Lamias 
 
 Winter-Quarters 
 
 Alfred 
 
 x\USX1I1
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 

 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS
 
 LAMIA'S 
 
 WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 POET LAUREATE 
 
 WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SECOND THOUSAND 
 
 Hontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 l8 9 8 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 p/? 
 
 ; 6 
 
 LIST OF 
 FULL-PAGED ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 'Here and there a hurrying torrent ' 
 ' Shelter and Seclusion ' 
 'A Humble Home ' 
 'A Noble Simplicity ' 
 'Smooth-coated, soft-eyed Oxen ' 
 'A Stately Fountain ' 
 'Covering Stable and concealing Shed 
 ' Rudimentary Simplicity of Existence 
 'A Convent in the Apennines' 
 
 21 
 
 33 
 
 49 
 64 
 73 
 81 
 
 117 
 132 
 
 149 
 
 1524240
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 i 
 
 Where Apennine slopes unto Tuscan plain, 
 
 And breaks into dimples, and laughs to flowers, 
 To see where the terrors of Winter wane, 
 And out of a valley of grape and grain 
 
 There blossoms a City of domes and towers, 
 
 ii 
 
 Teuton, Lombard, and grasping Gaul, 
 
 Prince and Pontiff, have forced their way, 
 Have forded the river, and scaled the wall, 
 And made in its palaces stye and stall, 
 
 Where spears might glisten and war -steeds 
 neigh. 
 
 in 
 
 But ever since Florence was fair and young, 
 And the sun upon turret and belfry shone,
 
 viii LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 Were her windows bannered and joy-bells rung, 
 When back to his saddle the Stranger sprung, 
 And lances were lifted and pikemen gone. 
 
 IV 
 
 Yes, ever and ever till you, my Oueen, 
 
 Came over the sea that is all your own, 
 When the tear on the tip of the vine is seen, 
 And the fig-tree cressets have flamed to green, 
 And windflower wakened, and tulip blown. 
 
 Then roses were showered before your feet, 
 
 And her lily-crowned gonfalons waved above, 
 And children chanted in square and street, 
 ' All hail to the Monarch may free men greet, 
 Whose sceptre is Peace, and whose Throne is 
 Love.' 
 
 VI 
 
 And now that each snow-torrent foams and falls, 
 
 And the oreoles sing and the skylarks soar, 
 And the lithe swallow circles her rose-white walls, 
 Through the clefts of the Apennine Florence calls, 
 ' More welcome than Spring, come back once 
 more !
 
 INVOCATION ix 
 
 VII 
 
 ' Come back, for the cuckoo is on its way, 
 
 And the mountains, smiling, await your smile ; 
 And still in my olive-groves bask and stray, 
 Till the warm-winged waters and winds of May 
 Shall waft you back to your own loved Isle.' 
 
 I. Cedri, 
 
 Pian di Ripoli, Florence, 
 Lady-Day, 1898.
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 74, line 17, for "fungi" read "funghi." 
 » 8l > » 10, „ " Senti " read " Senta." 
 
 8l > » 1 3? » "zucchetoni " r,W " zucchoni." 
 „ 122, „ 14, n " ed il piu esser " read " e piii 1' esser.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 'Where is Lamia ? ' 
 
 The inquiry is one not infrequently made : 
 for, while most of us can vanish without being 
 missed, some favoured individuals there are whose 
 disappearance at once excites a sense of loss ; and 
 Lamia is one of these. The question, I need 
 scarcely say, was put by Veronica ; since the Poet 
 maintains a fine irresponsible attitude respecting 
 others as well as about himself, and, however 
 anxious I may be to keep sight of Lamia, I 
 am hardly so simple as to betray my desire. 
 & b
 
 2 LAMIA'S W1NTER-OUARTERS 
 
 But, responding with sincere alacrity to Veronica's 
 question, I protested I had not the faintest notion 
 where she was, but would at once go in search 
 of her. 
 
 Veronica's solicitude was, I suspect, prompted 
 by that deep-seated regard for decorous behaviour, 
 which, far from leaving it at home, she had 
 carefully brought abroad as peculiarly applicable 
 to foreign parts and Continental manners. She is 
 well aware that, in the matter of social observances, 
 Lamia is capable of almost any enormity ; and 
 her absence from the morning-room of the hotel 
 in the southern seaport where we were making 
 our first halt, inspired her with natural misgiving. 
 
 The search, as it turned out, was not a long 
 one. Lamia I found seated under a tall white- 
 flowering magnolia in a leafy garden hard by, 
 where oleanders already well set for bloom, though 
 still far from their flowering season, and trees that 
 for some unknown reason English people call 
 mimosas, but which they should learn to speak of 
 as acacias, and various evergreen shrubs of stately 
 stature, concerning which I should not at present 
 like to be too closely cross-questioned, offered a 
 sufficient protection against the burning December 
 morning sun, while permitting occasional glimpses
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 3 
 
 of deep-blue sky. Ostensibly, she was having a 
 further polish put on her brown leather shoes by a 
 black-eyed, black-haired, tawny-skinned urchin, who 
 entered into her humour with true Southern adapt- 
 ability, and who would have gone on performing 
 his quite unnecessary office as long as ever the 
 young lady desired. For the moment, I think, 
 she had forgotten all about him, for she had three 
 oranges in her lap, — ' One for each of you,' she 
 said, — and was delicately dividing the other for 
 her own delectation. A large spray of Parma 
 violets, fastened to her attractive person, I need 
 scarcely say exactly where they should be, com- 
 pleted her recent purchases. 
 
 ' Do you mind asking Veronica to come and 
 see me?' she said, 'for I never was so happy in 
 my life.' 
 
 I bethought me of the somewhat stern inter- 
 rogatory, ' Where is Lamia ? ' and merely observed 
 that Veronica was superintending the final opera- 
 tions of the maid in the matter of repacking, and 
 probably would wish not to be disturbed. 
 
 ' How strange ! ' said Lamia, ' and how tastes 
 differ ! The smell of canvas covers and leather 
 straps is particularly disagreeable to me ; whereas 
 the island of Zante itself could not be more
 
 4 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 fragrant than the scent of these violets and oranges, 
 to say nothing of the magnolia flowers overhead, 
 and that delightful son of the sunshine at my feet. 
 And to think that, say thirty-six hours ago, I 
 roused you and the Poet from your slumbers to 
 look upon a snow-white world ! I daresay you 
 will think me very capricious, but this is the 
 garden that I love.' 
 
 ' Les a hens out toujour s tort,' said the Poet, 
 emerging from a shady avenue behind her. At 
 the sound of his voice she rose somewhat hastily, 
 as though a performance quite good enough for 
 me was scarcely consonant with the half-courtly 
 veneration she entertains for him ; gave the 
 oranges in her lap and a franc-piece to the smiling 
 young urchin, who thought her more fascinating 
 than ever, and said reproachfully, ' Then why do 
 you absent yourself ? ' 
 
 ' That was hardly what I meaned,' he replied. 
 ' I was referring rather to the position of inferiority 
 you assign to the garden that we love, because it is 
 now far away from us. But you are quite right, 
 and are going to Italy in the proper spirit. 
 Whatever you see there, admire consumedly, and 
 you cannot be far wrong.' 
 
 ' Are we not in Italy already ? '
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 5 
 
 'Almost. Its vestibule is Provence.' 
 
 I suppose it is because we are very simple folk, 
 and lead at home a rather primitive life, that we 
 find everything new which most other people 
 find familiar, and so many things attractive that 
 the bulk of the world treat as undeserving of 
 attention. Along that magical coast, where we 
 turned our gaze first to the sea-fringe, then to 
 the hill declivities, then back again to the white- 
 laced bays, and never being able to determine 
 which were the more beautiful, I observe that 
 persons who have travelled many hundreds of 
 miles in order to enjoy the sunshine and glamour 
 of the South, are well content to make this en- 
 trancing journey in a railway carriage, pulling 
 down the blinds if the sun be a trifle too hot, 
 and conning their newspaper or turning over the 
 leaves of some conventional novel, in any case. 
 That was not our way of travelling, which was a 
 good deal more leisurely and more old-fashioned. 
 We should have liked to find ourselves behind 
 Veronica's ponies, but our hired vehicle did well 
 enough ; and, while we never asked our cheerfully 
 communicative driver to quicken his pace, we 
 frequently begged him to slacken it, and over and
 
 6 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 over again bade him halt altogether. Although, 
 save to Lamia, the road was no new one, we all 
 alike had fresh unsophisticated eyes for it, and all 
 of us found it a veritable wonder-world. Indeed, 
 I could not help reflecting that we behaved very 
 much as we behave at home in the garden that we 
 love, declaring that the last blue creek, or the last 
 secular olive-grove, was the most wonderful we 
 had yet seen, for no better reason than that it was 
 the last. 
 
 ' And they told me,' said Lamia, ' that the 
 scenery is so monotonous, and that bay follows 
 bay, and mountain repeats mountain, with pro- 
 voking uniformity. Why, there are not any 
 two alike. I only wish human beings were as 
 diverse.' 
 
 ' It all depends,' said the Poet, ' whether you 
 look lovingly or unlovingly, passionately or dis- 
 passionately. One must be intoxicated by scenery, 
 in order to appreciate it. Tranquil survey is not 
 enough, and scrutinising curiosity is fatal.' 
 
 ' I am sure,' said Lamia, ' Veronica is not 
 intoxicated. She is tranquillity itself 
 
 'Veronica, you mean,' was his reply, 'does not 
 effervesce. But her silence is, perhaps, the measure 
 of her emotion.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 7 
 
   O stop ! stop ! I must have some of those 
 anemones.' 
 
 How often a kindred need of this kind arose 
 on the part of Lamia, it would be hard to say ; but, 
 by degrees, every part of the carriage that was not 
 occupied by ourselves was filled with tulips, wind- 
 flowers, roses, and long branches of early-flowering 
 golden acacia. 
 
 ' You baby ! ' said Veronica, ' what are you 
 going to do with them all ? ' 
 
 'You shall see, when luncheon-hour has 
 arrived.' 
 
 ' Which I think it now has,' I ventured to 
 suggest. 
 
 Thereupon we came to a standstill ; the driver 
 took bit and bridle ofT his willing little nags, and 
 replaced them with well-filled nose-bags, while we 
 unloaded our hampers, that were as commodiously 
 as they were generously stocked. The unpacking 
 of them went on under the skilful direction of 
 Veronica, who would no more have dreamed of 
 allowing us to lunch al fresco without spotless 
 table-cloth, neat napkins, and all the apparatus of 
 civilisation, than in her parlour at home. But she 
 allowed Lamia to select the spot ; and the choice, 
 though made from romantic rather than from
 
 8 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 practical impulse, proved to be not wanting in 
 comfort. Under a carob-tree, the first Lamia 
 had ever seen, the cloth was spread ; and then 
 she scattered rather than arranged her lately 
 gathered flowers, with infinite taste. A short 
 distance away, as we looked under the olive-trees 
 across the ruddy clods and accidental wild-flowers, 
 were the innumerable dimples of the amiable sea ; 
 and, did we turn our heads, slopes of terraced 
 fertility mounted gradually toward deciduous 
 clusters of woodland, and peaks of more accen- 
 tuated pine. 
 
 ' Will it be very unromantic,' asked Lamia, 
 ' to seem hungry ? Because if it would, as I 
 should not like to hurt any one's feelings, I can 
 sate the edge of appetite with bare imagination of 
 a feast, or, at most, with the unsubstantial pageant 
 of a mandarin orange.' 
 
 Veronica's reply was to cut some solid slices of 
 galantine of fowl, and to tell me to do the same 
 to one of those long rolls of crisp crust which 
 contrast so favourably with the semi-barbarous 
 baker's bread of our own beloved island. The 
 Poet, as of right, withdrew the tow from the 
 withy-bound flask of ruby wine, saying to me, and 
 to me only, as he did so, ' Siccis omnia nam dura
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 9 
 
 deus proposuit' It was our first open-air meal 
 under the southern sky ; and even Veronica, who, 
 as we all know, is rather on the side of indoor 
 festivity at home, could not protest that, in the 
 shelter Lamia had chosen for us, it was a touch 
 too cold for the pleasant and perfectly safe satis- 
 faction of our appetite. 
 
 ' Is it always like this ? ' asked Lamia. 
 
 ' Far from it, 1 I was going to reply ; but the 
 Poet anticipated me. 
 
 ' Yes, always, Lamia ! always, always, always ! 
 No one deserves to travel who anticipates any- 
 thing less agreeable than what he is enjoying at 
 the moment. Should it ever be different, let us 
 hope we shall know how to meet it. Meanwhile, 
 let us think as little as possible of to-morrow.' 
 
 ' We can all see,' said Lamia, ' that such was 
 the spirit in which you travelled in your youth. 
 In your rhythmical record of the journey which 
 you took — not with Veronica, I believe, — along 
 this meandering coast-line, there is never a stanza, 
 a line, even a word, to indicate that the myrtle 
 ever ceases to bloom, or that the sun ever forgets 
 to shine.' 
 
 'You forget there is a terrific storm,' said 
 Veronica, whose acquaintance with the Poet's
 
 io LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 verse, though less frequently exhibited, is, I must 
 confess, a good deal more intimate than Lamia's. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Lamia, quite undisconcerted, ' only 
 to disappear with the return of dawn, and never 
 to be heard of again ; and thenceforth we are told 
 of nothing but genial airs, temperate sunshine, 
 almond-trees and peach-trees ablow, and oleanders 
 reddening into bloom.' 
 
 ' You must remember,' said the Poet, ' that the 
 journey was made in the very flush and heyday of 
 the Spring ; and, if I have in any way exaggerated 
 what I then beheld, was it not the proper ex- 
 aggeration of rapture ? It is the instinctive 
 function of Art to reject, to select, and rightly 
 to magnify what remains. Looking back, I seem 
 to have omitted much, but to have exaggerated 
 nothing. Have you not observed that the first 
 impression we receive of scenery, as, indeed, of 
 people likewise, is the one that abides with us? 
 Many times since, I have beheld this tract betwixt 
 mountain and main veiled in mist, dimmed by 
 dust, even powdered with snow. But I always 
 think of it as I saw it first.' 
 
 ' Do you often think of Olympia ? ' Lamia took 
 courage to ask, seeing the Poet so effusive. ' Was 
 she very lovely ? '
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS n 
 
 ' She was lovely beyond words,' he answered, 
 readily responding to her humour. ' In fact, my 
 recollection of her is that she was as perfect as the 
 scenery in which she moved and had her being.' 
 
 ' How nice ! I wish I had been Olympia, except 
 that she seems to have had rather a scanty allow- 
 ance of luggage for a longish journey, and no 
 appetite to speak of, seeing that, if I remember 
 rightly, she was quite satisfied with a missal and 
 some dried figs. I fear, after all, I should have 
 been but ill equipped for the character.' 
 
 Veronica, to show her displeasure at Lamia's 
 levity with things deemed sacred, had risen from 
 the olive bole on which she was sitting, and moved 
 towards the sea. Lamia, quick to take a hint, 
 went on, but with an altered voice : 
 
 ' Tell me, dear Poet, what took you first to 
 Italy.' 
 
 * An irrepressible longing. It was first aroused in 
 me, I think, by reading, in tender years, Arnold's 
 History of Romt\ whereby I believed as firmly in 
 the Palatine she-wolf, the leap into the Curtian 
 Gulf, the Rape of the Sabine Women, and the 
 nocturnal interviews of Numa and Egeria, as in 
 any of the immediate facts of one's schoolboy 
 existence ; nor did the iconoclastic criticism, with
 
 12 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 which one perforce made acquaintance later on, 
 in any degree shake that cherished credulity. 
 What romantic prose originated, was consummated 
 by yet more wizard verse. To no mediasval 
 scholar was Virgil more of a magician than to me, 
 and not even Dante would say of him with more 
 truth — 
 
 Tu se 1 lo mio maestro e i! mio autore. 
 
 I kept repeating, long before I could translate 
 them into action, the words addressed by iEneas 
 to his immortal Mother, when she appeared to him 
 in the guise of a huntress in the Carthaginian forest, 
 I tali am quaero patriam ; for already it seemed to 
 be a second fatherland. And when, at length, the 
 moment arrived that the longing could be in- 
 dulged, the only words I could find to express my 
 joy were — 
 
 Tendimus i?i Latium, sedcs ubi fata quietas 
 Ostendunt. 
 
 ' Stop, stop,' said Lamia, ' I wish I understood 
 Latin, but you know I don't.' 
 
 ' Then,' he replied, 'do as I did before I first 
 went to Italy, being then much of the age that you 
 are now. I bought the best Italian grammar I
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS n 
 
 could find, and worked at it as a schoolboy is made 
 to work at the elementary rules of a dead language. 
 I studied the dictionary in like manner ; so that, 
 when I went to the new land, I might not long 
 feel quite a stranger there.' 
 
 ' The very thing I have been doing, until my 
 brain seems a repository for the various inflections 
 of the subjunctive mood ; and, as Veronica corrects 
 my pronunciation, I hope, by the time we reach 
 Latium, to be more or less understanded ot the 
 people. But please do not let us concern ourselves 
 with either my shortcomings or my accomplish- 
 ments ; but rather tell me, while I make you some 
 coffee in this windless atmosphere, how you first 
 went to Italy, and when.' 
 
 ' It is a long story and will occupy some little 
 time.' 
 
 ' And so will the making of coffee, if it is to be 
 made properly,' said Veronica, who had now 
 returned to us, and to whose superior powers 
 Lamia only too willingly surrendered that delicate 
 task. 
 
 ' One likes to think,' he began, ' that Heaven 
 interests itself in one's training ; and so I used 
 self- flatteringly to conceive that a special care 
 arranged the conditions under which one first
 
 i+ LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 beheld the shore of Liguria. I had taken boat 
 at Marseilles direct for Leghorn ; and, in ordinary 
 circumstances, we should have passed some thirty- 
 six hours on the open sea, far from sight or sur- 
 mise of land. It was, therefore, through no in- 
 telligent design of one's own, but through the 
 sheer bounty of the gods, that the engine broke 
 down a few hours after we had left Marseilles, but 
 not so completely but that we could continue our 
 journey. The result was that we had to hug the 
 shore nearly the whole way. It was the September 
 equinox, and the moon was full ; so night and day 
 we gazed on that bewitching coast ; bay after bay, 
 town after town, village after village, mountain- 
 range after mountain-range, unfolding themselves 
 to my untravelled gaze. In the course of our 
 present journey, we shall pass ever and again 
 through gloomy arcades and narrow ways whose 
 unseemly aspect will probably shock Veronica and 
 perhaps please none of us. But distance, the 
 enchanter, presented them to me then as consisting 
 mainly of granite palaces and marble belfries ; and 
 in every fold of every hill nestled villages that 
 seemed built of porphyry, and wherefrom soared, 
 intermediaries between earth and heaven, many- 
 storied campanili, whose chimes, as they pealed for
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 15 
 
 Angelus or Ave Maria, we could sometimes 
 faintly hear. There was no cloud in the sky, 
 scarce a ripple on the water, nothing but sun- 
 light or moonlight in the air. Sleep would have 
 been a desecration of so ethereal a scene ; and 
 I well remember watching the rounded moon wax 
 paler and paler as the morning sun reddened up 
 over the wave, and then sink, as in despair of 
 rivalry, behind the hills.' 
 
 ' O, I say, it's boiling ! ' said Lamia. 
 
 I hope everybody knows that, in making coffee, 
 that is exactly what it should not be allowed to 
 do ; and I fear Lamia had a malicious pleasure in 
 finding Veronica for once at fault. I cannot but 
 suppose that Veronica had heard the foregoing 
 story many times before, but she catches fire so 
 readily from any one's enthusiasm for Italy, that 
 she had almost allowed the coffee to do the same. 
 But she so deftly rescued it from hurt, that, un- 
 heeding of Lamia's exclamation, he went on : 
 
 ' I saw, what we shall not see, many a form of 
 half-mysterious loveliness flit by me under flowing 
 veil down the steps of narrow streets in the 
 Ligurian Capital,— for we touched for a few hours 
 at Genoa, — and heard, what we shall not heat-, 
 jovial-looking monks vociferating Vespers in the
 
 1 6 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 Baptistery at Pisa ; and then, Lamia, then ! I was 
 borne, I scarce know how, along Val d 1 Arno 
 through unending vineyard-avenues that seemed 
 to have dyed the leaves with the colour of their 
 purple fruit, and amongst which sun -bronzed 
 youths, who appeared to disport rather than to 
 toil, were singing love -songs to gaily- kirtled 
 maidens. The fawn - coloured bovi oscillated 
 homeward to, the wine-vat, dragging after them 
 the grape-piled carri with their wooden wheels ; 
 children and lizards, seemingly of kindred race, 
 twisted in and out among the workers ; and, 
 stately of stature and sober of mien, dark-haired 
 matrons stood outside their spacious but un- 
 luxurious homes, plaiting straw with rhythmically- 
 moving fingers that never seemed to tire. Then 
 came hills more rounded, softer declivities, a 
 gradual narrowing of the plain, a forest of domes, 
 belfries, and towers, and I was in Florence.' 
 
 ; Why was your visit so brief?' 
 
 ' You ask why. Can one give a reason for 
 anything one does in one's youth? Only I re- 
 member, as I reluctantly quitted it, I vowed to 
 return to it ere long.' 
 
 ' And you kept your vow,' said Veronica. 
 
 ' 1 remember,' said Lamia.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 17 
 
 ' You remember what ? ' I asked. ' You must 
 have been in your cradle.' 
 
 ' Then I suppose,' she replied, ' I was extra- 
 ordinarily precocious. 
 
 ' The sickle hath performed its work, 
 
 The storm-gusts sweep the aspens bare, 
 Careering clouds and shadows mirk 
 Cow the disheartened air. 
 
 'No swallow circles round the roof, 
 
 No chirp redeems the dripping shed ; 
 The very gables frown reproof, 
 " Why not already fled ? " ' 
 
 4 Lamia is very unmerciful,' said the Poet, ' and 
 
 does not allow one to forget the sins of one's 
 
 youth. But it is quite true that, before the leaves 
 
 had fallen, one was again on one's way to Italy ; 
 
 not along this sybaritic coast, but through the 
 
 austere gorges, now green, now gray, of the 
 
 Simplon. When, having left the summit behind 
 
 us, we zigzagged downward, the mountains began 
 
 to wear a gentler aspect, the vegetation seemed 
 
 more ample and more unrestrained, the air more 
 
 soft, the sky farther off and more ethereal ; and 
 
 suddenly I caught sight of a huge granite cross, 
 
 on the outstretched arms of which was deeply cut 
 
 the word Italia ! I trembled with delight ; and, 
 
 c
 
 1 8 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 from that hour to this, the word " Italy ' : has 
 never lost its magic. On we deviously descended, 
 past slopes of intermittent chestnut groves 
 whose leaves, fantastically faded, had not yet 
 fallen, till my driver exclaimed, " Eccolo ! 
 Signore ! ' and there basked Baveno by the edge 
 of the lake in the setting sun, and the Borromean 
 Islands seemed rather floating in the air than rest- 
 ing on the water. It was a true Saint Luke's 
 summer, where all things seemed stationary in a 
 season of arrested change before the winter winds 
 should arise and everything pass away. I have 
 never again seen Nature in a mood of such abso- 
 lute abstraction and self-contemplation ; and she 
 communicated to one's spirit her own autumnal 
 detachment from the seasons that are feverish with 
 growth, and the seasons that are shaken by decay.' 
 
 The description of suspended animation in the 
 natural world seemed to infect us with a kindred 
 tranquillity, and for awhile there followed it a 
 sympathetic silence. 
 
 ' I know,' said Lamia at length, ' your aversion 
 to the curiosity of the interviewer. But is it 
 permissible to ask if it might not be worth while 
 to record some such reminiscences as you have just 
 recited ; in a word, — do not be angry with me, — •
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 19 
 
 to do what so many other people have done, and 
 to write an autobiography ? ' 
 
 ' I have written it,' he said. 
 
 ' And when shall you publish it ? ' 
 
 ' Dear Lamia, it is published already.' 
 
 ' I do not understand,' she said, ' for certainly 
 it is unknown to me.' 
 
 * I fancy not,' he replied. ' Indeed, I gather 
 that you have paid me the compliment of reading 
 much of it more than once.' 
 
 As Lamia still seemed puzzled, Veronica broke 
 in with a slight touch of impatience : 
 
 ' You are scarcely as intelligent as usual, Lamia. 
 Surely what he means you to understand is that a 
 man's works are his autobiography.' 
 
 ' Exactly. But enough surely — perhaps some- 
 what too much — of that subject ; and our little 
 horses are ringing a carillon with their bells, as if 
 to remind us it is time we were again on our way.' 
 
 ' One moment,' said Lamia, raising her hand 
 deprecatingly. ' Before we quit this first fair spot 
 of rest in Southern air, grace must be said for our 
 al fresco repast. You know what form we like 
 that grace to take. Be it as brief as you will, but 
 it must be in verse.' 
 
 ' We are not in Sicily,' he said, ' nor am I
 
 20 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 Theocritus. But Veronica asked me the other day 
 if I could give her some idea of the short pastoral 
 idylls written two thousand years ago, which not 
 all of us can read, but of which all of us have 
 heard. I am not so presumptuous as to suppose I 
 have succeeded in responding adequately to her 
 wish' ; but perhaps our almost Sicilian surroundings, 
 and the indulgent temper of the hour, may confer 
 on the attempt something of the appropriateness it 
 would otherwise lack. 
 
 ' Shepherd swains that feed your flocks 
 'Mong the grassy-rooted rocks, 
 While I still see sun and moon, 
 Grant to me this simple boon : 
 As I sit on craggy seat, 
 And your kids and young lambs blear, 
 Let who on the pierced pipe blows 
 Play the sweetest air he knows. 
 And, when I no more shall hear 
 Grasshopper or chanticleer, 
 Strew green bay and yellow broom 
 On the silence of my tomb ; 
 And, still giving as you gave, 
 Milk a she-goat at my grave. 
 For, though life and joy be fled, 
 Dear are love-gifts to the dead.' l 
 
 1 The Poet has since told me that these lines are a free paraphrase of an 
 idyll by Leonidas of Tarentum, who lived in the time of Pyrrhus.
 
   
 
 
 1M 
 
 'here and there a hurrying torrent'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 21 
 
 Then up we got, and onward we went, past 
 rocks, and waves, and arbutus, and white heath, — 
 not the white heath of home, but towering and 
 flowering fifteen or even twenty feet into the air, — 
 and Cineraria maritima, and Bacchic ivy, groups 
 of eucalyptus and acacia, and glimpses of hill and 
 sky, with here and there a hurrying zigzag torrent. 
 What seaweed there was, was golden, and the 
 surging and swirling of the silvery water over and 
 among it and the red rocks was strangely beautiful. 
 The liliputian waves kept coming on and breaking, 
 as in any other sea, but never advancing. As 
 Lamia said, what motion there was seemed purpose- 
 less motion, resembling the sport of children rather 
 than the work of grown-up people. But her 
 greatest delight was yet to come ; for, late that 
 afternoon, she beheld the first orange-grove glitter- 
 ing and glistening on the sunny outskirts of a 
 gray-roofed little town, whose bright greenjalousies 
 more than relieved what would otherwise have 
 seemed its somewhat sombre aspect. Thoughtful 
 Veronica made her take the seat in the carriage 
 where she might command them best, and her 
 spoken raptures were what we all, though more 
 travelled than she, silently felt. 
 
