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Mr. was just as eager as myself to escape the chit-chat and nothingness of Florence; so we finally determined upon our expedition, and mounting our horses, set out this morning, happily without any company but the spirit which led us along. We had need of inspiration, since nothing else, I think, would have tempted us over such dreary, uninteresting hillocks as rise from the banks of the Arno.
We are so high, however, that from the first floor we have a sweeping view, and look down on the most sumptuous valley of the Arno from our western windows, a level plain, cultivated every inch with grapes and olives and other fruits; and all round rise up soft hills, and the Apennines afar off where the sun sets.
What the Senator called our attention to as we drove to the hotel was the conspicuous part in municipal politics played by that little old brown river Arno. In most places the riparian feature of the landscape is not insisted on you have usually to go to the suburbs to find it, but in Pisa it is a sort of main street, with the town sitting comfortably and equally on each side of it looking on.
The streets are threaded, the suburbs of the city are passed, the open country is gained; and now along the bank of the Arno rushes the monster, by the margin of that pure stream to whose enchanting vale the soft twilight lends a more delicious charm.
Had we lived in the olden days, such things might verily have accompanied our journey to that holy monastery. We might then have gone barefoot, saying prayers as we toiled along the banks of the Arno and up the steep Appenines, as did Benevenuto Cellini, before he poured the melted bronze into the mould of his immortal Perseus.
Raeburn went with then, and as they paced along the broad avenue with the Arno gleaming through the fresh green of the trees, talking of the discussions of the past week, he inadvertently touched the note of pain in an otherwise cloudless day. "The work is practically over now," he said. "But I think I must take a day or two to see a little of Florence.
The length of its principal channel of drainage, and even the direction of its flow at any given point, were therefore fluctuating. Hence, much difference of opinion was entertained at different times with regard to the normal course of this stream, and, consequently, to the question whether it was to be regarded as properly an affluent of the Tiber or of the Arno.
And Lettice bought her friend a brooch, and herself a ring in memory of the day; and as the ten pounds would not cover it she borrowed fifteen; and then they had a delightful drive through the noble squares, past many a venerable palace and lofty church, through richly storied streets, and across a bridge of marble to the other side of the Arno; so onward till they came to the wood-enshrouded valley, where the trees were breaking into tender leafage, every shade of green commingling with the blue screen of the Apennines beyond.
We are not in the warm orthodox position by the Arno because we heard with our ears one of the best physicians of the place advise against it.
Then Messer Folco spoke again to the multitude, saying that there would be simple cheer and sport provided in his gardens that lay in the meadow-land on the other side of Arno for such as chose to go so far, at which his hearers cheered again, and made all speed to take him at his word and hurry away over the bridge. Thereafter Messer Folco turned to Messer Simone, as if inviting him to enter.
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