a kindly race, but,

I doubt, not very hospitable of grape or fig.

There was a beautiful sunset, and by the time we reached the house again

the comet was already visible amid the unextinguished glow of daylight.

A Mr. and Mrs. B------, Scotch people from the next villa, had come to

see the Storys, and we sat till tea-time reading, talking, William Story

drawing caricatures for his children's amusement and ours, and all of us

sometimes getting up to look at the comet, which blazed brighter and

brighter till it went down into the mists of the horizon. Among the

caricatures was one of a Presidential candidate, evidently a man of very

malleable principles, and likely to succeed.

Late in the evening (too late for little Rosebud) we drove homeward. The

streets of old Siena looked very grim at night, and it seemed like gazing

into caverns to glimpse down some of the side streets as we passed, with

a light burning dimly at the end of them. It was after ten when we

reached home, and climbed up our gloomy staircase, lighted by the glimmer

of some wax moccoli which I had in my pocket.

October 5th.--I have been two or three times into the cathedral; . . . .

the whole interior is of marble, in alternate lines of black and white,

each layer being about eight inches in width and extending horizontally.

It looks very curiously, and might remind the spectator of a stuff with

horizontal stripes. Nevertheless, the effect is exceedingly rich, these

alternate lines stretching away along the walls and round the clustered

pillars, seen aloft, and through the arches; everywhere, this inlay of

black and white. Every sort of ornament that could be thought of seems

to have been crammed into the cathedral in one place or another: gilding,

frescos, pictures; a roof of blue, spangled with golden stars; a

magnificent wheel-window of old painted glass over the entrance, and

another at the opposite end of the cathedral; statues, some of marble,

others of gilded bronze; pulpits of carved marble; a gilded organ; a

cornice of marble busts of the popes, extending round the entire church;

a pavement, covered all over with a strange kind of mosaic work in

various marbles, wrought into marble pictures of sacred subjects; immense

clustered pillars supporting the round arches that divide the nave from

the side aisles; a clere-story of windows within pointed arches;--it

seemed as if the spectator were reading an antique volume written in

black-letter of a small character, but conveying a high and solemn

meaning. I can find no way of expressing its effect on me, so quaint and

venerable as I feel this cathedral to be in its immensity of striped

waistcoat, now dingy with five centuries of wear. I ought not to say

anything that might detract from the grandeur and sanctity of the blessed

edifice, for these attributes are really uninjured by any of the Gothic

oddities which I have hinted at.

We went this morning to the Institute of the Fine Arts, which is

interesting as containing a series of the works of the Sienese painters

from a date earlier than that of Cimabue. There is a dispute, I believe,

between Florence and Siena as to which city may claim the credit of

having originated the modern art of painting. The Florentines put

forward Cimabue as the first artist, but as the Sienese produce a

picture, by Guido da Siena, dated before the birth of Cimabue, the

victory is decidedly with them. As to pictorial merit, to my taste there

is none in either of these old painters, nor in any of their successors

for a long time afterwards. At the Institute there are several rooms

hung with early productions of the Sienese school, painted before the

invention of oil-colors, on wood shaped into Gothic altar-pieces. The

backgrounds still retain a bedimmed splendor of gilding. There is a

plentiful use of red, and I can conceive that the pictures must have shed

an illumination through the churches where they were displayed. There is

often, too, a minute care bestowed on the faces in the pictures, and

sometimes a very strong expression, stronger than modern artists get, and

it is very strange how they attained this merit while they were so

inconceivably rude in other respects. It is remarkable that all the

early faces of the Madonna are especially stupid, and all of the same

type, a sort of face such as one might carve on a pumpkin, representing a

heavy, sulky, phlegmatic woman, with a long and low arch of the nose.

This same dull face continues to be assigned to the Madonna, even when

the countenances of the surrounding saints and angels are characterized

with power and beauty, so that I think there must have been some portrait

of this sacred personage reckoned authentic, which the early painters

followed and religiously repeated.

At last we came to a picture by Sodoma, the most illustrious

representative of the Sienese school. It was a fresco; Christ bound to

the pillar, after having been scourged. I do believe that painting has

never done anything better, so far as expression is concerned, than this

figure. In all these generations since it was painted it must have

softened thousands of hearts, drawn down rivers of tears, been more

effectual than a million of sermons. Really, it is a thing to stand and

weep at. No other painter has done anything that can deserve to be

compared to this.