 ' O, the Garden that you love is nothing,
 
 22 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 nothing, nothing, compared with this, which is not 
 a garden at all, but a fairy grove of light and 
 lustre. Do let us stop and pluck some of the 
 golden fruit ! ' 
 
 ' Better not,' said Veronica, ' for doing so might 
 dissipate your dream. They are lovely to look at, 
 but indifferent to the taste. Neither is it their 
 best season. Wait to gather oranges till, if ever, 
 you are at Sorrento in the heart of May.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the Poet, ' these are well enough ; 
 but they are a feeble imitation of their fellows in 
 the real South, the true Ausonia.' 
 
 Lamia was as ready to believe everything she 
 was told as to admire everything she saw ; and 
 her only lament was that, even though moving 
 at a leisurely pace, beautiful scene after beauti- 
 ful scene was withdrawn from her gaze along 
 that winding road, almost before she could really 
 behold it. 
 
 There came a stage in our journey which, as 
 you may suppose, was not by any means one of a 
 single day, when I felt certain a question would 
 arise likely to lead to some difference of opinion, 
 and I was curious to see how it would arrange 
 itself. But, like Lamia herself, who was the person 
 mainly interested, I carefully avoided all allusion
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 23 
 
 to it. She, with infinitely more tact, as becomes a 
 woman, kept gradually and dexterously leading 
 up to it, while seeming to he quite unconscious 
 of it, and indeed as if moving in quite an opposite 
 direction. 
 
 * 
 
 ' Now,' said Veronica, with that perfect freedom 
 from afterthought or unspoken inner thought so 
 characteristic of her, ' now we turn inland and 
 ascend. Say good-bye to the coast-line, which you 
 will not see again till we reach the summit/ 
 
 ' And say good-bye likewise,' added the Poet, 
 ' to the Provencal tongue, that seems to bear 
 much about the same relation to French that the 
 Venetian dialect bears to Italian, and to have 
 retained the indefinable charm of flowers, per- 
 fume, and poetry that hovered round the cradle 
 of modern verse, and has been handed down to 
 us from the lips of lovely ladies and obeisant 
 troubadours.' 
 
 Lamia showed no appreciation of these observa- 
 tions, as I could well perceive, and went on 
 inwardly concerting a well-calculated strategy of 
 her own. 
 
 'How long will it take us,' she asked, with 
 apparent unconcern, ' to reach the summit ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps a couple of hours/
 
 2+ LAMIA'S W1NTER-OUARTERS 
 
 ' And to descend ? ' 
 
 ' To descend where ? ' asked Veronica, who, I 
 think, began to suspect what was fermenting in 
 Lamia's mind. 
 
 ' Anywhere/ answered Lamia. ' I mean where 
 we reach, as you said, the coast-line again.' 
 
 ' An hour perhaps,' I said. 
 
 Then followed a short interval of silence or 
 truce, broken by Lamia, who, far too strategic 
 to attack the question in front, was now evidently 
 meditating a flank movement which interested me 
 greatly. 
 
 ' Do you remember my once saying that I 
 wished I were a poet ? ' 
 
 ' Dear Lamia, I can only say to you, as one so 
 often has to write to unknown correspondents who 
 send one verse, the intention of which is better 
 than its execution, — 
 
 ' To have the great poetic heart 
 Is more than all poetic fame.' 
 
 ' But, when one has neither,' she replied, bring- 
 ing her forces rapidly into action, and resolved at all 
 costs to turn Veronica's position, ' it is so nice and 
 so advantageous to be taken about by one who has 
 both.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 25 
 
 To the Poet himself, I am sure, this seemed 
 rather wide of the mark ; but it was just one of 
 those complimentary exaggerations which Lamia 
 invariably employs when she wants to propitiate 
 Veronica. 
 
 ' By one who has both,' she went on, ' and 
 accordingly is everywhere vouchsafed a welcome not 
 only for himself, but for all who travel in his train. 
 It was not very comfortable last night at that 
 picturesque locanda ; and I confess I am looking 
 forward to the prosaic domestic comforts that are 
 promised us this evening.' 
 
 I confess I did not follow the workings of her 
 mind, and almost began to suspect that I had 
 imputed to her a design of which she was innocent. 
 But I was quickly confirmed again in my original 
 surmise. 
 
 ' Was this country very different when you saw 
 it first from what it is now ? ' 
 
 ' Well, yes, and no,' replied the Poet, falling 
 into the trap. ' Different where Pleasure and 
 Fashion have invaded it : not different where 
 Nature maintains her native dominion. Along the 
 road, then the only one, we are now ascending, 
 nothing seems to be altered. What change has 
 taken place you will perceive very shortly, when
 
 26 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 we arrive at the summit. Then one looked down 
 only on the austere towers and jutting promontory 
 of a rock-bound sea-moated Principality. Now, 
 — but never mind ! ' 
 
 'But I do mind. I am greatly interested in 
 these changes.' Then suddenly, ' Veronica ! Has 
 it not struck you that we shall arrive at our 
 journey's end to-day in the middle of the afternoon, 
 when you know you never like guests to present 
 themselves ? Do you not think it would be better 
 if we got there towards tea-time ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I think it would ; and we can easily loiter 
 along the road.' 
 
 ' Dear Veronica ! ' said Lamia in her most 
 impulsive accents and her most irresistible manner, 
 ' do let us loiter there then, if only for an 
 hour ! ' 
 
 ' Where ? ' said Veronica. 
 
 ' O, you know what I mean. There ! ' 
 
 ' But we should have to retrace our steps.' 
 
 'A couple of miles onlv,' I said, seizing the 
 opportunity to curry favour with Lamia. 
 
 ' It is odious,' said Veronica. 
 
 ' It certainly is,' added the Poet ; ' the most 
 offensive place I know.' 
 
 ' It was not Spiaggiascura, was it ! ' exclaimed
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OL/ARTERS 27 
 
 Lamia in a tone of pathetic tenderness I never 
 heard equalled, laying her hand gently on the 
 Poet's arm. ' If it was, of course, I will not 
 ask it. 1 
 
 ' No, it was not Spiaggiascura,' he replied. 
 ' Better to think of that as a name that has no 
 local habitation.' 
 
 Lamia had conquered. That last inimitable 
 couch of pathos, which was moreover, 1 am sure, 
 entirely sincere, had disarmed Veronica's scruples 
 and the Poet's fastidiousness. By the time three 
 more hours had gone by, we had seen it all, 
 and were sitting under a brown awning, par- 
 taking of iced coffee to the strains of a Hungarian 
 band. 
 
 ' I am afraid I rather like it,' said Lamia. 
 
 ' Why should you not ? ' said the Poet. 
 
 ' Not the gambling, surely ? ' asked Veronica. 
 
 ' Not the gambling, dear Veronica, so long as 1 
 have you at my side to buttress my somewhat shaky 
 virtue.' Then turning to me, 'You know, of ok!, 
 that I have low tastes.' 
 
 ' Well,' observed the Poet, ' I confess that an 
 earnest desire to be indulgent to whatever is human 
 has never succeeded in eradicating the feeling that 
 gambling is the lowest of all human diversions ;
 
 28 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 and, though here you need neither share nor 
 even see it unless you wish, it seems to me to cast 
 its ignoble shadow over the entire place, and to 
 dethrone it from the majestic position with which 
 Nature originally invested it. It has infected the 
 architecture, vulgarised the sea-front, corrupted the 
 very air, and exercised a malefic influence on 
 manners.' 
 
 ' And it has certainly spoilt the looks of the 
 men and women,' said Lamia. ' I never saw so 
 many ugly people as round those fascinating 
 tables.' 
 
 ' Gambling would make any one ugly,' said 
 Veronica. 
 
 ' Then I will never gamble,' said Lamia. 
 
 ' Let us leave this,' I ventured to suggest, ' and 
 sit among the flower-beds, somewhat too artificial 
 though I allow they are.' 
 
 ' Thev look combed and curled,' said Lamia. 
 ' I am sure I am quite as natural as they arc.' 
 
 ' Dante had so exhaustive an imagination,' ob- 
 served the Poet, when we had shifted our position, 
 ' that it is not easy to suggest any form of repugnant 
 penalty not to be met with in the Divine Comedy. 
 But I think what is colloquially called a Hell might 
 be added to his repulsive Circles. What Lamia
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 29 
 
 said just now is strikingly true. The place has a 
 malign effect on people's appearance. Look at 
 those respectable persons — for I am sure they are 
 such — trying to appear almost the reverse. Great- 
 granddaughters of the Pilgrim Fathers are collected 
 here, just as cold no doubt as their grandmothers, 
 but striving to seem otherwise. Looking back to 
 those years when I first wandered along this lovely 
 region, when this place had neither existence nor 
 name, I cannot but regret the simplicity that has 
 passed away. Nor can I think it is well for the 
 idlers of material civilisation to parade their 
 opulent ennui before a primitive people whom they 
 will probably end by infecting with their restlessness 
 and their discontent.' 
 
 ' I can see,' said Lamia, ' this is my first and 
 last visit to this vicious Circle.' 
 
 4 Come, then,' he answered, rising, and we all 
 did the same, ' and see how unnecessarily intolerant 
 one can be, and how narrow is the slip of territory 
 that modern pleasures have filched from peasant 
 life and rustic toil. In a few minutes we shall be 
 among the olive woods. Are we not there already ? 
 See ! bare-headed women are washing the clothes 
 of their husbands and children in the Grima. 
 Look there, beyond ! The goats are clambering
 
 30 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 up the precipitous slopes, and browsing on the 
 myrtle. What now do we behold through sunny 
 openings in dense dark foliage ? Meditating 
 mountains and laughing sea. Let us recant all 
 we have said. There is room enough in this large 
 world for everybody, and manifestly quite enough 
 for us. Man has wrung from Nature a slight 
 concession along the coast, but here, as everywhere, 
 the Hinterland belongs to Heaven.' 
 
 There was little exaggeration in the words. An 
 ascent as easy as it was brief carried us beyond the 
 sights and sounds of what Veronica had, with just 
 alliteration, stigmatised as ' cosmopolitan canaille,' 
 and shortly we were sitting on myrtle-cushioned 
 boulders, and gazing out, through gaps in the 
 silvery foliage of the olive-trees, at a sea unchanged 
 since the days when Hercules is reputed to have 
 traversed it. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Lamia penitently ; ' I own this is 
 better than the chink of five-franc pieces, the 
 lavishly gilded ceilings, and the hungry faces 
 fastened on the gyrations of a whirligig. Yet, the 
 rooms are crowded, and we have the woods to 
 ourselves. The perversity that governs the lives 
 of so many of us is, I have often felt, a strong 
 argument against Free Will ; and never seemed it
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 31 
 
 more so than here where, in the most enchanting 
 spot I have as yet beheld, men and women are 
 most artificial, and most intent on the ugliest of 
 pursuits.' 
 
 Thereupon — for have you not remarked that 
 the oldest. subjects of discourse are precisely those 
 which best preserve their freshness ? — the conversa- 
 tion, in this mountain solitude, began to travel, if 
 somewhat discursively, over trite ground, in the 
 course of which Lamia rather ingeniously suggested 
 that, as with every other human faculty, our will 
 is partly free, in part under the sway of necessity. 
 The discussion, if discussion it can be called, was 
 confined to three of us ; for the Poet remained 
 a silent listener. 
 
 ' Have you nothing,' said Veronica at length, 
 ' to contribute to our deliberations ? Can you not 
 give us any help in our perplexity ? ' 
 
 I almost think I can,' he said, ' but not by 
 any formal dialectic. Yet is not a universal 
 conviction, of which it is impossible for human 
 beings to divest themselves, as convincing as the 
 most logical demonstration ? Once after listening, 
 by no means for the first time, to the arguments 
 you have yet again been urging, there came to me 
 the following reflections : —
 
 32 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 FREE WILL AND FATE 
 
 ' You ask me why I envy not 
 
 The Monarch on his throne. 
 It is that I myself have got 
 
 A Kingdom of my own : 
 Kingdom by Free Will divine 
 Made inalienably mine, 
 
 Where over motions blind and brute 
 I live and reign supreme, a Sovereign absolute. 
 
 ii 
 
 ' Ebbing and flowing as the seas, 
 
 And surging but to drown, 
 Think you that I will pass to these 
 
 My Sceptre and my Crown ? 
 Unto rebel passions give 
 Empire and prerogative ? 
 
 They are attendants in my train, 
 To come when I command, and crouch as I ordain. 
 
 in 
 
 'If Will by long succession be 
 
 Not arbiter of Fate, 
 Assail its majesty, and see 
 
 If it doth abdicate. 
 Chains that do the body bind 
 Cannot manacle the mind. 
 
 What fetters may the heart control, 
 Nor doth the Tyrant live that can enslave the soul.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 33 
 
 IV 
 
 'In Spring, when linnets lift their voice 
 
 To praise the Lord and bless, 
 They are thus punctual of free choice, 
 
 Detesting waywardness. 
 Throughout earth, and sky, and sea, 
 Law is loving liberty, 
 
 That could, but will not, go astray, 
 And, free though to rebel, delightcth to obey. 
 
 v 
 'And Spirit, though encased in clay, 
 To sense's grovelling mood 
 Accepteth not, befall what may, 
 
 Ignoble servitude. 
 In the faggot thrust the torch, 
 Till the flame-tongues search and scorch. 
 
 Calmly the martyr mounts the pyre, 
 And smiles amid the smoke, and prays above the fire. 
 
 VI 
 
 ' Nor is it Fate directs the waves, 
 
 Or dominates the wind : 
 They are God's servants, not His slaves. 
 
 And they surmise His mind. 
 If the planets walk aright 
 Though the dim and trackless night, 
 
 Nor their true pathway ever miss, 
 Know ye it is because their Will is one with His ! ' 
 
 An hour or so later, just as mountain and main 
 
 D
 
 34 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 began to exchange the resplendent garments of 
 sundown for twilight's more sober mantle, Veronica 
 leaned forward, and, pointing to a motionless 
 figure that with dark flowing plumes and glitter- 
 ing bayonet stood out silhouetted against the sky, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 ' See, Lamia ! You are in Italy.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER -QUARTERS 
 
 ' I wonder,' said Lamia, ' who invented the phrase, 
 " the sunny South " ? ' 
 
 ( A poet, no doubt,' I answered, with perhaps a 
 slight touch of malice ; ' one who, in Bacon's 
 phrase, accommodates the shows of things to the 
 affections of the mind.' 
 
 ' That is all very well when you are not in 
 immediate contact with the things themselves. 
 But here we have been for forty-eight hours, and 
 we have not seen the sun yet. Tuscany could 
 hardly have behaved worse.'
 
 36 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ' All of us, even the most prosaic,' said the 
 Poet, ' are makers of phrases only approximately 
 true ; but even to-morrow perhaps you will have 
 to own that this southward-sloping coast is not 
 undeserving of its fame.' 
 
 He proved to be right. The following sunrise 
 rebuked Lamia's lament ; and, when we assembled 
 at breakfast in our English fashion, she declared 
 she could have dressed before the open window, 
 had Veronica but permitted it. 
 
 Still let it be confessed that ' the sunny South ' 
 is a phrase that partakes of some exaggeration. 
 The South is sunnier, much sunnier, than the 
 North ; but it, too, can have its days of gloom, 
 and even its weeks of capricious temper. More- 
 over, there is South, and South ; and, despite 
 Lamia's somewhat hazardous assertion that 
 Tuscany could hardly have been more inclement 
 than it had been in our new quarters for the 
 first two days after our arrival, there is, as the 
 rest of us well knew, a vast difference between 
 its winter climate and that of the favoured 
 region where, for Lamia's sake, we awhile were 
 halting. 
 
 ' Veronica, you grow more wonderful every 
 day,' she exclaimed, under the influence of all-
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 37 
 
 glorifying sunlight. l You have discovered a 
 paradise, by sheer intuition.' 
 
 It is not the first time allusion has been made 
 to Veronica's executive talents. They are so much 
 greater than the rest of us possess, that, when 
 anything serviceable has to be done, she reduces us 
 all to insignificance. Without counsel or assistance 
 from any one, and entirely by correspondence, 
 she had procured for us, for three months, a home 
 that we all, with enthusiastic sincerity, declared to 
 be enchanting. If you think that an easy matter, 
 I can only say, ' Try for yourselves.' It is this 
 special difficulty that drives so many people who 
 spend the winter months in the South of Europe 
 to pass them in hotels. One and all we had 
 avowed that we would sooner a thousand times 
 remain at home than resort to that depressing ex- 
 pedient. Yet pretentious, trim, and conventional 
 villas, with their cut -and -combed lawns, their 
 formal palm-trees and dracsenas, and their beds of 
 dubious - coloured cinerarias, are the alternative 
 that, for the most part, remains ; and I imagine 
 you know that would have consorted but little 
 better with our tastes. 
 
 ' I knew what you all wanted,' said Veronica ; 
 ' but let us,' she added modestly, ' give thanks to
 
 38 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 Fortune, who has had far more to do with it 
 than I.' 
 
 I verily believe that something, moreover, should 
 be ascribed to the comparative slenderness of our 
 purse and to the simplicity of our tastes ; nor do I 
 pretend that what Lamia flatteringly called a para- 
 dise regained would have been much short of a 
 purgatory to many splendidly -fastidious people. 
 Our new abode had neither architectural design nor 
 internal pretension ; but the taste of man, in part- 
 nership with time, had given it charm without and 
 refinement within. Do you remember how, in that 
 search which finally planted us in the Garden that 
 we Love, we kept recalling the words of Tacitus 
 as applied to the race whose preferences run so 
 strongly in our own blood : Suam quisque domum 
 spatio circumdat I I hope we have nothing to con- 
 ceal, but is not a sense of seclusion necessary to 
 felicity ? Unlike folk of Northern blood, the Latin 
 race, and the Italian race more especially, have 
 little taste for privacy, and none for solitude. To 
 lean out of the open window onto the street or 
 highway below, to sit on door-steps whence they 
 can see and accost chance passers-by, to talk, to 
 sing, to dance, this is their idea of such happiness 
 as life permits. But the very spaciousness of their
 
 2 
 
 c 
 
 ►J 
 
 
 - 
 -
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 39 
 
 hills, their plains, their valleys, affords to the more 
 meditative children of the mist even larger facilities 
 than our own land for gratifying the passion for 
 that ' life removed ' which the Duke in Measure 
 for Measure^ probably expressing Shakespeare's 
 own personal taste, says he had ' ever loved.' 
 Veronica had found it for us here. The spurs of 
 the Maritime Alps, as they decline and dwindle 
 towards the sea, enclose a series of gorges and 
 ravines of various forms and dimensions. Some 
 are narrow, gloomy, and precipitous, others gradual, 
 well open to the sun, not too deep-bosomed, and 
 gladdened by streams that have their source in 
 remoter mountain-sheds. It was in one of the 
 latter we had discovered the shelter and seclusion 
 we desired. No wind could visit us roughly ; for, 
 if it blew from the north, we were curtained by the 
 hills, and, should it rage from the sea, we were just 
 sufficiently away from the shore, and protected 
 enough in that direction by olive-slopes and orange- 
 groves to be apprised of its displeasure only by an 
 unusual rustling of leaves. 
 
 ' But what do you propose to do in this ravine 
 of rest ? ' Lamia inquired of me somewhat mock- 
 ingly. ' Veronica is never without occupation ; 
 and here she will be abundantly employed in scour-
 
 40 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ing the neighbouring hamlets for fowls that have 
 not become all bone and sinew by constant moun- 
 taineering, in checking the washing-book, and in 
 raising the moral tone of the young people along 
 the entire countryside. As for me, a deter- 
 mination to master the Tuscan tongue will give 
 me rest from the fatigue of too much idleness ; 
 and my new tutor, the young ecclesiastic, whom 
 Veronica has enticed from the Sacristy for my 
 benefit, is quite charming, and makes me willing, 
 as he also seems to be, to prolong indefinitely the 
 time nominally allotted to the most fascinating of 
 studies. But you ? You cannot "garden" here, for 
 the ground seems to do that of itself; nor, in any 
 case, will you have time to pique yourself on the 
 result of your labours, which, I have observed, is 
 the main motive power of those persons who are 
 supposed to love flowers for themselves.' 
 
 Wishing to divert her playful arrows from my- 
 self, I replied that I was indeed rather gravelled 
 for lack of employment, and so intended to try 
 if sitting in the sun and doing nothing would 
 supply the deficiency ; and I then added that 
 she had forgotten to include the Poet in the 
 catalogue of the unemployed. 
 
 ' O, the Poet ? ' she replied. ' That is un altro
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 41 
 
 paio di maniche, — you see my devoted subdeacon is 
 teaching me the proverbs of his lovely language, — 
 for he abides in a lofty ether whither I fear my 
 shafts would never reach him. For anything I 
 can tell, he may be writing an adorable sonnet 
 when he is tapping the top of an egg-shell at the 
 breakfast table ; and I often suspect he is, in reality, 
 in a line frenzy, when he appears to be listening 
 deferentially to one of my shallowest disquisitions. 
 
 ' Would you marry a poet ? ' I asked. I should 
 have half liked to make the inquiry more definite ; 
 but for that I had not the courage. 
 
 ' Marry a poet ! ' she exclaimed, ' I should think 
 not indeed. Poor Veronica ! She manages tolerably 
 well with hers, thanks to her good sense and infinite 
 patience ; and perhaps she is not as sorely tried as 
 she deserves to be for the irreparable experiment to 
 which she has committed herself. For us women 
 marriage is necessarily the chief mercantile trans- 
 action of our lives ; and, if one marries a peer, one 
 becomes a peeress ; if one weds a millionaire, one 
 may hope to be a million-heiress. But the wife of 
 a poet does not become a poetess. She cannot share 
 with him his only valuable asset ; and the supposed 
 romantic nature of his disposition, which is usually 
 a sheer fiction, not unoften diverts from her the
 
 42 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 curiosity to which every woman is entitled, and which 
 every woman who marries reasonably invariably gets. 
 
 ' But if you happen to love a poet ? ' I persisted. 
 
 She quickly made me repent my question. 
 ' You are unteachable. Love is a terminable 
 annuity, that ends long before death, leaving one's 
 declining days to abject poverty.' 
 
 At this juncture I saw Veronica and the Poet 
 coming along the rose pergola, for January roses 
 were pretty abundant with us, and I inwardly 
 wished they had come sooner, for Lamia would 
 not have dared to say such things in their presence ; 
 reserving, as she seems to do, her most outrageous 
 utterances for my private benefit. But then, it 
 is true, I should not in that case have put my 
 useless interrogatories. 
 
 ' Now,' she said, ' I am going to burn some 
 incense before the Poet.' 
 
 ' You know he loathes it,' I observed. 
 
 c Do you think I should proffer it so liberally if 
 he liked it ? We were talking,' she said, addressing 
 him, as he joined us, ' of how we are to occupy 
 ourselves in the quiet and unexciting quarters 
 Veronica has provided for us. You, of course, can 
 write a long poem, and I should think this is just 
 the place for doing so, though I observe that
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 43 
 
 people nowadays deprecate the writing of long 
 poems as being out of date.' 
 
 ' I trust,' he replied, ' that will have no in- 
 fluence on their being written or not being 
 written. Novel reading, I fear, has proved some- 
 what injurious to the more serious side of the im- 
 agination, and prose fiction has created a distaste 
 for sustained works in verse. If Milton lived 
 to-day, U Allegro and // Penseroso would perhaps 
 still be more or less appreciated ; but Paradise 
 Lost would of a certainty be condemned as tedious. 
 Even in his own day it had only fit audience but 
 few, and few are always enough, if fit.' 
 
 ' I hope,' said Lamia, ' that we who are here 
 would answer to that description ; yet you never 
 read what you are writing either to Veronica or to 
 me. I have often wondered what is the reason.' 
 
 ' The reason is very simple,' he replied. ' Veronica 
 is rather difficult, you are somewhat easy, to please ; 
 and, while she might make me too distrustful, you, 
 dear Lamia, would, I fear, render me too enamoured 
 of my work. It is best, I think, oneself to be its 
 critic, and as searching and severe a one as possible ; 
 and then to leave it with all its imperfections on 
 its head, which are sure to be very numerous, but 
 are at least one's own.'
 
 44 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 k I wonder,' she said, ' how poetry is written.' 
 
 k If I could tell you that,' he answered, ' you 
 might conceivably take advantage of the informa- 
 tion to become a formidable rival. But, as far as 
 I can help you, I should say poetry is a natural 
 and indeed inevitable form of expression, as I 
 suppose music also is, in a certain mood or 
 state.' 
 
 ' And how is the state brought about ? ' she 
 asked. 
 
 A smile came over his face as he replied : ' I 
 wish I knew. Perhaps by consorting with Lamias, 
 when they are not too inquisitive.' 
 
 Veronica remained seated beside us, while he 
 resumed his walk under the roses. When he had 
 passed out of hearing, Veronica turned to Lamia a 
 little austerely, and said : 
 
 ' There are some persons — usually you are not 
 one of them — who are perpetually trying to invade 
 the sanctuary of one's soul, with the result that 
 one double-locks the doors. Only those who 
 come to worship, not to scrutinise, are admitted. 
 Have we not already been told, — 
 
 ' What is it rules thy singing season ? 
 Instinct, that diviner Reason, 
 To which the wish to know seemeth a sort of treason.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 45 
 
 ' And again, — 
 
 ' Why dost thou ever cease to sing ? 
 Singing is such sweet comfort, who, 
 If he could sing the whole year through, 
 Would barter it for anything ? ' 
 
 ' Would you like him to sing the whole year 
 through ? ' asked Lamia. 
 
 Veronica made no reply ; for, though the 
 question was put with an air of perfect seriousness, 
 it might have been interpreted otherwise. So 
 Lamia went on : 
 
 ' I suppose I do not understand, because I am 
 not married, and still less have the felicity to be 
 married to a poet. But, if I were, I fear I should 
 be exacting enough to wish to be even sweeter 
 comfort to him than his singing. He paid you a 
 great compliment, Veronica, the other day, when 
 you were not present ; for at the end of an interest- 
 ing discussion, — interesting, at least, to me, — he 
 said : " The sum of the matter is, bad wives are as 
 rare as good husbands." Yet I confess it seems to 
 me the worst husband in the world would be one 
 who could find consolation in perpetual carolling. 
 I would rather he beat me.' 
 
 I need scarcely say that I heartily sympathised,
 
 46 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 though without having the courage to say so, with 
 these sentiments of Lamia, albeit it is not easy 
 to decide if they were really hers or not. She 
 has a fine Socratic talent for eliciting information ; 
 and she was as successful on this occasion as 
 usual, for, much to my surprise, Veronica, after 
 a brief silence, rendered necessary perhaps by the 
 violence of Lamia's closing observation, said very 
 quietly : 
 
 ' I should like, if I may, to recite some lines he 
 wrote the other day, which seem to bear on your 
 misgivings, if but indirectly, and may perhaps help 
 to diminish them.' Thereupon she recited, much 
 better, I thought, than the Poet himself, the follow- 
 ing apology : — 
 
 The lark confined in his cage, 
 
 And captive in his wing, 
 Though fluttering with imprisoned rage, 
 
 Forbcareth not to sing. 
 
 ii 
 
 But still the strain, though loud and long. 
 
