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Updated: June 1, 2025
Five years ago a long wall of diamond-shaped tiles laid in white cement extended round the spacious grounds of the homestead of the Yamashiro family. Inside were fish-ponds, mimic hills, miniature mountain-scenery, dense flower-bushes, dwarfed arboreal wonders, solemn shade trees and a garden laid out according to the very best Japanese style.
But when, by Pompey's incompetence, Cæsar was the victor; when Pompey had fallen at the Nile, and all the lovers of the fish-ponds, and the intractable oligarchs, and the cutthroats of the Empire, such as young Pompey had become, had scattered themselves far and wide, some to Asia, some to Illyricum, some to Spain, and more to Africa as a herd of deer shall be seen to do when a vast hound has appeared among them, with his jaws already dripping with blood was Cicero then to take his part with any of them?
Both agree that it will do in this way: ground tolerably good, slightly downwards for us, then slightly upwards again; tolerable for horse even: the intermediate lacing of dirty lakelets, the fish-ponds with their sluices drawn, Schwerin and Winterfeld either did not notice at all, or thought them insiginificant, interspersed with such beautiful "pasture-ground," of unusual verdure at this early season of the year.
They pass through a gateway into a court in which are great trees, shrubbery, fish-ponds spanned by marble bridges, covered walks, beautiful rockeries, wisteria vines laden with long clusters of blossoms, summer-houses, miniature mountains, and flowers of all kinds a dream of beauty and loveliness. After returning to the house another cup of tea is served, and the guest rises to leave.
Fish he did not eat; like meat, it was too expensive; in fact fish-eating only came in towards the end of the republican period, and then only as a luxury for those who could afford to keep fish-ponds on their estates.
The principal front faces straight towards the south, overlooking a vast lawn with two very large fish-ponds full of running water, which comes from an ancient aqueduct made by the Romans in order to conduct water from Valdimarina to Florence, and provided with a vaulted cistern under the ground; and so it has a very beautiful and very pleasing view.
"What does that poor child know? Oh, find him for me, if you love that dear child's mother!" Sir Charles hurried out directly, but was met at the door by a servant, who blurted out, "The men have dragged the fish-ponds, Sir Charles, and they want to know if they shall drag the brook." "Hold your tongue, idiot!" cried Sir Charles, and thrust him out; but the wiseacre had not spoken in vain.
They looked at the shy deer, and Hermione talked to the stag, as if he too were a boy she wanted to wheedle and fondle. He was male, so she must exert some kind of power over him. They trailed home by the fish-ponds, and Hermione told them about the quarrel of two male swans, who had striven for the love of the one lady.
The fish-ponds in front are divided in the middle by a bridge twelve braccia wide, which leads to an avenue of the same width, bounded at the sides and covered above by an unbroken vault of mulberry-trees, ten braccia in height, thus making a covered avenue three hundred braccia in length, delightful for its shade, which opens on to the high road to Prato by a gate placed between two fountains that serve to give water to travellers and animals.
Like Colonel Hutchinson and this portrait, contrary in all points to the preconceived idea, is a typical one he "could dance admirably well, but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of it; he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had great love to music and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he played masterly; he had an exact ear and judgment in other music; he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used them for his exercise; he had great judgment in paintings, graving, sculpture, and all liberal arts, and had many curiosities of value in all kinds; he took great delight in perspective glasses, and, for his other rarities was not so much affected with the antiquity as the merit of the work; he took much pleasure in improvement of grounds, in planting groves and walks and fruit trees, in opening springs, and making fish-ponds."
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