There are some other pictures by Sodoma, among them a Judith, very noble

and admirable, and full of a profound sorrow for the deed which she has

felt it her mission to do.

Aquila Nera, October 7th.--Our lodgings in Siena had been taken only for

five days, as they were already engaged after that period; so yesterday

we returned to our old quarters at the Black Eagle.

In the forenoon J----- and I went out of one of the gates (the road from

it leads to Florence) and had a pleasant country walk. Our way wound

downward, round the hill on which Siena stands, and gave us views of the

Duomo and its campanile, seemingly pretty near, after we had walked long

enough to be quite remote from them. Sitting awhile on the parapet of a

bridge, I saw a laborer chopping the branches off a poplar-tree which he

had felled; and, when it was trimmed, he took up the large trunk on one

of his shoulders and carried it off, seemingly with ease. He did not

look like a particularly robust man; but I have never seen such an

herculean feat attempted by an Englishman or American. It has frequently

struck me that the Italians are able to put forth a great deal of

strength in such insulated efforts as this; but I have been told that

they are less capable of continued endurance and hardship than our own

race. I do not know why it should be so, except that I presume their

food is less strong than ours. There was no other remarkable incident in

our walk, which lay chiefly through gorges of the hills, winding beneath

high cliffs of the brown Siena earth, with many pretty scenes of rural

landscape; vineyards everywhere, and olive-trees; a mill on its little

stream, over which there was an old stone bridge, with a graceful arch;

farm-houses; a villa or two; subterranean passages, passing from the

roadside through the high banks into the vineyards. At last we turned

aside into a road which led us pretty directly to another gate of the

city, and climbed steeply upward among tanneries, where the young men

went about with their well-shaped legs bare, their trousers being tucked

up till they were strictly breeches and nothing else. The campanile

stood high above us; and by and by, and very soon, indeed, the steep

ascent of the street brought us into the neighborhood of the Piazza del

Campo, and of our own hotel. . . . . From about twelve o'clock till one,

I sat at my chamber window watching the specimens of human life as

displayed in the Piazza Tolomei. [Here follow several pages of moving

objects.] . . . . Of course, a multitude of other people passed by, but

the curiousness of the catalogue is the prevalence of the martial and

religious elements. The general costume of the inhabitants is frocks or

sacks, loosely made, and rather shabby; often, shirt-sleeves; or the coat

hung over one shoulder. They wear felt hats and straw. People of

respectability seem to prefer cylinder hats, either black or drab, and

broadcloth frock-coats in the French fashion; but, like the rest, they

look a little shabby. Almost all the women wear shawls. Ladies in

swelling petticoats, and with fans, some of which are highly gilded,

appear. The people generally are not tall, but have a sufficient breadth

of shoulder; in complexion, similar to Americans; bearded, universally.

The vehicle used for driving is a little gig without a top; but these are

seldom seen, and still less frequently a cab or other carriages. The

gait of the people has not the energy of business or decided purpose.

Everybody appears to lounge, and to have time for a moment's chat, and a

disposition to rest, reason or none.

After dinner I walked out of another gate of the city, and wandered among

some pleasant country lanes, bordered with hedges, and wearing an English

aspect; at least, I could fancy so. The vicinity of Siena is delightful

to walk about in; there being a verdant outlook, a wide prospect of

purple mountains, though no such level valley as the Val d' Arno; and the

city stands so high that its towers and domes are seen more picturesquely

from many points than those of Florence can be. Neither is the

pedestrian so cruelly shut into narrow lanes, between high stone-walls,

over which he cannot get a glimpse of landscape. As I walked by the

hedges yesterday I could have fancied that the olive-trunks were those of

apple-trees, and that I was in one or other of the two lands that I love

better than Italy. But the great white villas and the farm-houses were

unlike anything I have seen elsewhere, or that I should wish to see

again, though proper enough to Italy.

October 9th.--Thursday forenoon, 8th, we went to see the Palazzo Publico.