 Is but the mock of mirth, 
 Not that dawn-dewy nuptial song 
 
 That weddeth Heaven with Earth.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 47 
 
 in 
 
 Voice that in freedom seems so soft, 
 
 Fettered, sounds harsh and rough. 
 Listen ! He shrilleth far too oft, 
 
 Nor faltereth half enough. 
 
 IV 
 
 And I, still feebler it not free, 
 
 Do hourly more and more 
 Grow silent in captivity, 
 
 And, if I sing, must soar. 
 
 v 
 
 And as the lark's free carol floats 
 
 High on a sea of sound, 
 So let me fling my random notes 
 
 To ripple round and round. 
 
 VI 
 
 Hark ! now he shakes the towering skies, 
 
 A carillon of light, 
 Then dwindleth to a faint surmise, 
 
 Still singing out of sight. 
 
 VII 
 
 And, though in clearest light arrayed 
 
 The Poet's song should shine, 
 Sometimes his far-off voice will fade 
 
 Into the dim divine.
 
 48 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 VIII 
 
 Then we with following ear and heart 
 
 Should listen to the end, 
 Though we descry may but in part, 
 
 And dimly apprehend. 
 
 IX 
 
 Eo ! soon he quits his heavenly quest, 
 
 Slow-carolling into sight, 
 Then, quavering downward, strikes his nest, 
 
 Earthward aerolite. 
 
 So doubt not, dear, that if I soar 
 Where none longwhile may dwell, 
 
 Though Heaven at times may be my home, 
 Home is my Heaven as well. 
 
 Notwithstanding Lamia's anxiety lest we should 
 find ourselves short of agreeable occupation, our 
 familiarity with a quiet and unexciting existence 
 enabled us to pass many delightful days, while none 
 were without their incidents and their pleasures. 
 If I attempted to describe these, they might 
 possibly appear monotonous to you ; but they 
 were not monotonous to us. Excursions to 
 ruined castles, to picturesquely-perched villages, 
 to slopes and summits famous for their wild-
 
 
 Irs 
 
 Is 
 
 
 :';«#: 
 
 It' 
 
 
 &£? ^ 
 
 &? 
 
 i v,:^.'; 
 
 S--- 
 
 ,f*. J - ^ 
 
 ' A HUMBLE HOME '
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 49 
 
 flowers, are enchanting to those who make them ; 
 but one is hardly justified in demanding sustained 
 attention for them from others. In life, as in 
 Art, Nature is an excellent background to the 
 actions and passions of human beings ; and our 
 almost daily quest of natural beauty was not un- 
 attended by experiences that aroused a feeling of 
 pathos, unsealed the sources of pity, or awakened 
 the always welcome sense of humour. The 
 young ecclesiastic who was engaged in the agree- 
 able task of reading Italian with Lamia was good 
 enough to wish that we should pay him a visit, 
 though he warned us, with much well-bred dignity, 
 that his home was very humble, and that his 
 reception of us would be equally so. He lived 
 in an up-and-down hamlet among the hills; 
 and we made the excursion, Veronica and Lamia 
 on mules, the Poet and I on foot, with much 
 willingness. Lamia spoke of him as her sub- 
 deacon ; but I believe he was as yet only in 
 minor orders. He already wore, however, the 
 ecclesiastical garb, and he had all the grave 
 demeanour of his destined calling. He made no 
 secret of the modesty of his origin, and confessed, 
 with perfect simplicity, that he had chosen the 
 sacerdotal state because, while having lettered 
 
 E
 
 co LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 tastes, he could so best support his mother, who 
 was a widow, and his two young sisters. He 
 had contrived to pick up several volumes of the 
 classics, which evidently were much dearer to him 
 than the theological tomes that kept them com- 
 pany ; and he frankly declared that, while deeply 
 attached to his Creed, he would gladly divest 
 himself of the cassock, if we would only take him 
 to England, and put him in the way of earning 
 a livelihood by such agreeable labours as he was 
 engaged on with Lamia. Before we left, he asked 
 if he might read us one of the many Sonnets 
 he had composed in his abundant leisure ; and 
 it was impossible to listen to it without feel- 
 ing that he was animated by that desire to 
 extend the horizon of his existence, which makes 
 the lives of so many students in Italy, both 
 ecclesiastic and lay, so deeply pathetic. As 
 we descended the hill, after visiting with him 
 the unpretending chapel where he would one 
 day minister, we lapsed into a compassionate 
 silence, which I finally broke, knowing that we 
 were all thinking the same thing, by repeating, 
 though rather absently, the lovely if hackneyed 
 Virgilian line : — 
 
 ' Sunt lachrymae rerum, ft mentem mortalia tangunt,'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 51 
 
 I could not be sorry that I had done so ; for 
 instantly the Poet, translating the line, said : ' Yes. 
 
 'These are the things that cause the tears to start, 
 And human sorrows touch the human heart.' 
 
 ' Did you notice the artificial flowers on the 
 altar ? ' said Lamia ; ' and does it not seem strange 
 the peasants should proffer these, when their hills 
 furnish them with natural ones, in such abundance, 
 of exquisite beauty and fragrance ? ' 
 
 ' It offends our taste,' said Veronica ; ' but I 
 suppose the artificial flowers cost them something, 
 however little, while natural flowers would cost 
 them nothing save the gathering. They want to 
 give Heaven of their dearest and their best ; and 
 their dearest and best, poor things, are their small 
 earnings and scant savings.' 
 
 ' Yes, that explains it,' I said ; 'just as, when we 
 get to Florence, you will see the most fashion- 
 able of its churches, the Santissima Annunziata, 
 bedizened all over with gold ; gold being the 
 dearest and best thing with the fashionable. Thus, 
 both poor and rich alike are devout in their separate 
 and distinctive ways.' 
 
 Do what we would, and divert ourselves in our 
 simple, unpretending way as we might, we could
 
 52 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 not help thinking withal of Florence, referring to 
 Florence, and continually anticipating what Tuscany 
 had in store for us. Lamia was the most impatient 
 of us all, partly perhaps because she knew that 
 concern for her alone still kept us from our 
 bourne. 
 
 ' Please do not think,' she said, one day, ' that 
 I have not greatly enjoyed myself here. But what 
 is it — for there is something — that renders life on 
 this lovely strip of coast between the mountains 
 and the sea, after a brief sojourn, not quite satis- 
 factory ? ' 
 
 ' Surely,' said the Poet, ' it is the insufficient 
 presence of the Past. Every spot in Europe, as 
 a matter of course, has had a Past of considerable 
 duration ; and this lovely tract of country must 
 have had a chequered, and at times a very exciting 
 one. But its visible relics are few. The Roman 
 came and made his roads ; the Saracen came and 
 ravaged ; feudal bandit harried feudal bandit ; and 
 the great bandit of our own century, Bonaparte, 
 dispatched and sometimes accompanied his armies 
 along it. But almost the sole vestiges of its 
 vanished vigour and virility are trivial ruins devoid 
 of architectural beauty ; its villages are situated 
 most picturesquely, but they are as devoid of
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 53 
 
 plastic beauty as an eagle's eyrie ; their churches 
 are touching in their devout simplicity, but, alike 
 within and without, lack the impress of the artist's 
 mind, the artist's hand. He has not been here ; 
 or, if he has, the condottiere has destroyed all traces 
 of his work. Look at the sea. Byron most 
 happily called it ' the image of Eternity,' for its 
 Present is exactly like its Past, and its Future 
 will be only like its Present. Man can make no 
 impression on it, nor leave on it any trace of his 
 presence. Therefore, despite its sublimity, most 
 of us at last tire of gazing on it. It lacks human 
 interest. When it smiles, it enchants. When it 
 frowns, it overawes. But we cannot take it to 
 our heart ; and something of the heartlessness of 
 the sea attaches to a land where neither poet, 
 architect, nor painter has bequeathed monuments 
 to remind us that here man has aspired and 
 striven, here woman consoled and suffered. But 
 be patient, Lamia. Florence is reserving for you 
 ample compensation.' 
 
 ' And yet you, or Veronica, at least,' said 
 Lamia, ' would not let us take up our quarters 
 at or even near, — but perhaps I had better not 
 mention the place. Only all you have said seems 
 to justify those wicked people, who find lemon-
 
 5+ LAMIA'S W1NTER-OUARTERS 
 
 gardens and olive-groves insufficient for happiness, 
 and so have enlivened this lovely but unlively 
 coast with casinos, roulette-tables, and pigeon- 
 shoots.' 
 
 ' And even the lemon-gardens and olive-groves,' 
 I said, 'are fast disappearing. As we have observed 
 only too frequently, they are being ruthlessly cut 
 down, in order that, in their place, Safrano and 
 Marie van Houtte roses may be grown for Vienna, 
 London, and Saint Petersburg.' 
 
 ' And then,' said Lamia, ' there will be nothing 
 left but the mountains and the sea.' 
 
 ' That will be a considerable residuum,' said 
 the Poet. ' I happened to overhear a dialogue 
 between them the other day, which, if you are so 
 minded, I shall have much pleasure in repeating 
 to you.' 
 
 ' By all means,' said Veronica. ' Here, we are 
 in the presence of both ; so they will be able to 
 judge if you report their colloquy correctly.' 
 
 The Mountains 
 
 What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far, 
 
 Find you a bourne to ease your burdened breast, 
 
 But throughout time inexorable are 
 Never at rest ?
 
 LAMIA'S WJNTER-OUARTERS 55 
 
 With foaming mouth and fluttering crest you leap 
 Impatiently towards never-shifting beach, 
 
 Then wheel, and hurry to some distant deep 
 Beyond your reach. 
 
 Nor golden sands nor sheltering combes can slake 
 Your fretful longing for some shore unknown, 
 
 And through your shrineless pilgrimage you make 
 Unending moan. 
 
 The Sea 
 
 Nimbused by sunlight or enwreathed in snow, 
 Lonely you stand, and loftily you soar, 
 
 While I immeasurably ebb and flow 
 From shore to shore. 
 
 ] see the palm-dates mellowing in the sun, 
 
 I hear the snow-fed torrents bound and brawl, 
 
 And if, where'er 1 range, content with none, 
 J know them all. 
 
 Inward the ice-floes where the walrus whet 
 
 Their pendent tusks, I sweep and swirl my way, 
 
 Or dally where 'ncath dome and minaret 
 The dolphins play. 
 
 Beneath or bountiful or bitter sky 
 
 If I myself can never be at rest, 
 I lullaby the winds until they lie 
 
 Husht on my breast.
 
 ;6 LAMIA'S W1NTER-OUARTERS 
 
 The Mountains 
 
 Till they awake, and from your feeble lap 
 
 Whirl through the air, and in their rage rejoice 
 
 Then you with levin-bolt and thunderclap 
 Mingle your voice. 
 
 But I their vain insanity survey, 
 
 And on my silent brow I let them beat. 
 
 What is there it is worth my while to say 
 To storm or sleet ? 
 
 1 hear the thunder rumbling through the rain, 
 I feel the lightning flicker round my head ; 
 
 The blizzards buffet me, but 1 remain 
 Dumb as the dead ! 
 
 Urged by the goad of stern taskmaster Time, 
 The Seasons come and go, the years roll round. 
 
 I watch them from my solitude sublime, 
 Uttering no sound. 
 
 For hate and love I have nor love nor hate ; 
 
 To be alone is not to be forlorn : 
 The only armour against pitiless Fate 
 
 Is pitying scorn. 
 
 The Sea 
 
 Yet do I sometimes seem to hear afar 
 A tumult in your dark ravines as though 
 
 You weary of your loneliness, and are 
 Wrestling with woe.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 57 
 
 The Mountains 
 
 When the white wolves of Winter to their lair 
 
 Throng, and yet deep and deeper sleeps the snow, 
 
 I loose the avalanche, to shake and scare 
 The vale below. 
 
 And, when its sprouting hopes and brimming glee 
 Are bound and buried in a death-white shroud, 
 
 Then at the thought that 1 entombed can be, 
 I laugh aloud. 
 
 The Sea 
 
 I grieve with grief, at anguish I repine, 
 
 I dirge the keel the hurricane destroys : 
 For all the sorrows of the world are mine, 
 
 And all its joys. 
 
 And when there is no space 'twixt surf and sky, 
 And all the universe seems cloud and wave, 
 
 It is the immitigable wind, not 1, 
 That scoops men's grave. 
 
 1 wonder how the blast can hear them moan 
 For pity, yet keep deaf unto their prayers. 
 
 I have too many sorrows of my own, 
 Not to feel theirs. 
 
 And when the season of sweet joy comes round, 
 My bosom to their rapture heaves and swells ; 
 
 And closer still I creep to catch the sound 
 Of wedding bells.
 
 58 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 I sec the children digging in the sand, 
 1 hear the sinewy mariners carouse, 
 
 And lovers in the moonlight, hand-in-hand, 
 Whispering their vows. 
 
 You in your lofty loneliness disdain 
 
 Suffering below and comfort from above. 
 
 The sweetest thing in all the world is pain 
 Consoled by Love. 
 
 After a somewhat lengthened pause, Lamia said : 
 1 With which do you sympathise, Veronica? With 
 the mountains, or with the sea? ' 
 
 ' O, with the sea ! 
 
 'The sweetest thing in all the world is pain 
 Consoled by Love.' 
 
 ' And you, Sir Poet ? ' 
 
 'Surely, with both,' he answered. 
 
 ' But,' she persisted, ' with which of the two, 
 chiefly ? ' 
 
 ' I suppose,' he replied, ' with the ineradicable 
 selfishness of a man, one inclines towards the 
 mountains. Pacem summa tenent. Serenity dwells 
 upon the heights.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER -QUARTERS 
 
 I heard the Poet's voice in the balcony, followed 
 by the pushing back of heavy persiave, and then : 
 
 ' Lamia ! Come as quickly as you can ; I want 
 to show you what you may never have a chance 
 of seeing again.' 
 
 There was no reason why, if there was any- 
 thing new or wonderful to behold, Lamia and the 
 Poet should have a monopoly of the spectacle ; so, 
 arraying myself as rapidly as I could, I emerged 
 onto the balcony just as Lamia, in incomplete but 
 most fascinating attire, did the same.
 
 60 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 1 Oh ! ' she exclaimed. ' What hills ! What 
 slopes ! What villas ! But where is Florence ? ' 
 
 ' Wait,' said the Poet, ' and you shall see. 
 Like you, dear Lamia, she is very fair,' — how I 
 wish I had the courage to address her in that 
 fashion ! — ' but, unlike you, she has not yet 
 flowered out of the night.' 
 
 ' Neither have I, quite, I fear,' she said, showing, 
 when thuswise reminded, a quite unnecessary con- 
 cern respecting her hastily-donned apparel. 
 
 'She is veiled, absolutely veiled, as I have never 
 seen her before, in a, shall I call it, peignoir of 
 white mist, which conceals her utterly from sight. 
 But look ! she is beginning to disrobe her marble 
 beauty.' 
 
 ' O, what is that, that surges through the 
 mist ? ' 
 
 ' That is the noblest symbol of civic liberty in 
 the world, the Tower of the Palazzo Vecchio? 
 
 ' And that ? And that ? ' 
 
 ' The topmost tier of Giotto's Belfry, worthy, 
 by its sublime simplicity, to serve for the type 
 of all great Art ; and, at its side in the rapidly- 
 clearing ether, the cupola of the Duomo, that 
 Michelangelo would not copy and could not 
 better.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 61 
 
 Dome after dome, tower after tower, campanile 
 after campanile, surged silently out of the mist ; 
 and, to use the Poet's I hope not too familiar 
 simile, the silvery folds of night sank downward 
 to her feet, and Florence stood in naked loveliness 
 before Lamia's delighted gaze. Over the eastern 
 hills came the bright vernal sun, every mountain 
 slope broke into smiles and dimples, and in the 
 last of its seaward valleys Arno glanced and 
 gleamed with joy of the expanding dawn. Distance 
 lends enchantment to the sound as well as to the 
 view, and the clang and clash of innumerable 
 belfries came modulated through the intervening 
 air, wherefrom the last lingering trails of mist were 
 gradually wizarded away. 
 
 Question and answer followed each other in 
 uninterrupted succession. Yes, that was San 
 Miniato Al Monte, with La Bella Villanella 
 hard by ; and that beyond was Santa Margherita, 
 neighboured by the villa in which Guicciardini 
 completed his History. And yes, — Lamia was quite 
 right, — that was the Torre del Gallo, and away to 
 the right and farther up the hills was the Medi- 
 cean Poggio-a-Cajano, where Lorenzo wrote his 
 poem on the Ambra. O'/er the matchless pano- 
 rama of hill and valley her interrogatories wandered
 
 62 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 unceasingly, whilst we called on our recollection to 
 supply the names she asked for. 
 
 Suddenly, other persiane were pushed back, and 
 Veronica joined us. 
 
 ' What are you all doing ? ' 
 
 ' Do you remember,' answered Lamia, ' the wife 
 of Cosimo, Pater Patriae, asking him, when advanced 
 in years, why he so often sate with closed eyes, and 
 his answering that he did so in order to accustom 
 them to what they must soon always be doing ? I 
 am opening mine thus early, feeling that, in such 
 a world as this, I shall never be able to close them 
 again.' 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 ' It is perfect, absolutely perfect,' said Lamia, 
 ' and no wonder Politian found it so.' 
 
 1 But did Politian really live here ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Let us be wise enough to think so,' said the 
 Poet, ' and it was quite in keeping with Lorenzo's 
 magnificence, when that testy scholar, to whom he 
 had committed the tuition of his sons, quarrelled 
 with Donna Clarice because she thought she also 
 should have something to say to their training, to 
 provide him with such a sanctuary. Besides, in 
 Italy, Tradition is not, as some one has said 
 she is elsewhere, a toothless old crone with memory
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 63 
 
 half gone, but the trustworthy depositary of un- 
 forgotten glories/ 
 
 ' It is more than a tradition,' said Veronica. 
 ' Only this morning I came across a passage from 
 Politian's correspondence, which would seem to 
 confirm local legend. Here it is. He is writing 
 to Lorenzo. " When you are incommoded by the 
 heat of the season at Careggi, you will perchance 
 bethink you of the shelter of my abode, nor deem 
 it undeserving of your notice. Nestled in the 
 sloping sides of the hill, we have here water in 
 abundance, and, being constantly refreshed by 
 moderate breezes, experience but little incon- 
 venience from the fervour of the sun. As you 
 approach the villa itself, it seems embosomed in 
 a grove ; but, when you reach it, you discover 
 that it commands a full view of the city. Though 
 the neighbourhood is not without its denizens, I 
 can here enjoy the solitude so congenial to my 
 disposition. But I can offer you the temptation 
 of other allurements. Wandering beyond his own 
 boundaries, Pico della Mirandola sometimes steals 
 unexpectedly on my retirement, and draws me from 
 my seclusion to share his supper. What that is, 
 you well know ; modest indeed, but neatly served, 
 and made grateful by the charm of his converse.
 
 64 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 But be you my guest. The meal shall be as good, 
 and the wine better." ' 
 
 ' How very philosophic ! ' said Lamia. ' So 
 much so, that the passage was probably written on 
 the morrow of a certain fascinating young woman, 
 whose name I cannot remember, but of whom 
 Politian, I have read, was, notwithstanding his 
 erudition, deeply enamoured, giving her hand to a 
 rival scholar, though which of them, I need scarcely 
 say, I have equally forgotten.' 
 
 ' The great Marullus, I think,' said the Poet ; 
 ' and your fascinating young woman was Ales- 
 sandra, the accomplished daughter of Lorenzo's 
 Chancellor, Bartolomeo della Scala, whose house, 
 still standing, you must remind us to show you in 
 Florence.' 
 
 Our first business was to make acquaintance 
 with the immediate surroundings of the home pro- 
 vided for us by Veronica's indefatigable foresight, 
 operating through a protracted correspondence 
 none of us had been deemed worthy to peruse. 
 The rural architecture of Tuscany is of a noble 
 simplicity; and, in the main portion of our villa, 
 built in the course of the sixteenth century, there 
 was no deviation from the familiar type. But, 
 adjoining it westward, and seemingly of more
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 65 
 
 ancient date, were an upper and a lower loggia of 
 conventual aspect ; the upper one having a slop- 
 ing roof of rich red tiles supported by graceful 
 pillars of pietra serena, and the lower one serving 
 as an Italian equivalent of an English verandah, 
 only more spacious and more tasteful, in which we 
 could sun or shade ourselves according to the 
 mood of the weather. Together, they formed an 
 impenetrable barrier against the well-known keen- 
 ness of the tramontana, while the main building 
 provided ample shelter against possible inclemency 
 from the east. To the west our view was over 
 the final valley of the Arno, that spacious plain of 
 fertile cultivation tenderly protected by hills of 
 exquisite shape and moderate elevation, on whose 
 bolder ridges stand historic towns of unmatched 
 picturesqueness ; while southward, over vineyards 
 and olive -groves terraced down precipitously- 
 sloping ground, we gazed on the domes and towers 
 of the fair Tuscan capital. If one lives on the side 
 of a hill, one cannot reasonably expect to have a 
 very vast level expanse for the purposes of a 
 garden. A quadrangular space of modest dimen- 
 sions between the house and the low boundary wall, 
 where the ground began to fall away, was all that 
 had been dedicated to that pleasurable end ; and
 
 66 LAMJA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 this afforded Lamia an opportunity of observing 
 that two such enthusiastic horticulturists as the 
 Poet and myself would find but few worlds to 
 conquer in so narrow a territory. 
 
 ' Forget,' I ventured to plead, ' what it is useless 
 to remember. England is well enough, and so is 
 Italy, but only on condition that you do not ask 
 from the one what belongs to the other. I am 
 not quite sure that the person who is intimately 
 acquainted with both is ever quite satisfied with 
 either, since it is part of our perverse human 
 nature mentally to extol what we have not, to the 
 depreciation of what we have.' 
 
 ' Is it to a woman you say that ? ' observed 
 Lamia, to my complete confusion. ' Men preach 
 Philosophy, women practise it ; and I shall prob- 
 ably show myself quite content without your 
 well -filled borders, while you inwardly, and 
 perhaps sometimes outwardly, long for your 
 rampant greenery and untidy efflorescence. 
 These garofani — you see,' she said, turning to 
 the Poet, ' I know the Italian for carnations, — in 
 their tasteful pots along the loopholed wall are 
 much more to my taste than all the straggling 
 annuals and robust perpetuals in the world.' 
 
 ' I can see,' he said, kindly coming to my
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 67 
 
 rescue, ' you have found your proper home at last. 
 I thought it would be so ; and we can only con- 
 gratulate ourselves on the result. But now let us 
 explore farther afield, and we shall probably find 
 that, if we will only use the word garden in a 
 liberal sense, and indeed in that in which it is used 
 in the corner of England where we have our home, 
 there is more of it than we have just rashly 
 assumed.' 
 
 Thereupon, we passed through a cool, spacious 
 cortile, cloistered on two of its sides, but for the 
 rest open to the sky, and whose only occupants 
 were a disused fountain and a tall glistening orange- 
 tree covered with golden fruit, of course of the hardy 
 bitter sort ; thence under an archway festooned 
 with wistaria not yet in flower, and out into the 
 podere, which I must needs call by that name, since 
 there is no English equivalent for it, and which is 
 nowhere to be seen in such perfection as in 
 Tuscany. 
 
 ' Indeed, indeed you are right,' exclaimed 
 Lamia ; ' right as when you once said that, were 
 it always Spring, one would never garden, even 
 in England. O this young green corn, with its 
 purple anemones, its crimson tulips, its pale almond 
 and intensely bright peach blossom, its fantastically
 
 68 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 growing fig-trees with their budding tips, its bur- 
 geoning vines and spectral olive-trees, all dwelling 
 together on the fair hillside that seems to be 
 smiling self- complacently at its own loveliness ! 
 Look at that bank of irises, not yet broken from 
 their sheath ! But when they have, what a sight 
 they will be ! ' 
 
 It is always delightful to have one's feelings 
 expressed by some one else in language of enthusiasm 
 one might oneself be afraid to employ ; and we 
 accompanied Lamia, as a sort of chorus, echoing 
 all she said, and only too well pleased to follow in 
 her footsteps, as she wandered on and on through 
 a world of beauty wholly new to her. 
 
 ' And these lovely grassy paths,' she said, ' that 
 lead everywhere and nowhere, tempting one to 
 travel on in search of something unknown, but 
 with ever, on either side, more sprouting wheat, 
 more pendent vines, more crookedly-branching 
 fig-stems, more tulips, more windflowers, more 
 mountains, more glimpses of towers and belfries in 
 the glittering distance. In England everything 
 seems to crouch. Here everything seems to 
 soar.' 
 
 Lured onward by Lamia's enjoyment, and 
 mounting by such easy and gradual slopes that we
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 69 
 
 hardly noticed we were ascending, we suddenly 
 came to a grassy plateau almost encircled by secular 
 cypresses that are the distinctive glory of Tuscany ; 
 and here we might have been tempted to halt, had 
 it not been that yet beyond it were rugged paths 
 that zigzagged among tall, dense bushes of white 
 heath and yellow broom, both now in full flower ; 
 while on shapeless boulders and protruding rocks 
 were the stars of the white, the yellow, and the 
 rose-coloured cistus. Here and there we came on 
 sheets of the single pink anemone ; elsewhere, in 
 the more sheltered nooks, were the Apennine wind- 
 flower which, with due care and choice of position, 
 perhaps you remember, we have persuaded to 
 flourish in the garden that we love. 
 
 * As Veronica has told us that we are to lead 
 a life of strict simplicity,' said Lamia, ' we had 
 better do something to make it graceful ; and, if 
 you two will only cut some branches of heath and 
 broom, I will be equally energetic among the 
 anemones.' 
 
 We were descending homeward with our lovely 
 spoil, when we heard a creaking sound well known 
 to me ; and, in another moment, we overtook the 
 slowly-rolling wheels of a wooden wain — of wood, 
 not only in its low, long body, but of wood
 
 -o LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 throughout, with wooden wheels, wooden pole, 
 and wooden yoke — drawn by a couple of cream- 
 coloured steers, and bearing a fragrant load of 
 newly-cut rye-grass. Though at no little incon- 
 venience and delay, on the incline along which it was 
 moving, the peasants who accompanied it at once 
 cried a halt, that they might show their respect to 
 and make the acquaintance of the new-comers. 
 Of the manifold charms of Tuscany, perhaps there 
 is none so great or so enduring as the charm 
 of manner peculiar to its rural population. Frank 
 without being free, deferential but never servile, 
 not without a fine reserve yet with never a touch 
 of shyness, withholding not a certain tribute 
 to social superiority, while tacitly intimating the 
 fundamental equality that appertains to human 
 brotherhood, the demeanour and speech of Tuscan 
 contadini keep intercourse perpetually fresh, and 
 impart to conversation on the tritest and most 
 familiar themes perennial liveliness and interest. 
 Their salutations, frequent though these be, for 
 they would never think of passing you without 
 one, are divested of conventionality by their mani- 
 fest sincerity. They can never see you, never 
 speak to you, too often ; and, whenever they speak, 
 they smile. For thousands of years, morning has
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 71 
 
 risen upon the world, but without any diminution 
 in its freshness ; and it is the same with their Buon 
 giorno, signore ! their Felice sera, sua signoria ! 
 their Felicissima notte, e buon riposo ! their A 
 rivederla ! and all their ancient consecrated phrases 
 for conveying their sense of the strong link that 
 binds human creatures to each other. Every time 
 they say these things, they mean them ; nor do 
 they ever tire of the iterated and reiterated cour- 
 tesies of life. The undeferential nod of Northern 
 manners, the mumbled recognition, the slipshod 
 salutation, would seem shocking to them, as 
 lacking in human piety. On this occasion, no 
 doubt, natural curiosity blended with native good- 
 breeding to make them halt in their labours ; for 
 they were, I have no doubt, as eager to make our 
 acquaintance as we were to make theirs. Yet of 
 visible curiosity there was not a trace, as they lifted 
 their hats from their beaded foreheads and remained 
 bareheaded till we begged them to cover themselves. 
 What they conveyed was a fervour of welcome 
 akin to the glow of an Italian sun, a welcome that 
 warmed us through and through, and made us feel 
 that, at that instant, we were forming friendships 
 that, save for some fault of ours, would last through 
 life. Were we all in good health ? Had we had
 
 72 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 a fatiguing journey? Were we comfortable and 
 happy in the villa ? They hoped we were going 
 to stay a long time. Could they do anything for 
 us? Did we love Italy? Had we been there 
 before ? O, but it was evident we had ; for we 
 talked their language like one of themselves 
 (somewhat of an exaggeration, save in the case of 
 Veronica). Yes, the season was fairly forward, 
 and there was good promise for everything, given 
 what was now wanted, plenty of sunshine. Com- 
 monplaces, you perhaps will say. Indeed, yes. 
 But which of us in this world is so surprisingly 
 original? The real originality, in some countries 
 I could mention, would be amiability, unfailing 
 courtesy in the ever-recurring trifles of life, a wish 
 to please and to be pleased, and a perpetual fresh- 
 ening of existence by treating nothing in it as a 
 matter of course, or as undeserving of recognition 
 and thankfulness. Even the most original of us 
 are original only sometimes ; and, if we are to con- 
 sort with each other at all, we must needs indulge 
 in a good deal of repetition and commonplace. 
 But freshness of manner can make repetition sound 
 absolutely new, and kindliness of disposition invest 
 the veriest commonplace with an air that everybody 
 shall take for uncommon.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 73 
 
 It was with difficulty we led Lamia away from 
 her new acquaintances, not the least attractive of 
 those being the sleek, smooth-coated, soft-eyed 
 oxen that play so large a part in the picturesque- 
 ness as in the rural life of Tuscany, and that seemed 
 to appreciate the tender stroking of her hand and 
 the equally soft caress of her voice. 
 
 ' I never felt such a bumpkin before,' she said, 
 ' as in the presence of those gracious peasants. 
 What barbarians they must think us ! ' 
 
 ' If they thought that of you, Lamia,' I said, 
 more struck by the exaggeration than by the 
 humility of her remark, ' they certainly contrived 
 to conceal their impression. Still, speaking gener- 
 ally, rural Tuscany is a school of manners.' 
 
 The noble simplicity referred to as the distin- 
 guishing mark of villa architecture in Tuscany, is 
 as dominant in the interior as on the exterior of its 
 buildings ; ample space being their chief feature and 
 adornment. Unless they have been invaded by 
 modern hands, they depend for effect on bold out- 
 lines rather than on decorative detail ; and they are 
 furnished in harmony with the same severe taste. 
 When Veronica admonished us that we were to lead 
 a life of strict simplicity, she referred to this 
 circumstance among others.
 
 74 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 ' I hope,' she said, ' you have left your sybaritic 
 tastes at home. You will find many shapely but 
 no comfortable chairs, no superfluity of cushions, 
 nowhere a footstool, and, if you choose to lie on 
 what looks like a sofa, you will soon find you are 
 not reposing on rose-leaves. You must not come 
 to me and complain that there is not a bell in your 
 room, or, if there is, that it apparently has no 
 communication with the outer world. If Lamia 
 wishes to make a mess indoors with her flowers 
 and branches of blossom, she shall not be denied ; 
 but you must not look for those more permanent 
 graces of life to which you are all so attached.' 
 
 ' Don't mind me ,' said Lamia. ' I am quite 
 prepared to empty my own bath, brush my own 
 skirts, answer the bell instead of ringing it, and 
 live on fagioli and dried fungi. Indeed, it was 
 chiefly to indulge in those unusual luxuries that I 
 came to Italy.' 
 
 Considering who it is that has created, cherished, 
 and fostered in us those sybaritic tastes, and 
 that attachment to the graces and elegancies of life 
 of which Veronica spoke, and with which she told 
 us we were now to dispense, we may be pardoned, 
 I think, if, at the first opportunity, we indulged in 
 some private humour at her expense. If we are
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 75 
 
 demoralised by domestic luxury, who is it but 
 Veronica that has corrupted us ? I protest that 
 most men, in the matter of material comfort, are 
 absolute Spartans, and, as for the Poet, his native 
 austerity was once not to be surpassed, and he 
 still indulges from time to time in his ideal, at 
 any rate in conversation. But he too has, for the 
 most part, succumbed to Veronica's unequalled 
 capacity for making life at once graceful and 
 commodious ; and I am not sure that now he 
 would not, if at home, feel almost wronged if, 
 should he happen to want a paper-cutter, he had to 
 rise from his chair in order to go in search of one. 
 ' Just you wait ! ' said Lamia, ' and see what 
 becomes of the simple life to which we are to 
 dedicate ourselves. The first time Veronica goes 
 to Florence, she will return, I will engage to say, 
 laden with manifold conveniences of existence, 
 and by degrees she will introduce a world of things 
 into this splendid vacuum ; and if, some fine 
 morning, you meet a plumber or bell-hanger on the 
 stairs, you need not regard him as an interloper. 
 Nor would I mind wagering my next quarter's 
 dress-money that, before long, you will see me 
 sitting in the easiest of easy-chairs, and gracefully 
 reposing on the softest of ottomans.'
 
 76 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ' I doubt it,' said the Poet, ' for Veronica has a 
 fine sense of the fitness of things, and her tastes 
 are sufficiently flexible for her to distinguish 
 between Northern and Southern needs, Northern 
 and Southern traditions. When Francesco Cibo, 
 the nephew of Innocent VIII., married Lorenzo's 
 daughter, and came to Florence with a large and 
 splendid retinue, he was entertained during the 
 period of the nuptials with the utmost magnificence. 
 But, at the end of that time, he observed that all 
 the silver vessels and ornaments, of which there had 
 been such a profusion, disappeared from the table, 
 and were replaced by others of brass ; and, moreover, 
 that every meal was now served with the utmost 
 plainness and frugality. Anxious lest his Roman 
 attendants should carry back to the Eternal City 
 the impression that he had contracted a union with 
 either a very poor or a very parsimonious family, 
 he sought to discover how they were faring, and 
 found they were still being entertained in the most 
 sumptuous manner. The enigma was explained 
 when Lorenzo said to him, " You are now one of 
 ourselves, and as one of ourselves I treat you. 
 My grandsire Cosimo used to say to his sons, 
 ' Remember you are only citizens of Florence, and 
 must reserve what splendours you can -command
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 77 
 
 for the glorification of the City.' As his descendant, 
 I obey his injunction." ' 
 
 ' Hark ! ' I said. ' Already there are sounds 
 of modern civilisation. The grass-plot is bein^ 
 mown.' 
 
 Lamia and the Poet listened, though I think 
 the latter at once guessed my meaning. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' said Lamia. ' A mowing- 
 machine ? I cannot hear it. I hear only the 
 bleating of sheep.' 
 
 We passed afresh into the garden, and there 
 was a flock of ewes and lambs nibbling the sweet 
 short clover, attended by a picturesque shepherd 
 girl, who carefully kept them off the shrubs, but 
 went on industriously knitting all the while. 
 
 ' Is not that a simple enough mowing-machine 
 for you ? ' I asked. ' It attains to even Veronica's 
 ideal of primitive expedients.' 
 
 ' It is as simple and primitive,' said Lamia, ' as 
 much of the garden itself. What a comfort it is 
 to find oneself in a country where ' — I imagine 
 this was intended as a shaft against myself — 
 ' there does not rage a fidgety mania for perfection. 
 Flowers here are reduced to their proper subordina- 
 tion in the universe.' 
 
 Whether Lamia was right or wrong in this
 
 78 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 conclusion, it must be allowed that, as a race, 
 Italians have not that tender attachment to flowers 
 which is universal among ourselves, and that being, 
 contrary to general belief, far less sentimental and 
 more practical than we are, they do not care to 
 devote much attention to the growing of anything 
 that cannot be taken to market and turned into 
 quattrini, or ready cash. Hence, they will willingly 
 grow carnations, freesias, arum-lilies, lilies of the 
 valley, ranunculuses, and such like flowers that 
 find a quick sale on the ledges of the Palazzo 
 Strozz?, or under the shadow of the Municipio in 
 the Piazza della Trinita. But even these are 
 so reared that the purchaser alone gets any 
 delectation out of them, and the spot where they 
 are produced is but little more of a garden in 
 consequence of their temporary presence. The 
 difficulty is to induce an Italian gardener to 
 believe that you care for flowers for their own 
 sake, that you regard the sale of them as a sort 
 of desecration, that you feel they ought to be 
 love-gifts, tokens of present or mementoes of 
 absent affection, and, in any case, cherished com- 
 panions of one's private thoughts, one's habitual 
 pursuits, and one's transitory emotions. He can- 
 not understand that you want to consort with
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 79 
 
 them, to tend them in sickness and health, to 
 cultivate them for better or for worse, to let them 
 twine and garland themselves about your inner 
 and your outer life, to make them, in fact, flesh 
 of your flesh, and spirit of your spirit, till death 
 do you part, when, with a sweet form of suttee, 
 they will come and immolate themselves upon 
 your grave. 
 
 This conflict of ideals between the Poet and 
 myself on the one side, and Ippolito, the gardener, 
 on the other, — for the humblest folk in Tuscany 
 have classical names, which they imagine to be 
 Christian, and indeed frequently are so, thanks to 
 some primitive martyr in the Church Calendar, — 
 began at once, and never wholly ceased. We put 
 our veto on the sale in Florence of flower or leaf 
 grown on the premises ; and as Veronica, with all 
 her marvellous foresight, had not extended our 
 contract to these, we had to arrange with him what 
 was to be paid by us for what would otherwise 
 have been profitable produce. Ippolito's calcula- 
 tions were of the most elaborate character ; but 
 their complexity arose solely from his scrupulous 
 desire to do justice as between man and man. 
 Personally, he had no money interest in the matter ; 
 for, but for what he regarded as our unaccountable
 
 So LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 tastes, he would have carried all the saleable flowers 
 twice a week to that charming little market-place 
 which every visitor to the fair city knows so well, 
 made the best bargain he could with the purchasing 
 public, and credited his padrone with the amount 
 received. Selling the flowers, he could know, to a 
 centesimo, what they were worth. Not selling 
 them, in deference to these odd forestieri, and 
 therefore having to surmise what they would 
 probably have fetched could they have been sold, 
 and anxious neither to defraud his master nor to 
 rob us, he lived, during our sojourn, a life of 
 continual arithmetical anxiety. In vain were the 
 Poet's magnificent endeavours to make him under- 
 stand that we were not, as modern language has 
 it, so mighty particular as to what we paid for 
 rescuing the flowers from what he regarded as an 
 ignoble doom. We could excite no sentimental 
 emotion on the subject in Ippolito. To him it was 
 simply a matter of addition in decimals, the sum 
 total of which should represent the practical results 
 of abstract justice. It must not be supposed, 
 however, that this quite satisfied him, or entirely 
 quieted his conscience. To the last he let us 
 perceive that he considered our arbitrary conduct 
 to have a certain moral obliquity about it, since it
 
 
 'a stately fountain'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 81 
 
 caused and consecrated so much absolute waste ; 
 waste of time, waste of material, waste of money. 
 Once, when we were not present, he appealed to 
 Veronica, and asked if we were really in earnest in 
 forbidding him to sell any portion of the flowers. 
 The violets flowered by tens of thousands, the 
 carnations were rotting on their stalks, and it was 
 not possible more freesias could be wanted for 
 indoors ; and, with his Ma, Signora mia, and 
 Senti, Sua Signoria, he did his best to convert her. 
 But she told him we were inexorable ; and, though 
 she fully shared our sentiments on the subject, she 
 laughed at us for a couple of xucchetoni, or dunder- 
 heads, for allowing ourselves to pay twice what the 
 flowers were worth : a form of judgment which, as 
 we have seen, was not quite equitable, but which 
 nevertheless represented, with tolerable accuracy, 
 the low estimate she entertained of either the 
 Poet's or my capacity for a bargain. 
 
 Once Ippolito was thoroughly convinced of our 
 obduracy concerning his mercenary traditions, he 
 showed an amiable readiness to please us, by bring- 
 ing pot after pot of well-grown plants from frame 
 and shelf and sheltering nook, and placing them 
 where we would, and mostly round the noble 
 fountain that flashed quietly but unceasingly in the 
 
 G
 
 82 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 centre of the garden enclosure ; though he well 
 knew that, even in the genial weather with which 
 we were being favoured, the length of their days 
 would thereby be somewhat curtailed ; white arum- 
 lilies, freesias, lilies of the valley, and early 
 carnations, thus making a most lively show. 
 
 * Do not suppose, though,' I said to Lamia, 
 ' that Italy has not its true garden season, even in 
 the English sense ; and I trust you will, in due 
 course, be able to judge of it for yourself. But it 
 is brief in its marvellous beauty. Like the people 
 themselves of this lovely land, the year ages soon, 
 when compared with the lagging Spring, the linger- 
 ing Summer, and the slowly-ripening Autumn of 
 Northern climes. But when the roses come they 
 will come in battalions, the wistaria will run riot 
 over wall and pergola, the Spiraea Van Houtte will 
 whitely decorate itself with a lavish ness unknown 
 to chillier latitudes, and Madonna lilies will astound 
 you by their height, and irises by their profusion. 
 For a month, in a favourable season for six weeks, 
 one will be embowered in bloom ; then suddenly to 
 find, if one gardens in English fashion, you have 
 no garden at all.' 
 
 ' A short life and a merry one,' said Lamia : 
 ' an ideal existence.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 83 
 
 ' But do not let us forget,' I observed, ' that 
 when this brief exuberant blending of Spring and 
 Summer has passed away from the garden, the 
 purple and opal bunches of the festooned and 
 trellised vine come timely to take its place.' 
 
 ' Nor,' added the Poet, ' should we omit that 
 bewitching preliminary to the profuse period you 
 speak of, when, as now, in whichever direction you 
 look or ramble in that astonishing valley, almond 
 and peach, plum - blossom, pear - blossom, and 
 apple-bloom, fleck with their rich rival tints, from 
 purest white to rosiest pink, the silvery spray of the 
 ubiquitous olives.' 
 
 ' Silvery till ruffled by the wind,' he went on, 
 ' as Lorenzo so admirably describes it in his poem 
 on the Ambra. 
 
 'L'uliva, in qualche dolce piaggia aprica, 
 Secondo il vento par, or verde, or bianca.' 
 
 ' What an incautious quotation ! ' said Lamia ; 
 ' and, were I a critic, I should at once fasten on 
 you a charge of gross plagiarism. I remember, it 
 you do not : — 
 
 ' The smiling slopes with olive groves bedecked, 
 Now darkly green, now, as the breeze did stir, 
 Spectral and white, as though the air were flecked 
 With elfin branches laced with gossamer ;
 
 84 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 And then so faint, the eye could scarce detect 
 Which the gray hillside, which the foliage fair ; 
 Until once more it dense and sombre grew, 
 To shift again just as the zephyr blew. 
 
 ' Have I not established my case ? ' 
 
 ' Completely, my dear Lamia ; and I am glad 
 to find myself in such excellent company as that of 
 Lorenzo, more especially now that we have taken 
 possession of a villa where he must often have 
 been a guest, with Politian for host, and Poggio 
 and Pico della Mirandola for companions.' 
 
 ' I fear,' said Lamia modestly, ' I should have 
 found them too learned to be congenial society.' 
 
 'Not when Lorenzo was with them; for he 
 assimilated their learning to life, and contrived to 
 make gaiety out of their scholarship. With more 
 even than the statesmanship of his grandfather, 
 and of whom it may equally be said that he ruled 
 without arms and without a title, endowed with 
 no inconsiderable portion of the culture of the 
 students he so generously abetted, Lorenzo was a 
 thorough man -of- the -world, and more than a 
 respectable man-of-letters. I recommend to you 
 his description, in the Selve (T Amore, of the 
 shepherd leading his flock from the wintry fold to 
 the Spring pasture, and carrying in his arms a
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 85 
 
 newly-dropped lamb, his sonnet on the origin of 
 the violet, and, still more perhaps, the one in praise 
 of rural sights, sounds, and solitude. Permit me 
 to cite at least a portion of it : — 
 
 ' Ccrchi, chi vuol, lc pompe, e gli alti onori, 
 Le piazze, e tempi, e gli edifizi magni, 
 Le delicie, il tesor, qual accompagni 
 Mille duri pensicr, millc dolori. 
 Un vcrde praticel picn di bei fiori, 
 Un rivolo che l'crba intorno bagni, 
 Un augcllctto che d'amor si lagni, 
 Acqueta molto meglio i nostri ardori.' 
 
 ' I fear,' said Lamia, ' I have not yet made 
 sufficient progress in my studies to follow your 
 recitation completely. Will you kindly translate ? ' 
 
 ' Let a spontaneous paraphrase suffice, which 
 will reproduce the original with, if with less 
 literary perhaps with more spiritual, accuracy. 
 
 'Covet who will the patronage of Kings, 
 And pompous titles Emperors bestow, 
 Splendour, and revelry, and all that brings 
 A thousand bitter thoughts, a world of woe : 
 A meadow glistening in an April shower, 
 A green-banked rivulet, and, near his nest, 
 A blackbird carolling in guelder bower, 
 'Tis these that soothe and satisfy the breast.' 
 
 ' Surely it is strange,' I said, l that a man so
 
 86 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 occupied with affairs of State as Lorenzo, conspir- 
 ing and conspired against from morning to night, 
 a landowner not indifferent to the prosperity of his 
 estate, a banker attentive to the profitable employ- 
 ment of his capital, a father most anxious for the 
 wise bringing up of his sons, a collector of manu- 
 scripts, gems and intaglios, a founder of libraries, 
 an owner of alum mines, a prince, a statesman, and 
 a diplomatist, should not only have experienced 
 such a sentiment as you have cited, but should 
 have found leisure to give expression to it.' 
 
 ' And in so short a space of time,' said Lamia, 
 more indulgent than usual to my observations. 
 ' Was he not only forty-one when he died ? ' 
 
 ' He was,' I said, ' but he seems to have lived 
 every hour of his life, and to have acted on the 
 principle he lays down in his contribution to the 
 Disputationes Camaldulenses, that life should consist 
 in equal parts of action and contemplation ; thereby 
 being rather at issue with Plato, whom he loved 
 so well. But even in his most contemplative 
 moods he never seems to be divorced from the 
 themes that interest mankind. There is a passage 
 in a poem of his expository of the Platonic Philo- 
 sophy which some critics have thought gave 
 Michelangelo the suggestion for his famous marble
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 87 
 
 Sonno, which you will shortly see in the Sacristy of 
 San Lorenzo ; while, in his Simposio there is a 
 description of a toping friar which is worthy of 
 Chaucer, and in the Canzoni a Ballo and the 
 Canti Carnascialesclii, which I cannot recommend 
 you to read save in what you will scarcely find, an 
 expurgated edition, he expresses the very thoughts, 
 feelings, and ideals of the populace of Florence.' 
 
 'Veronica shall be my Bowdler,' said Lamia, 
 'and meanwhile I thank you for your erudition! 
 But, as it happens to be my birthday, do you 
 think you could forget the Medici for a few 
 moments, if only to wish me, in the most con- 
 ventional manner, " many happy returns " ? ' 
 
 I had not forgotten the circumstance, and indeed 
 had armed myself with a propitiatory gift which I 
 intended to offer later in the day. But, before I 
 could stammer out my excuses, she put her hand 
 in that of the Poet, and said : 
 
 ' Perhaps you have forgotten that, not very 
 long ago, you rebuked me most gently for one of 
 my numerous foibles, and that I asked you to tell 
 me what I ought to do, and to be, in order to 
 merit your approval. Will you, for a birthday 
 present, tell me now ? ' 
 
 We had come, in our saunterings, to the long
 
 88 LAMIA'S W1NTER-OUARTERS 
 
 low wall, leaning over which we gazed down direct 
 on Florence. 
 
 ' With pleasure,' he said, ' and I must only 
 hope you will not think me too severe. 
 
 A BIRTHDAY PRESENT 
 
 • '• Say what, to please you, you would have me be.' 1 
 Then listen, dear ! 
 I fain would have you very fair to sec, 
 And sweet to hear. 
 
 ii 
 
 ' You should have Aphrodite's form and face, 
 With Dian's tread ; 
 And something of Minerva's lofty grace 
 Should crown your head. 
 
 in 
 
 ' Summer should wander in your voice, and Spring 
 
 Gleam in your gaze, 
 And pure thoughts ripen in your heart that bring 
 Calm Autumn days. 
 
 IV 
 
 'Yours should be winning ways that make Love live, 
 
 And ne'er grow old, 
 With ever something yet more sweet to give, 
 Which you withhold.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 89 
 
 v 
 
 ' You should have generous hopes that can beguile 
 Life's doubts and fears, 
 And, ever waiting on your April smile, 
 The gift of tears. 
 
 VI 
 
 'You should be close to us as earth and sea, 
 
 And yet as far 
 As Heaven itself. In sooth, I'd have you be 
 Just what you are.' 
 
 O these poets ! I need scarcely say that, after 
 this insidious effusion, I stowed away the present 
 I had intended for Lamia in a secret drawer, 
 reserving it for some more propitious occasion. 
 I hope I am not prejudiced when I say that the 
 verses were scarcely among the Poet's happier com- 
 positions. But diamonds would have lacked lustre, 
 after such metrical adulation. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 But did you go all that way, it will perhaps be 
 asked, and introduce Lamia to the acknowledged 
 fascinations of Tuscany, only to wander in search 
 of wild-flowers, to climb rural hill-sides, to rave 
 about scenery and sunshine, to listen reverentially 
 to the Poet's rhymes, and to discuss things in
 
 90 LAMIA'S WJNTER-OUARTERS 
 
 general, and Lamia's favourite themes in particular? 
 Surely, you may be disposed to add, all those things 
 could have been done just as well at home. Had 
 Florence itself, its churches, its palaces, its galleries, 
 its storied thoroughfares, no attraction for you all? 
 Indeed they had. But these have been written 
 about with such minuteness by the learned, and 
 with such fervour by the enthusiastic, that you 
 would hardly thank so homely a pen as mine for 
 describing them afresh. Moreover, let it be con- 
 fessed that we had a way of our own, which is 
 hardly the common way, of impressing Lamia's 
 sensitive mind with the artistic marvels of the City 
 of Flowers. To the rest ot us, Florence was 
 already as familiar even as the Garden that we love, 
 and the Poet had a theory, in which I entirely con- 
 curred, as to how Lamia's familiarity should grow 
 to be like ours, with a reserved freshness of its 
 own. ' There are two ways,' he said, ' of 
 approaching a place like Florence. You can try 
 to take possession of it, or you can allow it to take 
 possession of you. The first is the more usual, 
 but the second is, I would suggest, the more 
 excellent way. Once when I was travelling hither- 
 ward, I remember an American tourist who was 
 the only other occupant of the railway compartment,
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 91 
 
 asking me if I knew Pisa ; and, on my replying 
 that I did, he said he should be much obliged if I 
 would point it out to him. Shortly we approached 
 it, and the train slackened pace in order to make 
 the customary halt of some seven or eight 
 minutes. " This is Pisa," I said, and he at once 
 leaned out of the window, and there he remained 
 intently gazing till its Duomo, Leaning Tower, 
 and Baptistery, could be seen no more. Then 
 he turned to me, and said, " I thank you, sir, for 
 showing me Pisa. I should not have liked to 
 return to the States without having seen Pisa." 
 I beg of you not to take my fellow-traveller as a 
 national type, for Americans are as various, and 
 differ from each other as much, as the people of 
 other countries. But I cannot think he had seen 
 Pisa. Yet numbers of people resemble him in 
 their tacit assumption that a hasty visual impres- 
 sion or snapshot, so to speak, deserves to be 
 described as seeing, though, assuredly, where great 
 works of art are concerned, it is not to see with 
 the mind's eye, to say nothing of the spirit's.' 
 
 ' I am easily taken possession of, as you know,' 
 said Lamia, for a moment pointedly turning to me, 
 who certainly know nothing of the kind, and 
 indeed know very much the reverse, and then re-
 
 Q2 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 s ess 
 
 directing her attention to the Poet. ' But, if one 
 is to be taken possession of by all the lovely places 
 and things in this world, would not one have to 
 live to a rather venerable age ? ' 
 
 ' There is an alternative,' I said, ' is there not ? 
 which is to be taken possession of by only some 
 of them, but to be taken possession of by these 
 thoroughly.' 
 
 ' How conjugal and domestic that sounds. 
 But it makes no allowance for feminine curiosity. 
 I should be sorry, when we leave Florence, to think 
 there was anything in it worth seeing I had not 
 seen.' 
 
 ' Neither shall there be, I hope,' said the Poet, 
 ' but, if one is really to see what is worth seeing, I 
 think one must bridle one's curiosity a little about 
 much that is not worth seeing. The specialist, no 
 doubt, must be boundlessly curious concerning his 
 particular pursuit, and the professional student 
 of Art is a specialist. We are, at best, only 
 dilettanti, and seek solely to expand our minds 
 through sympathetic and discriminating enjoy- 
 ment.' 
 
 ' In fact,' said Lamia, ' it is with Art as with 
 Life. If one is to enjoy it, one must not know 
 too much about it. In that case, I can promise
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 93 
 
 myself, during the next few weeks, no end of 
 pleasure.' 
 