There are some fine old halls and chapels, adorned with ancient frescos

and pictures, of which I remember a picture of the Virgin by Sodoma, very

beautiful, and other fine pictures by the same master. The architecture

of these old rooms is grand, the roofs being supported by ponderous

arches, which are covered with frescos, still magnificent, though faded,

darkened, and defaced. We likewise saw an antique casket of wood,

enriched with gilding, which had once contained an arm of John the

Baptist,--so the custode told us. One of the halls was hung with the

portraits of eight popes and nearly forty cardinals, who were natives of

Siena. I have done hardly any other sight-seeing except a daily visit to

the cathedral, which I admire and love the more the oftener I go thither.

Its striped peculiarity ceases entirely to interfere with the grandeur

and venerable beauty of its impression; and I am never weary of gazing

through the vista of its arches, and noting continually something that I

had not seen before in its exuberant adornment. The pavement alone is

inexhaustible, being covered all over with figures of life-size or

larger, which look like immense engravings of Gothic or Scriptural

scenes. There is Absalom hanging by his hair, and Joab slaying him with

a spear. There is Samson belaboring the Philistines with the jawbone of

an ass. There are armed knights in the tumult of battle, all wrought

with wonderful expression. The figures are in white marble, inlaid with

darker stone, and the shading is effected by means of engraved lines in

the marble, filled in with black. It would be possible, perhaps, to

print impressions from some of these vast plates, for the process of

cutting the lines was an exact anticipation of the modern art of

engraving. However, the same thing was done--and I suppose at about the

same period--on monumental brasses, and I have seen impressions or

rubbings from those for sale in the old English churches.

Yesterday morning, in the cathedral, I watched a woman at confession,

being curious to see how long it would take her to tell her sins, the

growth of a week perhaps. I know not how long she had been confessing

when I first observed her, but nearly an hour passed before the priest

came suddenly from the confessional, looking weary and moist with

perspiration, and took his way out of the cathedral. The woman was left

on her knees. This morning I watched another woman, and she too was very

long about it, and I could see the face of the priest behind the curtain

of the confessional, scarcely inclining his ear to the perforated tin

through which the penitent communicated her outpourings. It must be very

tedious to listen, day after day, to the minute and commonplace

iniquities of the multitude of penitents, and it cannot be often that

these are redeemed by the treasure-trove of a great sin. When her

confession was over the woman came and sat down on the same bench with

me, where her broad-brimmed straw hat was lying. She seemed to be a

country woman, with a simple, matronly face, which was solemnized and

softened with the comfort that she had obtained by disburdening herself

of the soil of worldly frailties and receiving absolution. An old woman,

who haunts the cathedral, whispered to her, and she went and knelt down

where a procession of priests were to pass, and then the old lady begged

a cruzia of me, and got a half-paul. It almost invariably happens, in

church or cathedral, that beggars address their prayers to the heretic

visitor, and probably with more unction than to the Virgin or saints.

However, I have nothing to say against the sincerity of this people's

devotion. They give all the proof of it that a mere spectator can

estimate.

Last evening we all went out to see the comet, which then reached its

climax of lustre. It was like a lofty plume of fire, and grew very

brilliant as the night darkened.

October 10th.--This morning, too, we went to the cathedral, and sat long

listening to the music of the organ and voices, and witnessing rites and

ceremonies which are far older than even the ancient edifice where they

were exhibited. A good many people were present, sitting, kneeling, or

walking about,--a freedom that contrasts very agreeably with the grim

formalities of English churches and our own meeting-houses. Many persons

were in their best attire; but others came in, with unabashed simplicity,

in their old garments of labor, sunburnt women from their toil among the

vines and olives. One old peasant I noticed with his withered shanks in

breeches and blue yarn stockings. The people of whatever class are

wonderfully tolerant of heretics, never manifesting any displeasure or

annoyance, though they must see that we are drawn thither by curiosity

alone, and merely pry while they pray. I heartily wish the priests were

better men, and that human nature, divinely influenced, could be depended

upon for a constant supply and succession of good and pure ministers,

their religion has so many admirable points. And then it is a sad pity

that this noble and beautiful cathedral should be a mere fossil shell,

out of which the life has died long ago. But for many a year yet to come

the tapers will burn before the high altar, the Host will be elevated,

the incense diffuse its fragrance, the confessionals be open to receive

the penitents. I saw a father entering with two little bits of boys,

just big enough to toddle along, holding his hand on either side. The

father dipped his fingers into the marble font of holy water,--which, on

its pedestals, was two or three times as high as those small Christians,

--and wetted a hand of each, and taught them how to cross themselves.