 We none of us, unless it be Veronica sometimes, 
 resent Lamia's seemingly irrelevant way of divert- 
 ing a discussion, and the Poet has less reason than 
 any of us to do so, since she not only accepts his 
 utterances as words of absolute wisdom, but invari- 
 ably strives to shape herself according to his 
 canons of life and conduct. Accordingly, when we 
 descended into Florence, which was pretty often, 
 she manifested neither impatience nor curiosity, 
 but suffered herself to fall into the fortuitous 
 fashion of wandering about it that he recommended. 
 We had neither guide nor guide-book ; and, if any 
 of us showed a disposition to enter here or to linger 
 there, we entered or lingered as a matter of course. 
 Lamia was left to her own impulses in giving 
 much or little attention to tomb, fresco, statue, 
 altar-piece, pulpit, or doorway ; nor was she dis- 
 tracted by any information concerning them till 
 she asked for it. Then, indeed, it was given most 
 willingly, and it was rarely that one or other of us 
 could not answer her inquiries. The Poet and I 
 were sometimes at fault, but Veronica never. If 
 you think that by such a method as this much 
 must have been overlooked that is well deserving
 
 94 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 of notice, you must remember there was nothing to 
 prevent us from returning to the same chapel or 
 sacristy, the same monument or bas-relief, again 
 and again ; and, so varying is the human mood in 
 general, and Lamia's mood in particular, that what 
 she would pass by on one occasion would wholly 
 engross her attention in another. Thus there 
 was a certain method underlying our apparent 
 purposelessness, and I fancy she ended by knowing 
 fully as much about Florence as those who order 
 their visits to its innumerable treasures, while I am 
 sure she enjoyed herself infinitely more. Moreover, 
 this unsystematic system of artistic vagrancy issued 
 sometimes in welcome surprises that extended the 
 experience of all of us. One evening, for instance, 
 just as we were on the point of quitting the city 
 and driving homeward, Lamia said : 
 
 ' Let us go into the Duomo for a few minutes.' 
 ' But it is so dark,' I suggested, ' you will see 
 nothing ! ' 
 
 We entered, nevertheless. It was the eve of 
 Good Friday, when, according to the Roman 
 Catholic Ritual, the Host, instead of being 
 enshrined as usual on the High Altar, is, in com- 
 memoration of the sacred tragedy of Calvary, 
 borne to a dimly-lighted Sepulchre, where, all night
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 95 
 
 long, the faithful come to watch and pray. The 
 Office of Tenebrte was just over, and the worshippers 
 had all passed out of the Cathedral. There 
 remained in the doubtful light only a Verger and 
 ourselves, till, from either side of the Choir, there 
 emerged a figure robed in black, and bearing a 
 lighted torch. Slowly, solemnly, and parallel to 
 each other, they skirted the inner walls of the 
 building, till they met at the main doorway, and 
 then, at the same grave pace, they walked up 
 the long empty nave. I had a surmise of what 
 was signified by this slow and lonely procession, 
 but in order to be quite sure I said to the 
 Verger : 
 
 'Cosa fanno ? ' (What are they doing ?) 
 
 ' Cercano II Signore, e non lo trovano,' he replied. 
 (They are looking for Our Lord, and cannot find 
 Him.) 
 
 We all had heard the replv. Then we quitted 
 the Duomo, and drove home in silence. 
 
 Surely it is true, is it not, that accidental 
 experiences have a sharper savour and leave behind 
 them a more enduring reminiscence than projected 
 ones ? What one expects but rarely comes up to 
 expectation, and has generally cost some thought 
 or trouble to procure. What happens unex-
 
 96 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 pectedly, if it be of the welcome kind, finds one 
 disarmed and indisposed to criticise, and the 
 emotion it excites is all sheer gain, no price of 
 admission, to so speak, having been paid for it. 
 Just as wandering along a river is more agreeable 
 than walking along a canal, so people who canalise 
 their lives and prearrange their enjoyments lose 
 much of the enchantment which attends the guiding 
 beneficence of chance. In Florence, you can 
 scarcely halt anywhere, but story sacred or profane, 
 saint or scholar, painter or patriot, poet, martyr, 
 or enthusiast, has left some indelible trace to mark 
 and glorify the spot, and to make you lift your 
 head and then your heart. The very lapidary 
 inscriptions let into the walls where architect or 
 sculptor, jurist or astronomer once abode, are a 
 continual invitation to the wayfarer to pause, to 
 read, to ponder. Nor is it perhaps the most 
 famous or the best known that are the most 
 interesting and suggestive. The Poet seemed to 
 have a special faculty for arresting our footsteps 
 by those most worthy of contemplation. ' Is not 
 this one,' he said, ' peculiarly consolatory in a 
 period like the present, when most people, and the 
 Italians especially, seem to think that originality 
 consists in artificial novelty and even grotesqueness
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 97 
 
 — for that is where such novelty too often leads— 
 of manner and expression.' 
 
 Thereupon he read : ' Qui visse e rnorl Benedetto 
 da Majano, chi nelle opere sue confronto co/i 
 venusta di stile e di forme le grandi idee del genio 
 creatore? (Here lived and died Benedetto da 
 Maiano, who in his works conferred charm of style 
 and beauty of form on the lofty ideas of creative 
 genius.) 
 
 ' To do that,' he said, ' is to overcome the 
 main difficulty and solve the essential problem of 
 Art, whether in marble or in language. In our 
 day, too many persons shirk the difficulty and 
 ignore the problem, and seek to conceal the 
 poverty of their ideas under the extravagance of 
 their manner.' 
 
 ' Some of these are very successful,' I ventured 
 to observe. 
 
 ' Not,' said Veronica, ' if in the notion of 
 success be included that of succession. Con- 
 gratulated to-day, will they not be consigned to 
 oblivion to-morrow, when right taste has resumed 
 its authority, or when some one yet more ex- 
 travagant creates an impression, equally sudden 
 and equally transitory, of a somewhat similar 
 character ? ' 
 
 H
 
 98 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 ' I think so,' said the Poet, ' and I am sufficiently 
 enamoured of venusta di stile to hope so. As 
 great a master of style as this century has produced 
 says somewhere, " On pent tout dire dans le style 
 simple et correct des bons auteurs. Les expressions 
 violentes viennent toujours on d'une pretention, on 
 de Vignorance de nos richesses reelles." Do you 
 mind, Lamia, committing that sentence to memory, 
 for I see you sometimes deeply immersed in works 
 of much pretension, but consisting for the most 
 part of expressions violentes, though I never observe 
 you admiring in marble or on canvas the violence 
 or the profuse colouring you occasionally tolerate in 
 language ? ' 
 
 ' Is it not,' said Veronica, ' that in architecture, 
 painting, and sculpture, the manner in which a 
 thing is done is so much more conspicuous, so to 
 speak, than what is done, that failure, whether it 
 arise from feebleness or from violence, strikes us at 
 once ; whereas, in language, what is said, if inter- 
 esting in itself, makes us indulgent to, and indeed 
 forgetful of, the manner of saying it? ' 
 
 ' I suppose that is so,' he answered ; ' and 
 perhaps it is one of the incidental drawbacks to 
 literature. Fortunately, however, what you say is 
 more true of prose than of verse ; defect or style
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 99 
 
 in poetry being at least as obvious to fastidious 
 readers as in marble. And yet,' he added, ' in our 
 time, a grotesque, violent, and what seems to me 
 lamentable way of saying things has been more 
 than tolerated in verse, for the sake of the things 
 said. For my part, I should be sorry to be original, 
 either in prose or verse, at the expense of truth or 
 beauty.' 
 
 The absence of method in our visits to cloister 
 or gallery seemed to govern most of our move- 
 ments. Sometimes we wee but two, sometimes 
 but three, of a company ; and it would happen 
 that, when we were four, we lost touch of each 
 other for a time, and went our separate ways. 
 Veronica not infrequently was missing ; and gener- 
 ally, when this occurred, when she returned alone 
 to the villa, she brought with her some ' object of 
 antiquity,' as the Florentine dealers in curios and 
 old furniture call such things, purchased after 
 considerable thought and much bargaining. I 
 think you know Veronica has a large heart, and 
 would defraud no one of his due, and indeed would 
 give any one more than his due, where no bar- 
 gaining was in question. But she knows just as 
 much about the date and value of cas set/one, triptych, 
 or embroidery, as any of the various dealers
 
 ioo LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 on the Ponte Vecchio or in the Via de' Serragli ; 
 and she not unnaturally enjoyed displaying her 
 peculiar learning in those interesting haunts. Her 
 perfect familiarity with the language, and indeed 
 even with Florentine patois, added to her advantage 
 and strengthened her position in appraising the 
 value of mediaeval picture -frame or sixteenth- 
 century mirror. Moreover, it is the greatest 
 possible error to suppose that Florentine dealers 
 are consumed with a single-minded desire to rob 
 unwary purchasers ; and I am convinced they much 
 preferred to conclude a fair bargain with Veronica, 
 than an unfair one with the first ignorant comer. 
 Oriental ways and traditions of business still linger 
 sufficiently with them to make prezzo fisso or a 
 rigidly-fixed price exceedingly distasteful. Their 
 day is long, they have abundance of time on their 
 hands, and, if the few things they sell in the course 
 of the week were sold without demur and in a 
 couple of minutes, life would be insufferably tedious 
 for want of human intercourse and agreeable con- 
 versation. Veronica invariably regaled us with 
 minute accounts, on the occasion of each fresh 
 purchase, of the polite but protracted controversy 
 that had attended it ; and very diverting these 
 were. She preferred to conduct these transactions
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 101 
 
 without our company ; for, in the first place, as 
 she truly enough remarked, we knew nothing 
 whatever upon the subject and could therefore be 
 of no use to her, and, in the second place, when we 
 honoured her with our useless society, one or 
 other of us invariably ended by showing signs of 
 impatience, and to be impatient over a bargain 
 is inevitably to get the worst of it. She did 
 not always come ofT a winner in these friendly 
 encounters ; and she was just as candid and as 
 diverting in confessing her defeats as in recording 
 her victories. On one occasion she suffered a 
 peculiarly humiliating disaster, which she detailed 
 with much zest at her own expense. Wishing to 
 give an agreeable surprise to Lamia on the occasion 
 of that Birthday, when, as you will perhaps remem- 
 ber, I was so sorely discomfited, she went in search 
 of some amber beads which Lamia had more than 
 once expressed a longing to find in order to com- 
 plete a set she already possessed. But it was 
 indispensable they should be of a special hue. At 
 length, Veronica discovered some in a shop in the 
 Por Santa Maria, but, do what she would, and 
 notwithstanding all her Florentine wit, she could 
 not bring the owner ot them into what she deemed 
 a reasonable frame of mind as regards price.
 
 io2 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ' Ebbene, she said, ' I will try elsewhere.' 
 
 She tried everywhere, but in vain, and so at 
 length had to go back to the Por Santa Maria, and 
 say she would take the beads at the man's own 
 price. 
 
 ' But now, Sign or a mia,' he said, ' that is no 
 longer the price : you can find no others in 
 Florence to suit you, so these in the meantime 
 have become more valuable.' And he added some 
 insignificant sum to the original figure, more for 
 the sake of triumph than from any mercenary 
 motive. Had Veronica been making a purchase 
 for herself, I am sure she would have defrauded 
 him of his victory by leaving him in possession of 
 his amber treasures. But she would not disappoint 
 Lamia, and so paid the forfeit of her unsuccessful 
 strategy. 
 
 But we had a less humorous and far more 
 touching experience on another occasion. Visiting 
 a hillside village some twenty-five miles away, 
 we were all much taken by a small altar-piece, a 
 Presentation in the Temple, which stood in a 
 side -chapel in a little church of otherwise no 
 particular pretension. We discussed, then and 
 there, by whom it may have been painted, for I 
 need scarcely say that, on that subject, we all, like
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 103 
 
 so many other people, consider ourselves exceed- 
 ingly expert, and quite competent to express an 
 opinion. The Parroco, a venerable Priest of 
 courtly manners but much humility, did not affect 
 to adjudicate among us, but was evidently much 
 interested in our deliberations, and still more in 
 our admiration of the picture. At last he hesitat- 
 ingly asked Veronica if we should like to become 
 the owners of it. This had certainly not occurred 
 to us, and we were rather taken aback by the 
 question. But Veronica, enchanted at the chance 
 of an unexpected bit of bargaining, said ' Yes,' 
 without a moment's hesitation. So modest a sum, 
 however, was asked, if compared with the high 
 artistic qualities we had been attributing to it, that 
 it went against her conscience, which, as you know, 
 is the strongest part of her, to offer anything less. 
 Moreover, she probably remembered, on second 
 thoughts, that the place was not a suitable one for 
 financial transactions ; and any remaining scruple 
 we might have had in completing the bargain was 
 set at rest by his telling us that he had long been 
 anxious to buy a second-hand harmonium that was 
 for sale, whereby the services of his little church 
 could be conducted in a more seemly manner. 
 
 The picture was carried oft"; and, by the time it
 
 io + LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 hud been in our possession forty-eight hours, its 
 artistic value had enormously increased, and there 
 was hardly any Umbrian painter, Raphael perhaps 
 excepted, to whom we were not ready to ascribe 
 it. We discussed, over and over again, where it 
 should be hung when we returned to England, 
 and first one position of honour and then another 
 was suggested for it. But, as I knew well enough 
 from the first would turn out to be the case, 
 it was finally assigned by Veronica to the Poet's 
 study. 
 
 For a week she had the satisfaction of seeing 
 all of us as much interested in, and as proud of, a 
 purchase as herself. But, on the morning of the 
 eighth day after our mountain excursion, the old 
 Priest suddenly made his appearance at the villa, 
 whither he had walked all the way ; and, in a state 
 of much agitation, he said that he had come to ask 
 us to give him back the picture, the price of which 
 he would restore and which he had in his hand. 
 At first there was a protesting chorus, and Veronica 
 was particularly eloquent in pointing out that the 
 request was most unreasonable, as we had given 
 the full amount asked for, without any demur. 
 Thereupon the poor old man explained, with tears 
 in his eyes, that his parishioners had missed the
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 105 
 
 picture, and, though he had told them of his 
 intended purchase of the harmonium, they insisted 
 on its being restored to its traditional home, and 
 all his pleas and arguments had proved unavailing 
 with them. To such an appeal but one answer 
 was possible. The picture was returned, and the 
 Poet's study will never see that Umbrian master- 
 piece. Our disappointment was great ; but why, 
 said Veronica, should everybody be disappointed ? 
 Poor old man ! He stood there a most touching 
 figure. So we put our hearts and purses together ; 
 and the sound of the second-hand harmonium now 
 follows on his quavering voice, when, in answer 
 to his Dominus vobiscum, the entire mountain con- 
 gregation shrills out, to its instrumental accompani- 
 ment, Et cum spiritu tuo. 
 
 As a rule, however, Veronica's purchases, over 
 and above being definitive, were as useful as they 
 were ornamental ; and it sometimes seemed as 
 though Lamia's predictions concerning the trans- 
 formation that was gradually to come over the 
 villa were about to be fulfilled. Veronica invari- 
 ably declared that the furniture she brought back 
 with her from the Via Maggio, or the Piazza Santa 
 Maria Novella, was intended strictly tor home 
 consumption, and would in due course be packed
 
 106 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 and dispatched to England. Where she would 
 find room in a house already remarkably well 
 stocked, was a mystery to all of us ; and meanwhile 
 it remained on the spot, to whose aspect it certainly 
 added finish and charm, and to whose commodious- 
 ness it materially contributed. 
 
 ' I told you,' said Lamia, ' I should end by 
 having a comfortable armchair, and you see I have. 
 Nor can I well doubt that a host of work-people 
 have been secretly introduced by Veronica, 
 for I can now count on my bell ringing with 
 absolute certainty ; and, as for Placida and Perfetta,' 
 — Placida and Perfetta were two handmaidens, — 
 ' though they still regard fair words and sweet 
 smiles as the principal ingredients of domestic 
 service, they have developed a talent for tidying 
 my drawers and arranging my toilet-table which 
 cannot but have proceeded from severe drilling by 
 Veronica, while you and I were discussing the Infinite 
 under the shade of cheerful boughs. Shortly after 
 we first came, Veronica gave one of our dear devoted 
 but somewhat primitive attendants a sponge, for 
 what purpose I cannot say. But this domestic 
 novelty was found so useful, that each of them in 
 turn, she discovered, had the loan of it, till it came 
 to enjoy an absolute monopoly in the cleaning of
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 107 
 
 the establishment. Now, I believe, sponges, and all 
 other requisites of a well-ordered place of residence, 
 are as plentiful as blackberries. Do you remember,' 
 she said, turning to me, ' your giving me some 
 most lovely flowers last week, which, of course, I 
 treasured beyond words, even after they had faded. 
 But I discovered, the next morning, that Perfetta, 
 moved by a spirit of economy which seems to be 
 a perfect passion with these dear people, was apply- 
 ing them, on the carpet, to the same purpose, I 
 am told, for which we sometimes use tea-leaves in 
 England. That was a sad ending, was it not, to 
 your lovely gift ? ' 
 
 Lamia's observation on 'the principal ingredients 
 of domestic service,' as understood in Italy by those 
 who render it, was strictly accurate. They wait 
 on you with a smile, and minister to your need 
 with copious conversation. They will end by 
 giving you all you ask for ; but you must ask, 
 and you must not expect that, having asked for it 
 ninety-nine times, you will get it the hundredth, 
 without asking for it again. That would be to 
 defraud them, and you as well, of an opportunity 
 of talk, the thing they love most in the world. 
 Moreover, they have an invincible objection to 
 being made methodical ; nor can you give them
 
 108 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 greater pleasure than to ask them to do the work 
 naturally pertaining to somebody else. The cook 
 would be delighted to nurse the baby, the house- 
 maid would find it quite natural to be bidden to 
 cook the dinner, the butler would eagerly go in 
 search of the vegetables, and the gardener at once 
 mount the box and drive you into Florence. 
 Only do not ask them to be perfect, according to 
 English ideas, in their own line. They will do 
 anything on earth for you, if you go the right way 
 about it ; but they will not be turned into machines. 
 Nothing I have ever seen in Veronica is more 
 admirable, or shows so conclusively the discrimina- 
 tion she can blend with her love of order, than the 
 amount of method, limited no doubt but quite 
 unusual, with which, for the time at least, she 
 imbued those about us ; and Lamia, as we have 
 seen, indulged in a little characteristic raillery on 
 the subject. 
 
 ' It is all very well,' said the Poet, ' for us to 
 have our little joke about a certain person's passion 
 for discipline. But, upon my word, what Italy 
 stands in need of is a Ruler with plenary powers, 
 of the temperament and talents of Veronica. So 
 the Roman Empire was founded, so the British. 
 Dear Lamia, you are very charming ; our friend
 
 LAMIA'S WJNTER-OUARTERS 109 
 
 here is, I do not forget, a gardener of much repute, 
 and I write verses which, I am told, sometimes 
 give pleasure to people who are easily pleased. 
 But Veronica is worth all of us put together a 
 hundred times over.' 
 
 ' Ouite so,' said Lamia. ' Veronica is our 
 
 Sis ' 
 
 Minerva Medica, whose salutary if sometimes 
 unpalatable wisdom keeps us in such tolerable 
 health as moral valetudinarians like myself are 
 capable of; whereas I am but a would-be Egeria, 
 who have not yet succeeded in inducing any one, 
 and you, dear Poet, least of all, to be my Numa. 
 Still, do not judge me altogether by the way in 
 which I conduct myself here, among a people very 
 much after my own heart. I have a conscience, 
 which 1 showed by declaring it at the frontier, as 
 I heard it was contraband. I proved to be right ; 
 it was confiscated, and I have got on very comfort- 
 ably without it ever since. Indeed, I should have 
 missed a new gown much more. Poets, we all 
 know, never have a conscience, in any country. 
 But, as Veronica has enough for two, indeed — 
 obligingly remembering my existence — for three, I 
 daresay we shall continue to manage fairly well in 
 this easy-going land, with Veronica's occasional 
 assistance.'
 
 no LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 At this moment, Veronica joined us under the 
 lower loggia, where we had for some time been 
 sitting, and desisting more frequently than perhaps 
 you have imagined, from audible converse, in 
 order to commune silently with the plashing of the 
 fountain in front of us, with city, plain, and river 
 far below, and with hill-slope and summit every- 
 where around us. The sun had just disappeared ; 
 and, each instant, mountain and sky grew more and 
 more unreal, more and more transfigured in the 
 afterglow. The last Ave Maria bell had rung ; 
 the last wain drawn by the sleek, swaying oxen 
 had creaked up the hill ; and, somewhere among 
 the more distant olives, a peasant lingering at his 
 work, but pondering aloud on his love, sang out 
 with clear voice to the clear air : 
 
 ' Fin al fin dc' giorni miei, 
 Io tc sola voglio amar.' 
 
 1 You never told us,' said Veronica, ' what you 
 two did yesterday afternoon.' The two were the 
 Poet and Lamia. 
 
 ' You scarcely gave us the chance,' Lamia 
 replied. ' We were all so absorbed in admiring the 
 bust you brought from Florence of the founder 
 of the Magliabecchian Library, whose name I have
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS in 
 
 already forgotten, but who was himself, you told 
 us, what you, dear Veronica, will become if you 
 go on accumulating stray black-letter volumes 
 at the rate you are doing at present, — qu<edam 
 bibliotheca. But have a care. What if they were 
 lost or stolen ? I was reading only yesterday 
 that, when Guarino, returning to Florence from 
 Constantinople with a cargo of Greek manuscripts, 
 was shipwrecked, and all his treasures went to the 
 bottom of the sea, his hair turned white. See 
 how well-informed I am getting. I can tell you 
 still more on this interesting subject, and indeed 
 meditate lecturing on it next winter in the Sala 
 Dante. Cosimo de' Medici healed a political 
 breach with Alfonso of Naples by sending him 
 a Manuscript of Livy ; and Lorenzo declared 
 to Pico della Mirandola, probably where we 
 are now sitting, that, if his fortune proved in- 
 sufficient, he would pledge his furniture in order 
 to buy books. But, when your purse gives out, 
 you will spare my easy -chair, Veronica, won't 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' You have still not told us where you went 
 yesterday afternoon.' 
 
 Lamia remained silent ; leaving it to the Poet 
 to reply :
 
 ii2 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ' We carried some flowers to the grave of 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning.' 
 
 Again there was silence. Then, shortly, Veronica 
 asked : 
 
 ' Did nothing come of it ? ' 
 
 We all well knew the meaning of the question, 
 and so did he, and accordingly replied : 
 
 ' Well, yes, something came of it, such as it 
 is ' ; and, not waiting for us to express a desire 
 he was aware we all entertained, he unaffectedly 
 recited to us the following lines : — 
 
 AT HER GRAVE 
 
 Lo, here among the rest you sleep, 
 
 As though no difference were 
 'Twixt them and you, more wide, more deep, 
 Than such as fondness loves to keep 
 
 Round each lone sepulchre. 
 
 11 
 
 Yet they but human, you divine, 
 
 Warmed by that heavenly breath, 
 Which, when ephemeral lights decline, 
 Like lamp before nocturnal shrine, 
 Still burnetii after death.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 113 
 
 in 
 
 Yes, here in Tuscan soil you lie, 
 
 With Tuscan turf above ; 
 And, lifting silent spires on high, 
 The cypresses remind the sky 
 Of the city of your love. 
 
 IV 
 
 And you did grow so like to her 
 
 Wherein you dwelt so long, 
 Your thoughts, like her May roses, were 
 Untrained, unchecked, hut how astir, 
 And oh how sweet, with song ! 
 
 The Poet of Olympian mien 
 
 His frenzy doth control, 
 And, gazing on the dread Unseen, 
 Keep mind majestic, will serene, 
 And adamantine soul. 
 
 VI 
 
 He, save to Wisdom sternly true, 
 Is but the sport of Fate 
 
 And gladiatorial pain. But you ! 
 
 A poet, and a woman too ! 
 The burden was too great. 
 I
 
 ii + LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 VII 
 
 And so you laid it down, and here, 
 
 Oblivious of life's load, 
 Quiet you sleep through all the year, 
 Young Spring, staid Summer, Autumn sere, 
 
 And Winter's icy goad. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The swallows, freshly on the wing, 
 
 In April's sun rejoice ; 
 The nightingales unceasing sing ; 
 Yes, Spring brings back the birds of Spring, 
 
 But not, alas ! your voice. 
 
 IX 
 
 So round your sleep I soft let fall 
 
 Frail emblems of regret ; 
 The lowly wind-flower, tulip tall, 
 The iris mantling wayside wall, 
 
 And weeping violet. 
 
 My votive flowers to-day will blow, 
 
 To-morrow be decayed ; 
 But, though long sunk from sight, I know, 
 The glory of your afterglow 
 
 Will never wholly fade.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER -QUARTERS 
 
 It was Pasqua delle Rose, literally Easter of Roses, 
 to distinguish it from Pasqua delle Uova, or Easter 
 of Eggs ; in other words, Whitsuntide. We were 
 indebted to Lamia for this pretty designation, 
 which was new to all of us, and she had made 
 acquaintance with it in the course of conversation 
 with Perfetta, who, though by no means what her 
 name implied, and, indeed, as Veronica said, the 
 most imperfect of our native retainers, had long 
 since quite won Lamia's heart by a spontaneous 
 compliment. Very early on in her study of
 
 1 16 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 Italian, Lamia had displayed an extraordinarily 
 fine ear for the pronunciation of that language, 
 and a quick talent for assimilating its most familiar 
 phrases, so that Perfetta one day declared she must 
 surely be of Italian parentage. 
 
 ' Indeed she is not,' I said. ' Guess from what 
 land she comes ? ' 
 
 Perfetta looked at her for a moment, and then 
 exclaimed : ' Dal Paradiso." 
 
 Lamia treated this suggestion of celestial origin 
 with much levity, but, all the same, made Perfetta 
 a present of a gown which she declared was worn 
 out ; though to my masculine perception it seemed 
 almost as good as new, and Veronica confirmed 
 my impression by reproving her for spoiling 
 Perfetta at the same time that she deprived her- 
 self of a still very excellent garment. 
 
 ' I am sure,' said Lamia, apologetically, ' you 
 would not scold me if you had seen Perfetta's 
 delight, and heard her expression of it. If one 
 gives a gown to one's English maid, one receives 
 a most respectful " Thank you, Miss," and never 
 hears another word about it ; and, likely enough, 
 she sells it, having no sentiment on the subject 
 whatever. But Perfetta went into raptures over 
 the poor little gown, hugged it, kissed it, spread
 
 'covering stable and concealing shed'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 117 
 
 it to the light, and has recurred to it again and 
 again. Indeed, to listen to her is to have a lesson 
 in Italian expletives of admiration. She would keep 
 it, she said, for Feast days, not even for ordinary 
 Sundays, unless perhaps she put it on, for the first 
 time, on the festival of her patron Saint. Finally, 
 she declared she would wear it, for the first time, 
 at Pasqua delle Rose, and so you saw her in it 
 yesterday. But, if I gave her the gown, I have 
 likewise made you all a present of a most beautiful 
 phrase ; and, if you still are of opinion that I have 
 left myself short of a frock, it is always open to 
 any one to manifest gratitude by replacing it.' 
 
 It was, indeed, an Easter, or, if you will, a 
 Whitsuntide, of Roses. They were everywhere ; 
 clambering up the house, drooping from the roof, 
 running along the walls, carpeting the ground, 
 festooning themselves from elm to elm, interlaced 
 with the cypresses, peering through porch and 
 casement, covering stable and concealing shed, 
 scaling the tallest and seemingly most inaccessible 
 places, and thence falling down in untrained 
 profusion, veritable cascades of colour. We talked 
 of them from morning to night ; we lived, moved, 
 and had our being among them, left them only to 
 go back to them, vowed these were the most
 
 n8 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 beautiful, — no, those, — no, those others, and per- 
 petually expressed ourselves in fickle and contra- 
 dictory adoration. As Lamia wandered among 
 them, she would break into song, chanting their 
 praises, now in one tongue, now in another. 
 
 ' Roses crimson, roses white, 
 
 Deadly pale or lovely blushing, 
 Both in love with May at sight, 
 
 And their maiden blood is rushing 
 To and fro in hope to hide 
 
 Tumult it but thus discloses. 
 Bring the Bridegroom to the Bride ! 
 
 Everywhere are roses, roses.' 
 
 Then she would remember snatches of Lorenzo's 
 Canzone a Ballo, '■Ben venga Maggio,' written in 
 the local dialect of the time, and improvise for 
 them a suitable strain. 
 