When they come to be men it will be impossible to convince those children

that there is no efficacy in holy water, without plucking up all

religious faith and sentiment by the roots. Generally, I suspect, when

people throw off the faith they were born in, the best soil of their

hearts is apt to cling to its roots.

Raised several feet above the pavement, against every clustered pillar

along the nave of the cathedral, is placed a statue of Gothic sculpture.

In various places are sitting statues of popes of Sienese nativity, all

of whom, I believe, have a hand raised in the act of blessing. Shrines

and chapels, set in grand, heavy frames of pillared architecture, stand

all along the aisles and transepts, and these seem in many instances to

have been built and enriched by noble families, whose arms are sculptured

on the pedestals of the pillars, sometimes with a cardinal's hat above to

denote the rank of one of its members. How much pride, love, and

reverence in the lapse of ages must have clung to the sharp points of all

this sculpture and architecture! The cathedral is a religion in itself,

--something worth dying for to those who have an hereditary interest in

it. In the pavement, yesterday, I noticed the gravestone of a person who

fell six centuries ago in the battle of Monte Aperto, and was buried here

by public decree as a meed of valor.

This afternoon I took a walk out of one of the city gates, and found the

country about Siena as beautiful in this direction as in all others. I

came to a little stream flowing over into a pebbly bed, and collecting

itself into pools, with a scanty rivulet between. Its glen was deep, and

was crossed by a bridge of several lofty and narrow arches like those of

a Roman aqueduct. It is a modern structure, however. Farther on, as I

wound round along the base of a hill which fell down upon the road by

precipitous cliffs of brown earth, I saw a gray, ruined wall on the

summit, surrounded with cypress-trees. This tree is very frequent about

Siena, and the scenery is made soft and beautiful by a variety of other

trees and shrubbery, without which these hills and gorges would have

scarcely a charm. The road was thronged with country people, mostly

women and children, who had been spending the feast-day in Siena; and

parties of boys were chasing one another through the fields, pretty much

as boys do in New England of a Sunday, but the Sienese lads had not the

sense of Sabbath-breaking like our boys. Sunday with these people is

like any other feast-day, and consecrated cheerful enjoyment. So much

religious observance, as regards outward forms, is diffused through the

whole week that they have no need to intensify the Sabbath except by

making it gladden the other days.

Returning through the same gate by which I had come out, I ascended into

the city by a long and steep street, which was paved with bricks set

edgewise. This pavement is common in many of the streets, which, being

too steep for horses and carriages, are meant only to sustain the lighter

tread of mules and asses. The more level streets are paved with broad,

smooth flag-stones, like those of Florence,--a fashion which I heartily

regret to change for the little penitential blocks of Rome. The walls of

Siena in their present state, and so far as I have seen them, are chiefly

brick; but there are intermingled fragments of ancient stone-work, and I

wonder why the latter does not prevail more largely. The Romans,

however,--and Siena had Roman characteristics,--always liked to build of

brick, a taste that has made their ruins (now that the marble slabs are

torn off) much less grand than they ought to have been. I am grateful to

the old Sienese for having used stone so largely in their domestic

architecture, and thereby rendered their city so grimly picturesque, with

its black palaces frowning upon one another from arched windows, across

narrow streets, to the height of six stories, like opposite ranks of tall

men looking sternly into one another's eyes.

October 11th.--Again I went to the cathedral this morning, and spent an

hour listening to the music and looking through the orderly intricacies

of the arches, where many vistas open away among the columns of the

choir. There are five clustered columns on each side of the nave; then

under the dome there are two more arches, not in a straight line, but

forming the segment of a circle; and beyond the circle of the dome there

are four more arches, extending to the extremity of the chancel. I

should have said, instead of "clustered columns" as above, that there are

five arches along the nave supported by columns. This cathedral has

certainly bewitched me, to write about it so much, effecting nothing with

my pains. I should judge the width of each arch to be about twenty feet,

and the thickness of each clustered pillar is eight; or ten more, and the

length of the entire building may be between two and three hundred feet;

not very large, certainly, but it makes an impression of grandeur

independent of size. . . . .