 ' E voi, donzelle a schiera, 
 Con li vostri amadori, 
 Che di rose e di fiori 
 Vi fate belle, il Maggio, 
 Che e giovane e bella, 
 Deh non sie punto acerba, 
 Che non si rinnovella 
 L' eta come fa 1' herba. 
 Nessuna stia superba. 
 Al' amadore, il Maggio.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 119 
 
 Then she would revert to her own tongue, in its 
 paraphrase of the pagan song the Compagnacci 
 used to troll in the days of Savonarola, when they 
 wanted to protest against the austerity of his 
 followers and the Burning of the Vanities. 
 
 ' Every wall is white with roses, 
 
 Linnets pair in every tree ; 
 Brim your beakers, twine your posies, 
 Kiss and quaff ere Springtime closes ; 
 
 Bloom and beauty quickly flee.' 
 
 If we drove down to Florence, we drove 
 along roads that were avenues of roses ; and, in 
 the Fair City itself, we forget to look at palace, 
 or facade, or bridge, absorbed in gazing on the 
 white and yellow Banksias that hung in bunches 
 and clusters over intramural garden-walls. But, 
 as the year expanded and deepened in beauty, we 
 grew more and more unwilling to stir from the 
 enchanting surroundings of the villa itself, unless 
 it were to wander in other poderi and among other 
 vineyards, or to make expeditions that took us un- 
 interruptedly through a world of radiant newness. 
 Lamia did not now inquire how we proposed to 
 employ ourselves, since being alive was in itself 
 occupation enough. Lest, however, as she said, 
 Veronica's conscience should prick her for so much
 
 120 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 time passed in the mere delight of doing nothing, 
 she read us the following passage written by Lorenzo 
 de' Medici, and which she said she intended to 
 recite to a larger audience whenever she delivered 
 those lectures in the Sal a Dante. 
 
 1 What can be more worthy of desire to a well- 
 regulated mind than the enjoyment of leisure with 
 dignity ? That is what all good men wish to 
 attain, but what great men alone accomplish. In 
 the progress of public affairs we may indeed be 
 allowed to look forward to a period of rest ; but 
 no repose should totally seclude us from attention 
 to the concerns of our country. I cannot deny 
 that the path it has been my lot to tread has been 
 arduous and rugged, full of danger, and beset with 
 treachery ; but I console myself with the thought 
 of having contributed to the welfire of the State, 
 the prosperity of which now rivals that of any 
 other, however flourishing. Neither have I been 
 inattentive to the interests and advancement of my 
 family, having always proposed for my imitation 
 the example of my grandfather Cosimo, who 
 watched over his public and his private concerns 
 with equal vigilance. Having now attained the 
 object of my cares, I trust I may be allowed to 
 enjoy the sweets of leisure, to share in the reputa-
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 121 
 
 tion of my fellow-citizens, and to exult in the glory 
 of my native city.' 
 
 ' The passage is very interesting,' said the Poet, 
 ' and serves to strengthen one's impression of the 
 sanity and completeness of Lorenzo's talents. 
 But is it not also another contribution to the vanity 
 of human wishes and the fatuity of human self- 
 complacency ? I do not think Lorenzo ever 
 attained to that enjoyment of dignity with leisure 
 of which he speaks ; and assuredly he had not long 
 been dead before the glory of his native city, in the 
 sense in which he used the phrase, passed away.' 
 
 ' If one is to believe Politian,' I said, ' either the 
 famous death-bed colloquy with Savonarola never 
 took place, or it left but little impression on the 
 dying man.' 
 
 ' That is a story,' said the Poet, ' one would 
 part with unwillingly. But what is it that Politian 
 says ? ' 
 
 ' That to judge by Lorenzo's behaviour, and 
 that of his attendants, when he was dying, you 
 would have thought it was they who momentarily 
 expected that fate, and he alone that was exempt 
 from it.' 
 
 'There is no tomb nor inscription, is there,' 
 asked Lamia, ' to mark the place that received his
 
 122 LAMIA'S WJNTER-OUARTERS 
 
 ashes, while his unworthier successors have a 
 sumptuous monument designed by Michelangelo, 
 whom in the budding days of his genius Lorenzo 
 used to place, out of respect for his talent, above 
 his own sons at table ? ' 
 
 ' I suppose,' said Veronica, ' he was paid for 
 the monument he executed, and could not execute 
 the one the cost of which there was no one to 
 defray. But do not let us forget that what he felt 
 concerning the contrast between the earlier and the 
 later Medici is for ever embodied in his famous 
 quatrain. Repeat it to us, Lamia.' 
 
 'With pleasure, if I can.' 
 
 ' Grato m' e il sonno, ed il piu esser di sasso, 
 Mentre che il danno c la vergogna dura. 
 Non veder, non sentir, m' e gran ventura : 
 Pcro, non mi destar. Deh ! parla basso.' 
 
 ' How would one translate it ? ' 
 
 ' Translation is a difficult craft,' said the Poet ; 
 ' but, after visiting San Lorenzo again the other 
 day, I could not resist trying to render those noble 
 lines into our own tongue. 
 
 ' Nay, let me sleep, or, best, be stone or steel, 
 While still endures this infamy of woe. 
 My one sole bliss is nor to see nor feel : 
 
 So, wake me not ; and, lest you should, speak low.'
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 123 
 
 ' How utterly out of place,' said Lamia, ' a 
 character like Michelangelo seems in Florentine 
 history ! whereas Lorenzo is its very type and 
 representative.' 
 
 ' Do you not forget,' said Veronica, ' that 
 perhaps the three most austere human figures 
 known to us were Florentines, either by birth or by 
 adoption : Michelangelo, Dante, and Savonarola.' 
 
 ' That only makes it all the more strange,' I 
 said. 
 
 ' But why ? ' said the Poet. ' Have we not, in 
 these days, succumbed too readily to the notion 
 that we are the creatures of our surroundings, and 
 what is called our habitat ? And is not that theory 
 a mere ex -post -facto explanation that explains 
 nothing ? Who would ever have thought of 
 predicting that any of the three great Puritans you 
 have named would be associated with Florence, 
 and the greatest of the three be born and bred in 
 the very heart of her ? Must we not look else- 
 where for the explanation ? ' 
 
 ' Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law, 
 Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will ; 
 And when, at callow-time, you think to find 
 The sparrow's stationary chirp, lo ! bursts 
 Voyaging voice to glorify the Spring.'
 
 i2 + LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ' In the same way characters, austere or the 
 reverse, make their appearance in the most unlikely 
 places. We hear too much, I think, of the Spirit 
 of the Age. Shall we not rather believe that the 
 Age is what great Spirits make it ? ' 
 
 ' There,' said Veronica, ' do you not press your 
 own theory too far ? Without for one moment 
 denying that the sudden appearance of great 
 characters, or the place where they appear, is not 
 to be foretold, one can hardly help feeling that 
 Dante, Savonarola, and Michelangelo, in conse- 
 quence of something adverse in the Florentine 
 character, did not succeed in making Florence 
 what they would fain have made her.' 
 
 ' Truly great characters,' said Lamia, ' always 
 fail. Only second-rate people succeed. For my 
 part I am very glad of it, for nothing is so dis- 
 appointing as failure, — except success.' 
 
 ' There is a good deal in what you say,' I was 
 rather surprised to hear the Poet reply. ' But 
 perhaps we have all, and myself most of all, drifted 
 into a vein of exaggeration. I was betrayed into 
 it by the excessive claim which it seems to me many 
 nowadays advance for Science, as compared with 
 other sources of instruction and helps to life. Out- 
 debt to Science is great. A.t the same time, it has
 
 LAMIA'S W1NTER-OUARTERS 125 
 
 its limits, and I cannot think it is the greatest of 
 our obligations. Do you remember that profound 
 saying of Pascal, " La science des chose s exterieures 
 ne me consolera pas de f ignorance de la morale au 
 temps a" 'affliction, mats la science des mceurs me 
 consolera toujours de V ignorance des sciences ex- 
 terieures" ? Such a line, for instance, as that of 
 Shakespeare, 
 
 "In Nature there's no blemish but the mind," 
 
 is more deeply and enduringly helpful than steam- 
 engines, electric lights, or anaesthetics. One can, 
 in case of necessity, dispense with tramways and 
 telephones ; but we cannot dispense with right 
 thinking and right feeling. The material dis- 
 coveries of the Age do it much honour ; but man's 
 triumph over matter is most nobly displayed when 
 he triumphs over the matter of which he is himself 
 composed ; when he ignores physical pain, and 
 tramples on his non-spiritual passions. Science is 
 the language of the Intellect, Literature of the 
 Soul ; and Poetry, the highest expression of Litera- 
 ture, does for language, and sometimes for life, 
 what the Soul does for the body, and what this 
 glorious Italian sun does for mountain and plain : 
 it spiritualises matter. Let me add, lest I should
 
 126 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 seem too partial to the particular art I practise so 
 imperfectly, that this is true of all imaginative 
 Art ; and, far from fearing lest Science should sap 
 and supersede it, I trust and believe that Art will 
 ever remain its complement, and, where necessary, 
 its corrective.' 
 
 ' Do you consider Italians,' asked Lamia, ' artistic 
 or scientific, material or spiritual ? ' 
 
 ' They are both, surely,' he replied. ' But, if 
 we took the modern Florentine as the Italian type, 
 I fear we would have to reply they are rather too 
 prone to worship material science. The artistic 
 faculty in them seems almost extinct, save for 
 purposes of imitation ; and, even when they imitate 
 the art of the past, they do so without any dis- 
 crimination between the good and the bad. But 
 in railways, telegraphs, telephones, tramways, they 
 take inexhaustible delight. They have disfigured 
 much of Florence, and most of Rome, in their 
 determination not to lag behind in the general 
 march of what is termed material progress.' 
 
 1 Is it not,' suggested Veronica, ' that they are 
 essentially a practical race ? When the world first 
 took to commerce, the Florentines became great 
 merchants and great bankers. When Popes and 
 Princes posed as patrons of architecture, sculpture
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 127 
 
 and painting, they produced palaces, statues, and 
 pictures.' 
 
 ' Just so,' said Lamia ; ' and now that the whole 
 world has taken to travelling, Representative Institu- 
 tions, and Music Flails, they have Circular Tours 
 and a popular Parliament, both of which they 
 work exceedingly badly, and a Caffe Savonarola 
 Sfcttacolo Diverso, a piece of profanation for which 
 I confess I should like to smack them.' 
 
 ' There is a good deal of vulgarity,' I ventured 
 to plead, ' in modern life, and in compliance 
 with the theory you have all been pressing, they 
 are vulgar accordingly. But would it not be 
 more indulgent, and equally true, to say that Italy 
 is the one country, and the Italians are the one 
 race, whose vitality is inexhaustible? They have 
 been well before the world, if you will pardon that 
 expression, for more than two thousand five 
 hundred years ; and, during all that period, they 
 have never altogether dropped out of sight. 
 Neither do they now appear in the least disposed 
 to retire into private life, or to preserve their 
 ruins, however much some of us would like them 
 to do so, for the satisfaction of our romantic 
 feelings. Who would have believed, asked Saint 
 Jerome fifteen hundred years ago, that Rome
 
 128 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 would ever be sunk so low that, at the very seat 
 of its Empire, it would be reduced to fight, not 
 for glory, but for self-preservation. Yet what do 
 we see to-day ? Rome, not only safe against 
 foreign assault, but, with the aid of railways and 
 Maxim guns, meditating new triumphs and new 
 glories.' 
 
 ' That,' said the Poet, and 1 felt much flattered 
 by his approval, ' is the more generous, and there- 
 fore the more just way of putting it. The Italians 
 have a great Past, which they refuse to forget. It 
 still continues to animate their ambition, and for- 
 bids them to rest satisfied with that do Ice far niente 
 with which they once were reproached. When 
 the period of the Renaissance came to an end, 
 Italy might have seemed to say, in the words of 
 Nero, Qualis artifex perco, and to perish most 
 artistically. But Italy was not dead, as she has 
 shown so clearly during the last thirty years. 
 One's only regret is that the existing type of 
 national greatness is so costly, that Italians have to 
 pay a desperately heavy price for refusing to exist 
 without it.' 
 
 ' People,' said Lamia, ' frequently complain of 
 the excessive loads Italian carters expect their 
 horses and their mules to draw. But the whole of
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 129 
 
 Italy seems to me to be suffering from the same 
 infliction.' 
 
 ' I fear,' observed Veronica, ' there is much 
 truth in what you say. Only yesterday I 
 remonstrated with the driver of the carriage I had 
 hired to bring me back to the Villa, because his 
 horse seemed in a shockingly poor condition. His 
 answer was, " Cam pa come me, — he fares as I do. 
 When I have plenty, he has plenty. When I have 
 little, there is little for him also. When there are 
 more fores fieri, he will have more oats." 
 
 ' Let us have a carriage apiece every afternoon,' 
 said Lamia, ' and do what we all shall hate, drive 
 round and round the Cascine from five to seven. 
 Only, in that case, I must have that new gown.' 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 ' A firefly ! A firefly ! ' 
 
 It was Veronica, invariably the most observant 
 of us, whose voice called to us to welcome the 
 fairy visitor, whose arrival is as delightful and 
 momentous an event in Italy as the wing of the 
 first swallow, the call of the first cuckoo, or the 
 note of the first nightingale, in England. We 
 were all on the alert in a moment, calling in 
 return : 
 
 'Where? Where?'
 
 130 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 It was a single, solitary firefly, for one may 
 say of fireflies as of primroses : 
 
 First you come by ones and ones, 
 Lastly in battalions, 
 
 and it moved and twinkled in the deepening 
 twilight, among the olive-trees, a miniature and 
 terrestrial planet, having no fixed orbit. I need 
 scarcely say that this was some days before Pasqua 
 delle Rose, though Whitsuntide happened to be an 
 early one ; and, the following night, we saw three, 
 and, the night after, seven. Then, for May can 
 be capricious in Tuscany as elsewhere, the weather 
 was not propitious for them. But, by the time 
 the moon was nearly at full, they were plenteous 
 as stars in the Milky Way ; and while they flitted 
 and glistened among the darkening leaves, the 
 nightingales rejoiced and enlivened each other with 
 the song that an ancient story and inherited 
 association have transformed for us into a strain of 
 imaginary sadness. Life offers no more enchant- 
 ing combination of sensations than fall to one's 
 lot on a warm Italian night in May, when moon- 
 light, fireflies, and nightingales weave their 
 concerted charm ; and, night after night, we 
 repaired to the same antique marble seat, where
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 131 
 
 we liked to think Lorenzo and his associates had 
 often sat, in front of the same dark silent cypresses, 
 and drank in the same sweet, grave, harmonious 
 delights. Perhaps you think us a company of 
 selfish Hedonists, wholly given up to pleasurable 
 sensations, poor weak copies of our Pagan 
 Renaissance predecessors on the self-same spot ? 
 Whether that be true or not of some of us, I will 
 not undertake to say. But certainly it is not true 
 of Veronica, nor yet, I think, of Lamia. Indeed, 
 speaking generally, I think one ought to entertain 
 one's friends with a record of one's happiness 
 rather than with a recital of one's woes ; but it 
 does not follow, does it, that there is no pathetic 
 minor in one's life because one is not always 
 sounding it ? Indeed, amid all the enchant- 
 ments of that Italian season when Spring and 
 Summer are indistinguishable, we had been 
 conscious of the shadow of pain which is cast by the 
 surely approaching extinction of a young life in 
 one's own immediate precincts ; and the shadow 
 was all the darker because the season was so bright. 
 Ilaria, the youngest and comeliest of the daughters 
 of our contadini, whose acquaintance you perhaps 
 remember our first making, had, we were assured, 
 till within a twelvemonth ago, more than justified
 
 132 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 her pretty name by the joyousness of her ways. 
 But there was a canker in the bud, which thus was 
 destined never to open fully to the meridian of life ; 
 and, shortly after our arrival, her figure was no 
 longer seen among the olives, or her voice heard 
 among the vines. Veronica was much troubled by 
 the utter lack of creature comforts in the spacious 
 casa co/onica, or farmhouse, where Ilaria was patiently 
 awaiting the end, though in reality their absence 
 was only part of that rudimentary simplicity of 
 existence which is universal among a people 
 untainted by Northern ideas of luxury. She and 
 Lamia were unremitting in their visits, their 
 nursing, and their solicitude. But these proved 
 unavailing ; and Pasqua delle Rose had to spare 
 some of its luxuriant blooms for the grave of 
 poor Ilaria. In the simple rustic household where 
 she had left a vacant place, we liked to think 
 that, in the daytime at least, the continual demands 
 of Nature, in her busiest and most growing 
 season, on the energy and co-operation of Man, 
 diverted their thoughts somewhat from the missing 
 figure ; but, when we met and wished them good- 
 day in the podere, tying the vines, training the pomi- 
 d'-oro, or cutting the sweet green fodder, that smile 
 of which I once spoke as invariably accompanying
 
 „ 
 
 I 
 
 &■■ 
 
 
 
 I . .. . 
 
 
 ■% * 
 
 v wmmm t 
 
 a 
 
 ■p 
 
 Ifel >
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 133 
 
 their salutations for awhile vanished from their 
 faces, and at nightfall we knew they were brought 
 into undistracted consciousness of their bereave- 
 ment. We grieved for them, and felt, moreover, 
 a separate grief of our own ; and neither the 
 luminous May moon, nor the fairy-flitting fireflies, 
 nor the silvery fluting of the nightingale, could 
 wean us from the gravity of our thoughts. Even 
 the purest and most generous sympathy borrows 
 something of its tenderness, I suppose, from the 
 knowledge that we are one and all subject to the 
 dispensation of grief, and that those who console 
 to-day may themselves need to be consoled to- 
 morrow ; and this is peculiarly so with the advent 
 of the shadow of death, from which not even the 
 strongest nor the most sanguine can hope to 
 escape. Thus, without saying it, we were all, I 
 suspect, musing on our common mortality, and 
 thinking how the continuance of the deepest and 
 dearest of our joys depends on the favour and 
 forbearance of Heaven. 
 
 But the Poet has a theory, which we have all 
 more or less adopted, and which he generally ex- 
 presses by the words, ' Cheerfulness is the most 
 serviceable form of human charity ' ; and he never, 
 if he can prevent it, permits us to linger over-long
 
 134 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 in the fruitless gloom of sentimental sorrow. I 
 think that was why, on the fourth evening after 
 we had strewn the roses on Ilaria's grave, he recited 
 to us, uninvited, — an unusual thing with him, — the 
 following consolatory lines : —   
 
 WHEN I AM GONE 
 
 When I am gone, I pray you shed 
 No tears upon the grassy bed 
 Where that which you have loved is laid 
 Under the wind-warped yew-tree's shade. 
 And let no sombre pomp prepare 
 My unreturning journey there, 
 Vor wailing words nor dirges deep 
 Disturb the quiet of my sleep ; 
 But tender maidens, robed in white, 
 Who have not yet forgotten quite 
 The love I sought, the love I gave, 
 Be the sole mourners round my grave. 
 And neither then, nor after, raise 
 The bust of pride, the slab of praise, 
 To him who, having sinned and striven, 
 Now only asks to be forgiven, 
 That he is gone. 
 
 When I am gone, you must not deem 
 That I am severed, as I seem, 
 From all that still enchains you here, 
 Throughout the long revolving year.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 135 
 
 When, as to Winter's barren shore 
 
 The tides of Spring return once more, 
 
 And, wakened by their flashing showers, 
 
 The woodland foams afresh with flowers, 
 
 You sally forth and ramble wide, 
 
 I shall walk silent at your side, 
 
 Shall watch your mirth, shall catch your smile, 
 
 Shall wander with you all the while, 
 
 And, as in many a bygone Spring, 
 
 Hear cuckoo call and ousel sing. 
 
 And, when you homeward wend, along 
 
 A land all blithe with bleat and song, 
 
 Where lambs that skip and larks that soar 
 
 Make this old world seem young once more, 
 
 And with the wildwood flowers that fill 
 
 Your April laps deck shelf and sill, 
 
 1 shall be there to guide your hand, 
 
 And you will surely understand 
 
 I am not gone. 
 
 When Summer leans on Autumn's arm, 
 And warm round grange and red-roofed farm 
 Is piled the wain and thatched the stack, 
 And swallows troop and fieldfares pack ; 
 When round rough trunk and knotted root 
 Lies thick the freshly-fallen fruit, 
 And 'mong the orchard aisles you muse 
 On what we gain, on what we lose, 
 Now vernal cares no more annoy, 
 And wisdom takes the place of joy, 
 I shall be there, as in past years,
 
 136 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 To share your steps, to dry your tears, 
 To note how Autumn days have brought 
 Feelings mature and mellow thought, 
 The fruitful grief for others' smart, 
 The ripeness of a human heart. 
 And, when the winds wax rude and loud, 
 And Winter weaves the stark year's shroud, 
 As round the flickering household blaze 
 You sit and talk of vanished days, 
 Of parent, friend, no longer nigh, 
 And loves that in the churchyard lie, 
 And lips grow weak, and lids grow wet, 
 Then, then, I shall be with you yet, 
 Though I seem gone. 
 
 . • • • • 
 
 As the time drew nearer and nearer for leav- 
 ing the Tuscan home where we had been so happy, 
 Veronica began to manifest a certain solicitude, in 
 consequence of our leisurely and unsystematic 
 ways, lest we should have omitted to make Lamia 
 acquainted with some cloister or bas-relief, some 
 bit of quaint street architecture, or some hill- 
 side sanctuary, ignorance whereof might expose 
 her to the reproach of a want of intelligent curi- 
 osity. But we found the omissions were few and 
 unimportant, and this left us all the more free, 
 during the now brief and regretful remainder of 
 our sojourn, to pay farewell visits to the frescoes
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 137 
 
 and altar-pieces, the monuments and statues, that 
 had most engaged her affections. Where Giotto 
 worked, where Savonarola preached, where Fra 
 Angelico painted and prayed, where Michelangelo 
 fought, where Dante sate, where Donatello slept, in 
 death as in life not severed from his beloved 
 Medicean patron, these and kindred spots had to 
 be seen just once more. When one quits a place 
 where one has been residing for some little time, 
 one says good-bye to one's friends ; and these 
 were, one and all, very dear friends to us, and we 
 could not but take of them affectionate farewell. 
 The Luca dell a Robbia in the Ospedale degli 
 Innocent 7, the Perugino in the Maddalena dei 
 Pazzi, the Fountain by Verrocchio in the cortile of 
 the Palazzo Vecchio, the recumbent Bishop in San 
 Miniato, the Mino da Fiesole in the Badia, the 
 bronze David in the Bargello ; — but, unless I have 
 a care, I shall fall into the fault I have been trying 
 to avoid, of troubling you with a catalogue of 
 familiar names. There were favourite spots, too, 
 to drive to once again, happily too numerous to 
 cite, and too lovely for any one to be so foolish as to 
 attempt to describe. Exception, however, shall be 
 made of one of these, for I fancy it is but little 
 known, and therefore has not become hackneyed.
 
 138 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 Accident made us acquainted with it, and design 
 had often and often taken us there again. It was 
 in a podere some two miles or so outside the Porta 
 San Niccolo, whence, over a wall lined with irises, 
 one looks down the river immediately in front of 
 one straight away to Florence, but sees nothing 
 there save, through the feathery foliage of 
 distant poplars, the cupola of the Duomo, Giotto's 
 campanile, and the Tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
 Beyond, far beyond, are visible, on propitious 
 days, the majestic peaks of the Carrara Mountains, 
 and, a little farther towards the north, the snowy 
 summits ot the Apennines above Pistoia. It was 
 a place that fascinated us, and we returned to it 
 again and again. One evening, when the light was 
 even exceptionally beautiful, but the air a little chill, 
 and we had therefore, for Lamia's sake, to curtail 
 our enjoyment of it, I remember her exclaiming : 
 
 ' O, do let us stay. Even if it were deadly, it 
 would be worth dying for. It may never be so 
 beautiful again.' 
 
 That expresses a feeling which, I think, one 
 often has in Italy. It is the intense beauty of 
 certain moments, certain views, certain sunsets, 
 that makes one declare one never before has seen 
 anything so lovely, and dread lest on such loveli-
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 13c; 
 
 ness one never more may gaze. A foolish fear ; 
 for to-morrow renews the radiance and raptures of 
 to-day. 
 
 But the closing hours of the now lengthening 
 days were always spent in the loggia, the 
 garden, or the podere of our Villa ; and Veronica, 
 who, so English at home, was here the most Italian 
 of us all, would, whenever the weather permitted, 
 arrange for us to have our evening meal al fresco, 
 in the society of the roses and the nightingales. 
 Lamia had, as you may suppose, picked up many 
 a Tuscan stornello and canzone, and would sing 
 them to us, to the accompaniment of her guitar ; 
 and, between song and song, discourse would run 
 on all the beauty and the wonders we had seen 
 that day. 
 
 ' What is it,' said Lamia, ' that, more than 
 anything else, constitutes the charm of Italy ? ' 
 
 ' Ancientness,' said the Poet, ' and an ancient- 
 ness that never grows old. For Italy, notwith- 
 standing its centuries of history, art, warfare, 
 misfortune, remains perennially young. More 
 than once, the rash have said, "Italy is dead." 
 Italy never dies. She has the gift of perpetual life ; 
 but, with all her indestructible freshness, she carries 
 about her the dignity of bygone times and the
 
 i+o LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 majesty of tradition. The new is always more or 
 less vulgar. Refinement is the work of time. 
 You remember Aristotle's definition of Aristocracy, 
 Ancient riches. Italy has ancient riches, the riches 
 of law, religion, poetry, and the arts, long estab- 
 lished, and she has therefore what is most precious 
 in aristocracy. She has ancient speech and ancient 
 manners. Her mountains are necessarily ancient, 
 the Soracte of Horace, the Alps of Hannibal. 
 But her plains and valleys are equally so, for she 
 has an ancient agriculture. We are sitting at this 
 moment surrounded by a rural cultivation that is 
 described with absolute accuracy in the Georgics, 
 and again by Politian in his Ruslicus, written on 
 this very spot, and that has not changed since the 
 days of Cincinnatus. Listen to that fellow singing 
 among the olives. Virgil has described him, — 
 Canit fundator ad auras> — and might be his con- 
 temporary. It is this far-backness, if I may coin 
 a word to express my meaning, that sheds a 
 glamour over everything in Italy, a far-backness, 
 however, that endures and persists, that is with us 
 and around us, and compels us to bend with 
 reverence before it, as we must ever do before the 
 parent Past we still have with us. In propor- 
 tion as Italy parts with its Past, Italy will lose its
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 141 
 
 charm. The temptation to do so in this age is 
 great, and I fear it is not being sufficiently resisted. 
 
 ' Dear Poet,' said Lamia, ' will you forgive me 
 if I object that I have sometimes been told, though 
 I am sure most inaccurately, that I, for instance, 
 am charming; and yet I am not ancient.' 
 