I never shall succeed even in reminding myself of the venerable

magnificence of this minster, with its arches, its columns, its cornice

of popes' heads, its great wheel windows, its manifold ornament, all

combining in one vast effect, though many men have labored individually,

and through a long course of time, to produce this multifarious handiwork

and headwork.

I now took a walk out of the city. A road turned immediately to the left

as I emerged from the city, and soon proved to be a rustic lane leading

past several villas and farm-houses. It was a very pleasant walk, with

vineyards and olive-orchards on each side, and now and then glimpses of

the towers and sombre heaped-up palaces of Siena, and now a rural

seclusion again; for the hills rise and the valleys fall like the swell

and subsidence of the sea after a gale, so that Siena may be quite hidden

within a quarter of a mile of its wall, or may be visible, I doubt not,

twenty miles away. It is a fine old town, with every promise of health

and vigor in its atmosphere, and really, if I could take root anywhere, I

know not but it could as well be here as in another place. It would only

be a kind of despair, however, that would ever make me dream of finding a

home in Italy; a sense that I had lost my country through absence or

incongruity, and that earth is not an abiding-place. I wonder that we

Americans love our country at all, it having no limits and no oneness;

and when you try to make it a matter of the heart, everything falls away

except one's native State; neither can you seize hold of that unless you

tear it out of the Union, bleeding and quivering. Yet unquestionably, we

do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in the world, and

I myself have felt the heart throb at sight of it as sensibly as other

men. I think the singularity of our form of government contributes to

give us a kind of patriotism, by separating us from other nations more

entirely. If other nations had similar institutions,--if England,

especially, were a democracy,--we should as readily make ourselves at

home in another country as now in a new State.

October 12th.--And again we went to the cathedral this forenoon, and the

whole family, except myself, sketched portions of it. Even Rosebud stood

gravely sketching some of the inlaid figures of the pavement. As for me,

I can but try to preserve some memorial of this beautiful edifice in

ill-fitting words that never hit the mark. This morning visit was not my

final one, for I went again after dinner and walked quite round the whole

interior. I think I have not yet mentioned the rich carvings of the old

oaken seats round the choir, and the curious mosaic of lighter and darker

woods, by which figures and landscapes are skilfully represented on the

backs of some of the stalls. The process seems to be the same as the

inlaying and engraving of the pavement, the material in one case being

marble, in the other wood. The only other thing that I particularly

noticed was, that in the fonts of holy water at the front entrance,

marble fish are sculptured in the depths of the basin, and eels and

shellfish crawling round the brim. Have I spoken of the sumptuous

carving of the capitals of the columns? At any rate I have left a

thousand beauties without a word. Here I drop the subject. As I took my

parting glance the cathedral had a gleam of golden sunshine in its far

depths, and it seemed to widen and deepen itself, as if to convince me of

my error in saying, yesterday, that it is not very large. I wonder how I

could say it.

After taking leave of the cathedral, I found my way out of another of the

city gates, and soon turned aside into a green lane. . . . . Soon the

lane passed through a hamlet consisting of a few farm-houses, the

shabbiest and dreariest that can be conceived, ancient, and ugly, and

dilapidated, with iron-grated windows below, and heavy wooden shutters on

the windows above,--high, ruinous walls shutting in the courts, and

ponderous gates, one of which was off its hinges. The farm-yards were

perfect pictures of disarray and slovenly administration of home affairs.

Only one of these houses had a door opening on the road, and that was the

meanest in the hamlet. A flight of narrow stone stairs ascended from the

threshold to the second story. All these houses were specimens of a rude

antiquity, built of brick and stone, with the marks of arched doors and

windows where a subsequent generation had shut up the lights, or the

accesses which the original builders had opened. Humble as these

dwellings are,--though large and high compared with rural residences in

other countries,--they may very probably date back to the times when

Siena was a warlike republic, and when every house in its neighborhood

had need to be a fortress. I suppose, however, prowling banditti were

the only enemies against whom a defence would be attempted. What lives

must now be lived there,--in beastly ignorance, mental sluggishness, hard

toil for little profit, filth, and a horrible discomfort of fleas; for if

the palaces of Italy are overrun with these pests, what must the country

hovels be! . . . .

We are now all ready for a start to-morrow.