 ' Dear Lamia,' he replied, 4 you are very ancient, 
 and are under deep obligation to ancestors you 
 never saw, and probably never heard of ; and I 
 hope you will be yet more charming for your visit 
 to this old and captivating land. For my part, I 
 always seem to miss something in people who have 
 not fallen under its spell. You have succumbed 
 to it entirely. I shall never weary, and I hope I 
 shall never weary you, in extolling the power of 
 the Past. Would the descant of those nightin- 
 gales have the 'jame charm for us, if they had not 
 been singing thus for myriads of Mays ? Spring 
 is so irresistibly charming because it recalls and 
 renews the Aprils that are gone. Time conse- 
 crates and confirms. The deeper our roots, the 
 loftier our thoughts, and the sounder our hearts. 
 I remember a great poet of this age saying to me 
 that he could not see that, as some one had 
 affirmed, he in his writings so much resembled 
 Keats. " You are Keats's own child," I replied,
 
 142 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 li and are of noble parentage." But indeed every 
 great poet is the lineal descendant of every other 
 great poet. At any given moment, what exercises 
 most influence is, not the present, but the Past. 
 I ventured, the other day, to observe that there 
 are only two sorts of people, the noble and the 
 ignoble. Dear Lamia, let us try to belong to the 
 noble, since every one may be a member of that 
 untitled aristocracy ; so that, when we ourselves 
 are, as some of us are gradually becoming, portions 
 of the Past, we may influence beneficently an un- 
 born Future.' 
 
 ' There never was anything more untrue,' said 
 Lamia, who was quick to surmise the more per- 
 sonal meaning that underlay those closing words, 
 ' than the saying " On nest jeune quune fois." I 
 have been old several times ; but I always get 
 young again.' 
 
 ' And you will do so very often, I dare say, for 
 many years to come. Moreover, I like to think 
 there is the youth of one's youth, the youth of 
 one's manhood, and, finally, the youth of one's old 
 age. But, when one has reached this last, man's 
 capacity for rejuvenescence is exhausted.' 
 
 Lamia rose from her seat, placed herself close 
 beside him, and taking his hand, replied :
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 143 
 
 ' Dear Poet, even in my youngest moments, 
 compared with you I am in my dotage.' And I 
 would at that moment have been any age you will, 
 to be treated thus tenderly. 
 
 We made many expeditions of which I have not 
 told you, just as we visited, again and again, 
 churches, palaces, and dismantled monasteries I 
 have not named. But Lamia particularly wished 
 to see a Convent, — a Convent, that is to say, in 
 the Italian signification, of monks, not disestab- 
 lished, but allowed still to survive, with a certain 
 number of its inmates, as a national monument. 
 She had heard me speak of the attractive hospitality 
 I had enjoyed in them in days gone by ; and we 
 selected for our monastic excursion a Convent in 
 the Apennines not too remote from Florence, and 
 the drive to which would take us through 
 Gavinana, a spot none of us had ever visited. 
 Does the word Gavinana suggest anything to 
 you ? Probably not ; yet it was there that the 
 liberties of Florence received their final extinction. 
 Indeed I fancy that, of the thousands of people 
 who nowadays visit the Tuscan Capital, many are 
 unaware that, in the earlier part of the sixteenth 
 century, it underwent a Siege whose incidents 
 strongly resemble many that occurred during the
 
 1+4- LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 siege of another Capital nearly thirty years ago. 
 Only Florence is much more beautiful than Paris, 
 and less suggestive of the horrors of war. Yet 
 the Siege of Florence lasted ten months, or more 
 than twice as long as that of Paris ; its inhabitants 
 underwent far greater hardships, and displayed 
 much greater heroism. We might have been a little 
 sceptical on those points had Florentine historians 
 been our only authority for them. But the copious 
 and impartial Reports of the Venetian Ambassadors 
 who were in the Fair City at the time render doubt 
 impossible, and establish the courage, pertinacity, 
 and patience of the besieged against Emperor and 
 Pope. All the villas within a certain radius of 
 Florence were rased to the ground, lest they should 
 furnish help and corn to the besiegers ; and all its 
 silver plate, both sacred and profane, was melted 
 down to replenish the coffers of the Republic. It 
 is the noblest, perhaps it is the one perfectly noble, 
 incident in the story of Florence ; and I sometimes 
 have thought, and the Poet agrees with me, that 
 Francesco Ferruccio, whose statue is among that 
 series of famous Florentines outside the Uffizi, is its 
 most heroic and effective figure. He would in all 
 probability have saved Florence, had the timidity of 
 some of his fellow-countrymen, and the treachery
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 1+5 
 
 of others, allowed him ; for he proposed to create 
 a diversion by marching on Rome, and menacing 
 it with another sack such as had recently taken 
 place under the Constable Bourbon. His project 
 was overruled, and he died fighting in the piazza at 
 Gavinana ; his only consolation, in his last moments, 
 being that the Leader of the Imperial Army, the 
 Prince of Orange, was also slain. ' The ill-omened 
 spot,' says the historian of the Commonwealth of 
 Florence, ' lies within sight of the traveller as he 
 passes, about a mile to the right of it, on his way 
 from Pistoia to Modena. And not a peasant of 
 those mountains, though ignorant as his yoke of 
 dove-coloured oxen of all the history of his country 
 from that day to this, not a goat-herd tending his 
 flock by the roadside, not a grimy muleteer bring- 
 ing down his string of charcoal-laden beasts from 
 the forests of the Upper Apennine, will be unable 
 to point out to the stranger the field on which, 
 nearly four hundred years ago, Tuscan liberty was 
 fought for and lost.' 
 
 Drinking our coffee, for which we paid an 
 incredibly small sum, under the plane trees of the 
 square where Ferruccio and Florence fell, we again 
 discoursed on the arbitrary hazards of Time that 
 made the City justly called Fair, and to which one
 
 1+6 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 is often disposed to apply what Ovid represents 
 Helen as saying to her Grecian paramour : — 
 
 ' Apta magis Veneri quam sunt tua corpora Marti : 
 Bella gerant alii ; tu, Paris, semper ama,' 
 
 a place of arms, a city woeful and intrepid, the 
 champion of freedom against Sceptre and Tiara. 
 
 ' Surely,' said Lamia, ' Dante would have for- 
 given Florence could he have lived to see that 
 day. The times were grim, and the deeds austere 
 enough even for one " who had seen Hell." 
 Would you not rather,' she continued, turning 
 to the Poet, ' have it said of you that you had 
 seen Heaven ? ' 
 
 1 Remember,' said Veronica, ' Dante saw both.' 
 The twilight was deepening into dusk before 
 we reached the Convent whither we were bound, 
 for our driver had taken a wrong turning during 
 the last few miles of our journey ; and Lamia was 
 quick to note, as characteristic of Italy, that, when 
 inquiry put us on the right one, the directions 
 given were, not as in England, according to sign- 
 posts, but to little tabernacles or shrines at the 
 parting of the ways : now of the Annunciation, 
 now of Saint Agatha or Saint Barbara, now of Saint 
 Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata. I am
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 147 
 
 afraid her curiosity was more piqued than satisfied 
 when we reached our bourne ; for, though we were 
 most piously welcomed, Veronica and she were not 
 allowed to violate that portion of the Convent 
 which is defended from female gaze by the word 
 Clausura ; and she not unnaturally, though quite 
 inaccurately, imagined that she was not shown 
 what was most worth seeing. The Poet and I 
 were allotted sleeping-cells within the Monastery, 
 but our companions, of course, had to pass the 
 night in the Foresteria, or strangers' quarter, out- 
 side, in charge of a lay-brother, and it was there 
 we all had our truly ascetic supper. But the guests 
 of Sallust never enjoyed one more ; for our host, 
 the Prior, was an ideal monk, majestic yet saintly 
 of aspect, with long flowing beard, silky and snowy, 
 measured manners, and paternally caressing voice. 
 The Rules of his Order forbid any instrumental 
 accompaniment either at Mass or the other Sacred 
 Offices of the twenty -four hours; but he had 
 always loved music for its own sake, and he had 
 made for himself a primitive sort of spinette, on 
 which he said he would play to us, for our further 
 entertainment, when the lay-brother who was wait- 
 ing on us had retired, and all the Confraternity 
 were in their first deep sleep. The performance,
 
 1+8 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 like the instrument, was touching in its simplicity ; 
 and Veronica, wishing to make him some return, 
 said that Lamia, too, was fond of music, and would, 
 she was quite sure, sing to him if he cared to hear 
 her. Even in the Fores teria, I fear, there was a 
 touch of the profane in the suggestion ; but he 
 evidently could not resist the temptation thus 
 presented to him, and begged Lamia to sing, 
 but with not too loud and penetrating a voice. 
 She at once broke into the wild and melancholy 
 chant the Italian recruits used to sing in the days 
 of Napoleon, when they were dragged from their 
 homes to face the snows of Russia : — 
 
 ' Partir, partir bisogna, 
 
 Dove commandera il mio Sovrano.' 
 
 But Lamia got no further than those two lines ; 
 for our venerable host suddenly exclaimed, the 
 colour mounting to his face, and the tears brimming 
 in his eyes : 
 
 ' Stop ! stop ! Mi monta la fantasia? And 
 he went on to tell us how he had not heard 
 that strain for five -and -forty years, and that it 
 used to be sung by one whose caprice had caused 
 him to abandon the world and assume the habit of 
 Saint Bruno.
 
 A CONVENT IN THE APENNINES
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 149 
 
 On our journey homeward, the following morn- 
 ing, Lamia asked : 
 
 ' How would you translate the words the dear 
 old Prior used last night, Mi monta la fantasia ? ' 
 
 ' They are not easily rendered into another 
 tongue,' said Veronica, ' for they mean so much in 
 the original. But when he said, " the fantasy 
 mounts and seizes hold of me," he doubtless meant 
 that your voice suddenly made him feel all he had 
 felt five-and-forty years ago.' 
 
 ' O, how delightful ! ' said Lamia. ' Then I 
 forced the Clausura, after all.' 
 
 ' It is a pity,' said Veronica, whose sane nature 
 and active temperament render her a little intolerant 
 of monasticism in any form, ' that you could not 
 break it down altogether, and so make an end 
 of it.' 
 
 ' And yet,' said the Poet, who has rather more 
 indulgence for the weaknesses of human nature, 
 perhaps because he shares them more, ' I doubt if 
 we have done with the motives, many and various, 
 that once engendered and still foster monasticism. 
 The strong, the valiant, the sensible, require no 
 shelter from the rough usage of the world. But, 
 as in the days of savage militarism, so in these of 
 an almost equally pitiless industrialism, terror,
 
 ISO LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 timidity, indolence, mysticism, love of meditation, 
 longing for silence, and a certain passive piety, 
 make men fly the market-place for the cloister. 
 When Dante, exiled from Florence, appeared at 
 the Convent in the Apennines, and was asked 
 by the monks who he might be, did he not 
 answer, " One who is in quest of peace " ? There 
 is no second Dante, but there are many exiles in 
 this modern world, and I fear their number every 
 day increases. As the struggle for existence waxes 
 fiercer and fiercer, I think I hear them, too, exclaim- 
 ing, Dona nobis pace??i." 
 
 ' Listening first to Veronica,' said Lamia, ' and 
 then to you, I am forced to the conclusion that 
 many things are intolerable which we cannot do 
 without. Yet I confess a Convent of Nuns seems 
 more natural than a Confraternity of Monks.' 
 
 ' More natural, perhaps,' said the Poet, ' but 
 hardly so necessary. For, even in the very heart 
 of the world, every good woman is more or less 
 nunlike, by virtue of her purity, her reserve ' 
 
 ' And, I suppose,' interrupted Lamia, ' her 
 obedience ? ' 
 
 Nothing disconcerted, he re-echoed the words : 
 ' And her obedience.' 
 
 ' I lave you not, dear,' asked Veronica, ' confuted
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 151 
 
 yourself by anticipation? It was a man, not a 
 woman, was it not, that took leave of the Prior, 
 who would fain have detained him, with the words — 
 
 ' Father, farewell ! Be not distressed, 
 And take my vow, ere I depart, 
 To found a Convent in my breast, 
 And keep a cloister in my heart.' 
 
 ' One is constantly confuting oneself,' he 
 replied. 
 
 ' How should it be otherwise ? ' said Lamia. 
 ' Verse being the expression, not of the convictions, 
 but of the emotions, poets cannot be taxed with 
 inconsistency, though they contradict themselves 
 a thousand times.' 
 
 ' Thank you, dear Lamia,' he said. ' You are 
 the most ingenious of apologists. If ever I have 
 to defend myself, you shall be my Portia.' 
 
 • • « • • 
 
 But the last day, the last night, and then the 
 very morning of departure at length arrived, when 
 Florence, with its gorgeous towers and cloud- 
 capped palaces, was, for a time at least, to dissolve 
 like the baseless fabric of a vision. Perfetta was 
 in tears ; Ippolito had a mazzetto of carnations 
 for us all ; the contadini desisted from their work 
 to cluster in the garden in order to see us off
 
 1^2 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 with many gracious words and expressions of hope 
 that next year we should return ; and the entire 
 household manifested by melancholy smiles their 
 sorrow at our going. Pasquale, the earner iere, 
 had come into my room early that morning with 
 a doleful face, and, in reply to a renewed inquiry 
 whether we could not help him to find another 
 place, assured me that he would not care to serve 
 anybody else ; and he launched into touching 
 eulogies of Veronica's considerateness and universal 
 capacity, of Lamia's irresistible charm, of the 
 genius of the Poet, — // Gran Poet a, he called 
 him, though utterly ignorant, I need scarcely 
 say, of the very language in which that retiring 
 person writes, — and of the thousand -and -one 
 virtues which, finally, he ascribed to myself. If 
 you think that he was insincere, because he in some 
 degree exaggerated, I can assure you that you are 
 mistaken. He believed it all. 
 
 'No, no,' he said. ' Ringrazio tanto la sua 
 signoria, but I could not serve any one else. 
 Riprendero il mio antico mestiere ' (I will return 
 to my old calling). 
 
 ' And what may that be ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Do you not know ? ' he said. ' Io son comieo ' 
 (I am an actor).
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 153 
 
 The dear people we were leaving are all of 
 them so much more or less histrionic, that 
 Pasquale's occasionally fine gestures had never 
 struck me as singular or exceptional. 
 
 ' S), Signore, son comico io' he went on, ' I am 
 an actor, and have played at Lucca, at Fiesole, 
 at Pisa, yes and at Siena. Once I was in the same 
 cast with the stupendous tragedian, Salvini.' 
 
 ' Yes, a great actor, indeed,' I said. ' I once 
 saw him in an Italian version of our English 
 drama Othello.' 
 
 He was in his early morning dress, wearing no 
 coat nor jacket, and having in his turned-up white 
 apron my boot-trees, which he was just about to 
 pack. But he drew himself up with much dignity, 
 and, with the one disengaged hand suiting the 
 action to the word, he said : 
 
 'I, too, have played the part of Otello.' And, 
 without more ado, he recited, in his sonorous 
 language, the lines : 
 
 Farewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content ! 
 Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars ; 
 That make ambition virtue ! O, farewell ! 
 
 And the earnestness with which he recited that 
 pathetic passage completely submerged the sense of 
 humour that was beginning to rise in me.
 
 154 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 As we entered Florence, so did we quit it, 
 leisurely, and without the disenchanting scenes of a 
 modern railway station. We were to drive across 
 the Apennines to Bologna, and, as we reached the 
 last flower-stall near the Gate that looks thitherward, 
 Lamia expressed a wish for one more flower. It 
 was a lovely rose, the only one on a plant that 
 occupied among the others the place of honour. 
 
 ' It is a pity to spoil the plant,' said the woman, 
 who was well known to us, for we had often 
 halted to make purchases from her. ' Will not 
 another serve equally well ? ' 
 
 You will easily surmise Lamia's reply. No 
 rose in the world but that one would have satisfied 
 her desire. 
 
 ' Come vuole, said the woman (' be it as you 
 wish '), and she severed the fair flower from its 
 stalk. 
 
 'How much is it?' I asked, eagerly availing 
 myself of the opportunity to make dear Lamia 
 a parting gift from the City of Flowers. 
 
 ' Don't trouble about it,' said the woman, ' you 
 can pay some other time.' 
 
 ' But there will be no other time,' said Lamia, 
 ' for we are going away for good and all.' 
 
 ' Dunque, no n si paga. Addio, e buon viaggio !
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 155 
 
 was the reply. (' In that case, you must not pay at 
 all. Happy be your journey ! Good-bye ! ') 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 If people love their home, there is no wrong 
 time for coming back to it ; and, were it not for 
 the delight of returning, I doubt if it would be 
 wise, save under compulsion, ever to leave it. 
 Tacitus asks, Who would quit Italy for Germany, 
 were it not that Germany is his own country ? 
 Over English folk, at all worthy of their great 
 descent, the name of England exercises a more 
 enthralling spell even than that of Italy ; and the 
 Garden that I love is all the dearer to me because 
 it is thoroughly English. But the moment for 
 returning to it fell out most felicitously ; and, 
 gazing on the scene that awaited us, we were 
 instantly weaned from all regret even for the sky 
 and sunshine of Tuscany. Under the broad- 
 trunked, wide - spreading Oak, — Veronica has 
 christened this particular plot of ground the Oak 
 Parlour, — Five O'Clock Tea was waiting for us, 
 and once more we looked on one of those Urns 
 which, I am told, have made the owner's name a 
 household word in many kindly hearts. I need 
 not say again how happy we had been in our 
 Tuscan villa, and I verily believe that Veronica 
 would contrive to make us comfortable in the
 
 156 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 desert of Sahara. But it is idle to pretend that 
 all we mean by the word ' Home ' is to be had 
 save in this, our own island ; and there is all the 
 difference in the world between Perfetta and the 
 tearful cameriere who, I suppose, has now re- 
 turned to his antico mestiere, and is smothering 
 Desdemona before some provincial Tuscan audience, 
 and the Northern handmaidens who, moulded by 
 the genius of Veronica, perform with noiseless 
 celerity every office that can minister to the grace 
 of existence. Do not think me material if I say 
 that that first Five O'Clock Tea in the Oak 
 Parlour after our return was an event in our life ; 
 for its charm was compounded of many elements, 
 into which entered the abiding influence of un- 
 luxurious domestic refinement. The green antiquity 
 of the oak, the smooth verdure of the lawn, un- 
 attainable, I fear, by the services of a shepherd 
 lass and her flock of nibbling sheep, the luxuriance 
 and variety of the flowers, the view, under the 
 oaken branches, of the Manor-House, white with 
 roses from ground to gable, the snowy face of the 
 tablecloth, the glow of the burnished urn, the 
 brightness, the spotlessness, the seemliness of every- 
 thing, all contributed to the welcome that attended 
 us, and to the pleasure we received from it.
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 157 
 
 But something more awaited us than the 
 renewal of old delights. Shortly before we started 
 for our six months' absence, we had decided, after 
 much deliberation, to add, in a modest way, to 
 the home that we had a thousand times declared, 
 in our optimistic fashion, to be already ample for 
 our needs ; and the result was now before us. 
 You may easily imagine our anxiety to discern if 
 the decision had been wise or the reverse ; for, 
 though we had gone into the plan with a most 
 competent architect to the utmost detail, and though 
 Veronica had brought her practical and tasteful 
 mind to bear upon window and overmantel, 
 hinge and door-plate, moulding and lining-paper, 
 there is always a danger lest instructions should 
 have been misunderstood or imperfectly carried 
 out, or that the instructions themselves were 
 wholly or in part a mistake. We were prepared 
 to be pleased, but also to criticise ; but for fault- 
 finding there was, in truth, no possible room. 
 Animated by reverence for what already existed, 
 we had bound architect and builder to certain 
 well-denned lines and curves, prohibiting externally 
 all originality save what is perhaps the best 
 kind of it in these days, pious and humble re- 
 production of what is already recognised as
 
 158 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 beautiful. A room, which was originally spoken 
 of as a billiard-room, and which for a brief while 
 retained that designation, though all idea of having 
 a billiard-table in it had been promptly abandoned, 
 and which now is known as the Morning Room, 
 because, as Lamia says, we nearly always sit there 
 of an evening, a new boudoir for Veronica, who 
 has at last a refuge of her own worthy of her 
 beneficent labours, three new sleeping-chambers, 
 and another staircase, composed the new quarter. 
 And will you believe it ? — it was already furnished ; 
 Veronica having made due preparations and 
 given minute instructions for this end partly 
 before our departure, and partly during our 
 absence. Now, did she triumph over us in the 
 matter of those various purchases in Florence that 
 used to move our ignorant mirth ; for everything 
 she had acquired had been sent home in time to 
 be unpacked and placed in the room and the 
 position allotted to it. Thus, at every turn, we 
 were reminded of the Fair City and the bewitching 
 land we had so lately left, and of which, not to be 
 ungrateful, we still talked affectionately even in the 
 hours of our home-coming. 
 
 But Veronica had no monopoly of success in 
 the swift adornment of our new wing. I, too,
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 159 
 
 had a little triumph ot my own, but, I need 
 scarcely say, out-of-doors. I do not often sing 
 my own praises, do I, preferring to extol the Poet 
 and Veronica, who are more deserving of eulogy. 
 But, on this occasion, I think I really did deserve 
 the congratulations that were lavished on me. 
 For, with a truly foreseeing mind, I had been 
 growing on, to use a gardener's phrase, a certain 
 number of climbing roses, clematis, jessamine, and 
 other creepers, and had given the strictest in- 
 junctions that they were to be planted against 
 the new building the very instant the masons had 
 finished it, and were to be fostered and trained 
 with constant and unremitting attention ; and, as 
 they were then already robust in growth and 
 vigorous at the root, they were well on their way 
 up the new wing on our arrival. A legend has 
 since grown up that I did not leave England at 
 all, but remained on the spot with barrow, trug, 
 and trowel, and that, fast as the work-people laid 
 a course of stone or brick, I planted a creeper. 
 But, as a fact, it happened as I have said. 
 
 As for the garden, the garden that the too 
 kindly sympathy of others permits one to say we 
 all love, I can only say I wish the whole of Italy 
 could have seen it. The Tea Roses, more numer-
 
 160 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ous and more beautiful than ever, seemed smilingly 
 to say, ' Has Tuscany roses to show more fair ? 
 Larkspurs, of every imaginable shade of blue, 
 from azure to cerulean ; lupines, white, purple, and 
 yellow; foxgloves, snowy -white and without a 
 freckle ; seemed to challenge each other as to which 
 would tower highest in the summer air. The 
 Pasony Poppies, some purposely some accidentally 
 sown, were a garden in themselves, fair but fugi- 
 tive, yet making up by their number and infinite 
 variety for the briefness of their existence. They 
 were everywhere in the beds and borders, and, as it 
 seemed, where they had chosen to be ; there, by the 
 right of supreme loveliness, and the Swan-neck 
 Poppies, the Caucasian, and the Victoria Cross, 
 rocked more humbly beside them. No other 
 plant of such supreme beauty has so solid a stem 
 and such imposing foliage for so fragile a flower ; 
 and this it is, I think, which mainly constitutes its 
 fresh charm. Every one now loves flowers, and I 
 have no need to weary you with a catalogue of those 
 in the Garden that I Love. But I doubt if there 
 be any perennial plant of real beauty and value 
 that will grow in our latitude which is not to be 
 found there ; and I can say with truth, of every 
 bed and border, that you could not see the ground
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 161 
 
 for flowers. As for the winding turf walk, which 
 perhaps you remember as the South Enclosure, it 
 is not I who will sav what it looked like when we 
 returned. For one who has justly acquired honour, 
 not only by the beauty of her own home, but by her 
 charming pages concerning all that appertains to a 
 garden, and who had visited it the day before our 
 arrival, left a little line for Veronica, in which she 
 generously said it was the loveliest she had ever seen. 
 I should hesitate to repeat so flattering an opinion, 
 were it not for some injustice to myself that 
 followed. ' As for the winding: turf walk and its 
 glow of bloom and colour on either side,' said the 
 kindly writer, ' nowhere, I am sure, is there any- 
 thing like it ; and only the Poet could have con- 
 ceived it.' As if it was the Poet who had con- 
 ceived it ! It was I who, — but so it is in this 
 unfiir world, where everybody bows down before 
 prestige. Lamia herself could not have been 
 more partial or more unjust. 
 
 I made some observation of the kind to Veronica, 
 imagining we were alone, and got for reply, — 
 ' My dear, you will never understand women.' 
 ' How is it possible,' I asked, a little nettled by 
 the implied rebuke, ' when no two women are 
 alike? ' 
 
 M
 
 i6z LAMIA'S WINTER-OUARTERS 
 
 ' No one woman is alike,' said Lamia, suddenly 
 emerging from a luxuriance of leaf and flower that 
 had concealed her from view ; and, though 
 Veronica was there to disprove the universal appli- 
 cation of her aphorism, I think she spoke from the 
 very depths of her own inner consciousness. 
 
 Not even the novelty of the fresh wing, though 
 we kept returning to it again and again in the 
 course of that to us memorable evening, could 
 keep us indoors. Lilac, hawthorn, and laburnum 
 had of course flowered and faded, and the glory 
 of the rhododendrons was fist passing away. But 
 the air was fragrant with the newly-made but yet 
 uncarted hay ; the scent of the elder was wafted from 
 the lane; the smell of sweet-briar, with its profusion of 
 little pink rosebuds, was everywhere in the garden ; 
 and we kept stopping ever and again to inhale the 
 penetrating perfume of the freshly-opened tassels 
 of the lime. Longer and darker grew the 
 shadows on the lawn, then gradually drew them- 
 selves in, and vanished. The Tea Roses, no longer 
 languid from the heat of the long summer day, 
 lifted their fair faces freshened with evening dew ; 
 the streaks of crimson that point the pathway of 
 departed days gradually faded from the west, and 
 the lingering love -song of the missel -thrush at
 
 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 163 
 
 length came to end, absorbed into the general 
 silence. It was twilight still, but a twilight slowly 
 succumbing to the Midsummer night, if night it 
 could be called to which the darkness never wholly 
 came. Elsewhere, on shrub and sward the deepen- 
 ing dusk brought its beneficent tribute of abound- 
 ing moisture ; but, under the manifold foliage 
 of the Oak, the ground retained the dryness of 
 noon. Under its protecting canopy therefore, as 
 many a time before, satisfied and silent we sate ; till 
 Lamia, moved by the influence of the hour, once 
 again liberated her fresh young voice, and wedded 
 to notes of almost austere simplicity the no less 
 simple measure of this Vesper Hymn. 
 
 GOOD -NIGHT! 
 
 1 
 Good-night ! Now dwindle wan and low 
 The embers of the afterglow, 
 And slowly over leaf and lawn 
 Is twilight's dewy curtain drawn. 
 The slouching vixen leaves her lair, 
 And, prowling, sniffs the tell-tale air. 
 The frogs croak louder in the dyke, 
 And all the trees seem dark alike : 
 The bee is drowsing in the comb, 
 The sharded beetle hath gone home : 
 Good-night !
 
 1 64 LAMIA'S WINTER-QUARTERS 
 
 ii 
 
 Good-night ! The hawk is in his nest, 
 And the last rook hath dropped to rest. 
 There is no hum, no chirp, no bleat, 
 No rustle in the meadow-sweet. 
 The woodbine, somewhere out of sight, 
 Sweetens the loneliness of night. 
 The Sister Stars, that once were seven, 
 Mourn for their missing mate in Heaven. 
 The poppy's fair frail petals close, 
 The lily yet more languid grows, 
 And dewy-dreamy droops the rose : 
 Good-night ! 
 
 in 
 
 Good-night ! Caressing and caressed, 
 The moist babe warms its mother's breast. 
 Silent are rustic loom and lathe ; 
 The scythe lies quiet as the swathe ; 
 The woodreeve blinks in covert shed, 
 The weary yokel is abed, 
 The covey warm beneath the wing, 
 And sleep enfoldeth everything. 
 Forsaken love, its last tear shed, 
 On the lone pillow lays its head, 
 And all our woes are respited : 
 Good-night ! 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
 
 THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 POET LAUREATE 
 
 A New Collected Edition of Poems 
 
 In Nine Vols. Crown 8vo. 5s. each 
 
 Vol. I. THE TOWER OF BABEL: A CELESTIAL 
 LOVE DRAMA. 
 
 Vol. II. SAVONAROLA. 
 
 Vol. III. PRINCE LUCIFER. 
 
 Vol. IV. THE HUMAN TRAGEDY. 
 
 Vol. V. LYRICAL POEMS. 
 
 Vol. VI. NARRATIVE POEMS. 
 
 Vol. VII. FORTUNATUS THE PESSIMIST. 
 
 Vol. VIII. ENGLAND'S DARLING. Together with 
 which is republished Mr. Austin's Poem entitled 
 " The Passing of Merlin," which appeared in the 
 Times on the morrow of Tennyson's death. 
 
 Vol. IX. THE CONVERSION OF WINCKELMANN, 
 
 and other Poems. 
 
 MADONNA'S CHILI). Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d. net. 
 VICTORIA. Jubilee Ode. 6d. 
 SONGS OF ENGLAND, is. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON 
 
 [See over.
 
 FourtJi Edition. Crozvn 2>vo. t> s - 6d. 
 
 ENGLISH LYRICS 
 
 A SELECTION FROM THE LYRICAL 
 POEMS OF ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 POET LAUREATE 
 EDITED, WITH A PREFACE, 
 
 BY WILLIAM WATSON 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE 
 
 "A nobly filial love of Country, and a tenderly passionate love of the 
 country — these appear to me the two dominant notes of this volume. 
 The phrases themselves stand for things widely different, but it seems 
 fated that the things themselves should be found present together or 
 together absent. . . . Our literature prior to Lord Tennyson contains 
 no such full utterance of this dual passion, this enthusiasm of nationality 
 underlying an intimate and affectionate knowledge of every bird that 
 makes an English summer melodious, and every flower that sweetens 
 English air ; and it seems to me that if the question be asked, ' Who 
 among the poets of a later generation can be said to share with Lord 
 Tennyson the quality of being in this double sense English through and 
 through?' any competent person trying to answer the question honestly 
 will find the name of the author of this volume of English Lyrics the 
 first to rise to his lips. 
 
 "Mr. Alfred Austin would seem to love England none the less, but 
 rather the more, because he has also felt the spell of other countries 
 with a keenness only possible in natures which present a wide surface to 
 impressions. In The Human Tragedy he has projected himself by 
 imaginative sympathy into the very life and spirit of the land 
 
 1 Where Milan's spires go up to heaven like prayer,' 
 
 and 
 
 ' Where once-proud Genoa sits beside the sea.
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE 
 
 But that very poem, full of Italian feeling and aglow with Italian colour 
 as it is, opens with a chant of English springtime which is assuredly 
 hard to match outside its author's own vernal verse. As pictures to 
 hang up in one's mental gallery side by side with the exquisite ' spring ' 
 of The Human Tragedy, perhaps one would choose the autumn land- 
 scapes in Love's Widowhood, though some of these are harder to detach 
 without loss or injury from their setting, being not so much examples of 
 deliberate description as of that rarer art by which a poem is saturated 
 with autumnal sentiment till the lines seem to rustle with fallen foliage, 
 and their melody to come muffled through an indolent September haze. 
 " Mr. Alfred Austin may in a special sense be styled the laureate of 
 the English seasons, for he seems equally happy whether he be champion- 
 ing our northern April against the onslaught of a critic who had fallen 
 foul of that best-abused of months in an evening journal, or colouring 
 his verse with the gravely gorgeous pigments of the time when nature 
 seems sunk in reverie, and leaf by leaf the pageant of verdure crumbles 
 down, or painting for us {etching would perhaps be the better word) the 
 likeness of earth in that interval of apparent quiescence or suspended 
 life, when her pinched and haggard features have put on an ascetic 
 severity, and she seems to be doing penance alike for her summer 
 revelries and the extravagant pomps of autumn, — when 
 
 1 in the sculptured woodland's leafless aisles 
 The robin chants the vespers of the year.' 
 
 Thus it is that he seems among modern poets especially and saliently 
 English, in the sense in which most of our best singers, from Chaucer 
 onwards, have been English ; a sense implying neither insularity nor 
 prejudice nor any resistance of foreign impressions, but an out-of-door 
 breeziness and freedom such as bring with them an almost physical 
 consciousness of enlargement and space. None have imbibed more 
 deeply than he the spirit of Italy, or surrendered themselves with franker 
 gusto to the intoxication of southern air, yet when he comes back to 
 these shores he comes back 
 
 ' Blessing the brave bleak land where he was born,' 
 
 somewhat as a loiterer in courts and palaces might return with a newly- 
 quickened affection to the hearth and rafters of an unforgotten rustic
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE 
 
 home. Whatsoever is worthily and nobly English is endeared to him 
 by every early association and innate prepossession, but most of all the 
 older and simpler modes of our national life, when still unmenaced with 
 displacement by less comely and more mechanical conditions. The 
 old-world charm and grace which yet ennoble the labours of tilth and 
 husbandry ; the kindly charities of rustic good-neighbourhood and human 
 relations of cottage and farm and hall ; the unique blending of stateliness 
 and homeliness which makes the rural abodes of the gentle class in this 
 country seem the most delectable of possible dwelling-places ; — all these 
 things are found mirrored in this poet's verse, not with any conventional 
 idealisation, but with such simple faithfulness to the fact as is natural in 
 one to whom the fact is as familiar as it is dear. And together with 
 these things, but oftener felt as an implicit presence than overtly uttered, 
 is the underlying sentiment of England's greatness on the historic and 
 constitutional side, the enthusiasm for whatever is splendid and heroic 
 in ' our rude island-story,' the chivalric passion of loyalty and allegiance 
 which flames up in quick resentment if any affront be offered to the 
 object of its devotion — as witness the noble sonnet 'To England,' 
 written at the moment when the action of a great British minister, in 
 despatching our Fleet to the Black Sea and calling out the Reserves, 
 checked the advance of Russia upon Constantinople. 
 
 ' Men deemed thee fallen, did they?' 
 he asks — 
 
 ' Not wholly shorn of strength, but vainly strong, 
 
 and lapped in the luxury of a fool's paradise, because secure, in the last 
 
 resort, 
 
 ' Behind the impassable fences of the foam.' 
 
 But 'thou dost but stand erect,' he says, and the interloper falls back 
 foiled, while 'the nations cluster round,' and above them 
 
 ' Thou, mid thy sheaves in peaceful seasons stored, 
 Towerest supreme, victor without a blow, 
 Smilingly leaning on thy undrawn sword.' 
 
 " This is the language, and these the feelings, of a man who has not 
 taken up patriotism as a theme whereon he can conveniently and
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE 
 
 effectively descant, but whose habitual mood is one of proud thankful 
 ness in belonging to a country where, if anywhere, he may feel 
 'The dignity of being alive. 
 " Wordsworth has told us how, 
 
 ' Among the many movements of his mind, 
 
 there were times at which he felt for England 'as a lover or a child.' 
 It is as a lover that Mr. Austin habitually regards her, and if to a 
 lover's fervour he unites somewhat of a lover's unconsciousness of any 
 blemish in the worshipped face or form, such partiality is a thing we 
 should be loth to exchange for any spirit of more coolly critical ap- 
 praisement. Readers familiar with his whole contribution to poetry do 
 not, however, need to be told that such emotion of heart in the presence 
 of this ideal mistress is with him, as with Wordsworth, but one of 
 ' many movements ' which in their entirety represent a wide circuit of 
 thought and feeling. In The Human Tragedy alone the complexity 
 of elements is such as would have begotten in the work of an inferior 
 artist an inevitable obscurity of design or incoherence of detail. Yet 
 that poem assimilates easily into its narrative fabric such multifarious 
 material as the collision of faith and reason ; the conflict between 
 human love and transcendental passion in a soul dedicated to heavenly 
 uses but drawn aside for a time by an earthly emotion ; the secret of 
 the subtle spell exercised by Catholicism upon a pure and radiant 
 human spirit which knows Doubt but as a shadow and Sin as a 
 rumour ; the immense, tragic irony of chance, as seen in the bewildered 
 crossing and fortuitous overlapping of human lives, with all their 
 momentous mutual interaction ; the passionate abnegation or splendid 
 immolation of self in the service of a great public cause ; the heroic 
 spectacle of a people that have long lain ' pillowed on their past ' rising 
 at the sudden summons of an idea to incarnate their dream of unity and 
 freedom ; the clash of theories, the dissonance of parties, the shock of 
 hosts on the field ; — such are some of the constituents of a poem, the 
 monumental scale of which, and the variety of its component parts, are 
 not more remarkable than the artistic fusion of so large a mass of 
 material as its argument comprehends." 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON. 
 
 [Turn over.
 
 No7v Ready. With Fourteen Illustrations. Eighth Thousand. 
 Extra Crown Svo. Price qs. 
 
 THE GARDEN THAT I LOVE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 POET LAUREATE 
 
 TIMES — " It is a description in lucid and graceful prose of an old-fashioned 
 garden and its cultivation, interspersed with genial colloquies between its owners and 
 their guests, and enriched with occasional verse. Mr. Austin, who is greatly to be 
 envied the possession of this delightful garden, and not less to be congratulated on 
 his sympathetic appreciation of its charms, has rarely been so happily inspired. . . . 
 Some of his admirers will wish for more of Mr. Austin's verse ; for ourselves we are 
 content with a volume which, though not in verse, is unmistakably the work of a 
 poet." 
 
 SPECTATOR. — "We are glad to welcome Mr. Alfred Austin's delightful 
 Garden that I Love in a compact book form. Mr. Austin is the laureate of gardens ; 
 he is, as Addison says, ' In love with a country life, where Nature appears in the 
 greatest perfection, and furnishes out all those scenes that are most apt to delight 
 the imagination.' In the preface to Mr. Austin's English Lyrics, Mr. William 
 Watson writes : ' A nobly filial love of country, and a tenderly passionate love of t lie 
 country — these appear to me the two dominant notes of this volume ' ; and in the 
 new volume that has just appeared, the same dominant notes recur again and again. 
 In his poems, Mr. Austin has described Spring's youthful face, where sunny smiles 
 chase away the fleeting tears ; Summer's serene rose-tinted beauty ; the matured 
 brilliance of Autumn ; and the withered homeliness of Winter ; and now he takes his 
 readers behind the scenes, as it were, and shows them an ideal country-house with 
 its heavy mullioned windows looking towards the morning and noontide sun, and its 
 gabled front almost smothered in climbing roses and creepers. . . . The Garden that 
 I Love is sure of a large and appreciative audience." 
 
 SATURDA Y REVIEW.—" In this sunshiny book with the Tennysonian title, 
 Mr. Alfred Austin makes a charming addition to the literature of the English 
 garden. Not wholly of the garden and of gardening is the poet's discourse, nor 
 wholly descriptive of the gardener's aims, his hopes and fears and joys. In part it 
 treats of the designer's projects and handiwork ; and in part it is a poetic descant on 
 the work not made of hands— the glories, the surprises, the magic of Nature, that 
 reward the single-hearted love of the gardener with a prodigal show of delights, ever 
 varied and ever new. From both points of view Mr. Austin's volume is delightful. 
 . . . Some pleasing interludes of conversation occur, in which Lamia and Veronica 
 intervene with the writer and the Poet, not in a panegyric of the garden, but in per- 
 sonal talk, generally of a light and sportive humour. The Poet, indeed, recites some 
 charming lyrics, and in his observations on poets and poetry assumes a gravel 
 tone."
 
 PA£SS NOTICES 
 
 GUARDIAN.—" The Garden that I Love, by Alfred Austin (Macmillan), is the 
 work of a poet, artist, and gardener, who, having had the great luck to meet with an 
 ideal house, surrounded it with an ideal garden. How this house and garden 
 formed a convenient meeting place for ' friends in council,' and what these friends 
 said and did, till the garden that they loved became the garden in which they loved, 
 and the happy termination of their labours and loves, is most pleasantly told by Mr. 
 Austin." 
 
 ACADEMY. — " Scarcely has the reader got through half a dozen pages of this 
 bright little book before he finds himself on terms of close friendship with the author. 
 Mr. Austin takes you at once into his confidence — or at least he appears to do so : he 
 tells you by what good fortune he chanced to light upon his rural retreat ; he lets 
 you pry into the details of his domestic arrangements ; and then, taking you kindly 
 by the hand, goes with you round the Garden that he Loves. Month after month, 
 from April till October, he depicts his garden in varying phase ; but, whatever its 
 aspect, he somehow contrives to make the reader a partner in the simple pleasure 
 which it yields. It is true that one is never quite sure, when listening to a poet, how 
 far his descriptions are a direct reflex of the concrete, and how far the creation of his 
 own imaginings. But no matter : whether real or imaginary, Mr. Austin's descrip- 
 tions of his garden are equally delightful. . . . The volume is one which will be 
 heartily enjoyed by every cultured reader. He who opens its pages shall find 
 enshrined in them many a sage apophthegm, many a sparkling bit of dialogue, and 
 many a verse of tenderness and grace." 
 
 STANDARD. — "The freshness of the morning sunlight, the perfume of the 
 flowers, the songs of the birds, the sense of tranquil leisure are in this volume side by 
 side with the companionship of pleasant women and of books, an air of culture, a gay 
 philosophy of life, a dash of old-fashioned gallantry, and the give and take of happy 
 humour. . . . There is much else in the book over which we could gladly linger ; for 
 neither the garden that was loved, nor the love that was returned in its privacy of 
 shade, exhaust the charm of this wholesome, imaginative, and genial outlook on 
 Nature and on life." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.—" Mr. Alfred Austin has produced in The Garden 
 that I Love (Macmillan), a little book full of delightful prose interspersed with 
 equally charming poetry, the whole radiant with wit and mirth and delicate fancy. 
 . . . The scientific pomologist may be glad to know how the author protects his 
 orchard from grubs, and the lover of dainty poetry will certainly thank him for such 
 a gem as the verses beginning ' Had I a Garden.' " 
 
 PA.LL MALL GAZETTE.—" Mr. Austin is a good writer of prose as well as 
 verse ; and though he cannot conceal that he is a man of sharp insistent sensibilities, 
 taste and scholarship combine to keep them in due restraint when literature is the 
 business in hand. And here his style fits the subject very well indeed ; for, writing 
 of an unformal garden, his language is negligent of formal grace, spreading over his 
 pages as his wandering old rose-vine spreads over his walls. And the book is not all 
 garden. A certain Martha-like Veronica is introduced into it, and a sparkling Lamia, 
 and an unnamed Poet, in whom Mr. Austin (he need not deny it) doubles his part. 
 These friends talk together on affairs of life and art and song ; and very good talk 
 it is. But best of all is a piece of verse, ' If Love could Last,' more sweetly musical 
 than anything else that we can remember in Mr. Austin's poetical work." 
 
 ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— "Mr. Austin's good fortune has proved the 
 exceeding good fortune of his readers ; for never surely was the sense of the blessed 
 beneficence of a garden, its boon of peace and refreshment to the spirit, expounded 
 with more winning charm, or with more delicate truth of sentiment, than in this inti- 
 mate and tender discourse about the Garden that he Loves. In no kind of writing, 
 perhaps, than in this is it easier to miss just that nuance of tone and treatment that 
 makes the difference between literature and twaddle. In these pleasant pages that 
 nuance is most delicately apprehended. They are written not in poetic prose, but 
 in prose that is essentially the prose of a poet, with the feeling and fancy of the 
 poet. There is just the right mingling of actual poetry, just so much as to make 
 us long for more ; and the snatches of verse introduced are in themselves most 
 exquisite — it may be that their charm is heightened by their setting, but one does
 
 PRESS NOTICES 
 
 not remember verse cf Mr. Austin's that has charmed one more. There is sentiment 
 enough to give life to the garden lore, and enough garden lore to give character to 
 the sentiment. . . . Mr. Austin has seldom given us anything better than this 
 delightful book. It is certainly one not to be missed by any lover of Nature — or any 
 lover of graceful and charming prose." 
 
 SPEAKER. — " The Garden that I Love is pure delight. The sense of what 
 Milton termed 'retired leisure' is in the book, and with it the scent of the flowers 
 and much quick appreciation of country sights and sounds. Even whilst we 
 ramble along the shady walks or stop to gossip with the gardener, we never feel 
 that we are ' buried ' in any hopeless sense in the country, or that the charm of 
 books and human fellowship is far to seek." 
 
 OBSERVER. — "Two ladies of temperaments that differ vastly, the Poet, and 
 the creator of the garden — these four are the dramatis />ersona ir. The Garden 
 that I Love, the dainty volume which Mr. Alfred Austin has provided for the 
 delight of many a weary town dweller, whose imagination, mayhap, has done him 
 the good service to picture him, if only for an hour, the dweller in just such a haven 
 of old-world loveliness as is here depicted. ' Lamia,' the brilliant perverse, 'Veron- 
 ica,' the Martha-like mistress of the house that sat within the garden, the 'Poet,' 
 with his verses and his delicate wisdom, and the narrator himself — in all of these 
 humans we are deeply interested, and their apt meditations and meanderings are 
 exquisitely attuned to the varying moods of the garden ; but it is the garden itself 
 that we learn to love in turning over Mr. Austin's enchanting pages. . . . He has 
 succeeded with rare skill in suggesting the atmosphere of perfect peace that hangs, 
 like a golden mist, over gardens which some one loves ; and there is no garden lover, 
 be he rich or poor, who will not feel that in The Garden that I Love, Mr. Austin 
 has interpreted much that he has ofttimes felt, but for which, perhaps, he could 
 find no adequate expression in words." 
 
 LITERARY WORLD. — " The most fragrant and refreshing book that we have 
 had the happiness to review for many a long month. . . . Those who never care to 
 see their favourite poet taking to prose, or their cherished prose-writer dropping 
 into poetry, will find some comfort in the fact that there are some beautiful verses in 
 The Garden that I Love. . . . Reviewing often means finding fault, but in this case 
 that would be impossible. The Garden that I Love is a book to be thankful for. It 
 is beautiful. It goes very close to perfection." 
 
 SCOTSMAN. — " It is a new thing for Mr. Alfred Austin to favour his readers 
 with prose; and, indeed, the prose of his book The Garden that I Loz>e is such as 
 can be appreciated only by those who love poetry. The human interest of the book — 
 that which lies in its touches of character — is not the less strong because it is inter- 
 mittent and impressionist. The work is delightfully written. It will please in an 
 immoderate degree men who are addicted to gardening, but one does not need to 
 have so much of the original Adam in one as all that to enjoy a book so healthy and 
 of so refined a sentiment, for a bookish man who had spent his life in towns will be 
 refreshed by it as well." 
 
 LIVERPOOL DAILY POST.—" Why it should be so one finds it impossible 
 lo say, but the fact remains that to write about a garden a man must be a gentleman. 
 Mr. Alfred Austin is the happy possessor of the necessary qualities, and his new 
 book entitled The Garden that I Love is as fresh as the evening breeze across the 
 whitened orchard tops of spring, in these days when, in literature, whiffs from the 
 gutter strike the senses more frequently than the scent of new-mown hay.   . . We 
 recommend every one to read his most delightful book." 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
 
 Now Ready. With Fourteen Illustrations. Fifth Thousand. 
 Extra Crown Svo. Price gs. 
 
 IN VERONICA'S GARDEN 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 TIMES. — " Although sequels and continuations are proverbially perilous under- 
 takings, we have little doubt that Mr. Alfred Austin's readers will gladly renew the 
 acquaintance with Veronica's delightful garden and its genial occupants which they 
 made in The Garden that I Love. The scheme of the new volume is the same as 
 that of its predecessor. The garden is richer and more luxuriant, and its owner's or 
 creator's love for it is more intense, than ever, and the illustrations with which the 
 volume is enriched will make Mr. Austin's readers more eager than ever to share his 
 love for and delight in it. The 'friends in council' whose colloquies enliven the 
 garden and give an air of cultured retirement to Mr. Austin's pages are also the same 
 as before, though their relationships are somewhat different. Veronica is now the 
 wife of the Poet, while the anonymous gardener and the winsome Lamia appear to 
 revolve somewhat erratically around this domestic centre. In both cases Mr. Austin 
 blends in very delightful fashion his love of flowers and of simple rural delights 
 with his love of gentle thoughts and gracious converse." 
 
 GUARDIAN.—" Mr. Austin has done well to follow up The Garden that I Lore 
 by In Veronica's Garden. It is really a second volume of the same work, and not 
 only presupposes that the reader has read the first by frequent references to it, but is 
 written on exactly the same lines, with the same dra»iatis fersotHZ, the same quiet 
 humour, and the same mixture of gardening, poetry, and moralising that made The 
 Garden that I Lcrve such pleasant reading. In one respect only can we trace any 
 difference : the garden is still the central point of the book, but there is less of garden- 
 ing in it, and more of moralisings and short essays ; still the moralisings come in very 
 naturally, and the essays, though short, are always to the point. There is the same 
 healthy tone in this second volume that there was in the first ; the same love of the 
 country in all its aspects." 
 
 PRESTON GUARDIAN.— ■" In Veronicas Garden has grown as did The 
 Garden that I Love. They are as twin apples from one bough. The last-named 
 was ripe first, being a little nearer the sun, and gave our palate its first sweet taste of 
 a new fruit. But the second is in the same style. Page after page one is plunged 
 into the country. One has not merely a skilful word-painting of remembered beauty, 
 but shares the emotion from the sight of the new leaves on the sweeping boughs, the 
 lush grass, or the first swallow. The joys of the country are set out for town-bred 
 people. There are several charming poems in the volume. A delightful one describes, 
 in over a score of verses, ' The Passing of Spring. ' Another embodies the real 
 Christmas spirit better than any I have read. There is an imperial ring about the 
 lines which appeal to 
 
 All of British blood,— 
 Whether they cling to Egbert's Throne, 
 
 Or, far beyond the Western flood, 
 Have reared a Sceptre of their own, 
 
 that should bring tender thoughts of the Motherland from many a far-off shore. 
 I do not need to sav more about the book. Whoever loves a garden will love it." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.— ■" A dainty piece of work is Mr. Alfred Austin's 
 little volume, called In Veronica's Garden, which may be described as a continuation 
 of his charming description of an English manor-house and its inhabitants — The 
 Garden that I Loire. Here, again, we meet with the modern representatives of 
 Lamia and Veronica, with the amateur gardener himself, and with the Poet who is 
 always ready to "oblige" with verses of delicate workmanship, written to suit 
 place or season. Indeed, one of the chief charms of the book is the deft, unobtrusive 
 way in which Mr. Austin has contrived to mingle poetry with his prose, and to 
 gratify both those who love an elegant prose style and those who admire the lyrics 
 of the author of The Human 'Tragedy. There is one especially beautiful sonnet, 
 called ' A Dream of England,' in which a dweller in Italy imagines himself to —
 
 PRESS NOTICES 
 
 Hear the home-music of your Kentish skies, 
 And dream that I am drenched with English dew. 
 Equally delightful in its own way is the ' Passing of Spring.' " 
 
 STANDARD — "Those who wander with Mr. Alfred Austin 'in Veronica's 
 Garden ' will be glad to find that it is none other than the Garden that he Loves. 
 Not only is the place the same, but the company remains unchanged. Veronica is 
 here again with her grave imperiousness and sweet addiction to household cares, 
 and the playful Lamia is by her side trembling in mock earnest at her nod. He who 
 tells the tale — the Keeper, shall we call him? of the pleasaunce — has lost nothing of 
 his meditative delight in the infinite mutations of its loveliness, and the Poet comes 
 back from Italy full of apt Virgilian learning, and ready at every turn to burst into 
 English song that has a classic grace and freshness of its own. How much is fancy 
 and how much portraiture? Where does the writer put himself into his record, and 
 where is he content, with dainty dramatic touch, to furnish side lights to the picture 
 of sincere and enthusiastic feeling? These are questions we do not care to ask, even 
 if we believed that we could give dogmatic answers. The mind must be singularly 
 ill-attuned to the finer spirit of the workmanship, which worries itself with analysis 
 of this sort. It is enough to accept the volume gratefully as a delightful blending 
 of the results of delicate observation and subtle thought with humour both kindly 
 and refined. The dignity and rhythmical melodiousness of the prose would tell us, 
 if we did not know in other ways, that the writer of this volume is a poet." 
 
 SPEA KER — " Mr. Austin, in giving us this book, has essayed to do an exquisite 
 thing twice, and though some who like to have enjoyed their sensation and be done 
 with it, may grumble, others will thank him for this further instalment of quiet days 
 and quiet ways. The charm of his subject lies upon the book, so that even the list 
 of flower-names becomes fragrant. . . . A delightful book." 
 
 ST. JAMES'S BUDGET— "This delightful volume has the full and fresh 
 charm of The Garden that I Love." 
 
 NA TIONAL REVIEW—" A delightful book, which will be cordially welcomed 
 by those who enjoyed The Garden that I Love. It has no mission, settles no 
 problems, and is content to be charming, simple, and pleasure-giving." 
 
 DAILY NEWS — " Mr. Alfred Austin in Veronicas Garden continues his praises 
 of The Garden that I Love. Once more he celebrates the delights of that secluded 
 spot, the high walls of which shut out the ' ephemeral fret, fume, and turmoil of 
 to-day,' and enclose a thousand simple enchantments ; once more in those shaded 
 walks and radiant borders we meet the perverse and lovely Lamia, the solicitous 
 Veronica, the Poet whose verse gives the kindling touch that draws us into closer 
 amity with the life of nature. Again it is the lover and tender of the garden that is 
 the narrator. White of Selborne was not more precise than is Mr. Austin in noting the 
 advent and ways of the blossoms and birds, or in observing the wayward, laggard, 
 or hurrying steps of the season. The friends converse on many themes, on art, on 
 the philosophy of life ; their banter is gay and genial, their gravity never deepens 
 into gloom. The poet quotes much from his favourite Virgil, and sings in graceful 
 lyrics of the simple things of nature, of love, of friendship. He is the same gentle 
 Conservative and patriot ; the old faiths, the old ways are dear to him, 
 And every wildling bird and leaf 
 That gladdens English lanes. 
 His verse has the sincerity and spontaneity the talk of the friends sometimes lacks   
 and the note rings true that tells 
 
 I would live nestled near my kind, 
 
 Deep in a garden garth, 
 That they who loved my verse might find 
 A pathway to my hearth. 
 The beautiful old manor house and the garden are charmingly represented in the 
 illustrations by A. Kohl and O. Lacour." 
 
 BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE— "Before the winter has finally set in, and 
 while still the trees are in all their glory, Mr. Austin leads us back in his delightful 
 way into the Garden which we all love. ... It is just the book to lie in the embrasure 
 of the window looking out upon a garden full of tangled sweetness, where lilies have 
 lifted their tall heads, and roses blown from the beginning of time." 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
 
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