polished stone, and in the stone was inlaid the figure of a flute, with
bell-mouth and a mazy complication of keys. No painting in the world
could have been softer or richer; no shading out of one tint into another
could have been more perfect; no work of art of any kind could have been
more faultless than this flute, and yet to count the multitude of little
fragments of stone of which they swore it was formed would bankrupt any
man's arithmetic! I do not think one could have seen where two particles
joined each other with eyes of ordinary shrewdness. Certainly we could
detect no such blemish. This table-top cost the labor of one man for ten
long years, so they said, and it was for sale for thirty-five thousand
dollars.

We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time to time, in Florence, to
weep over the tombs of Michael Angelo, Raphael and Machiavelli,
(I suppose they are buried there, but it may be that they reside
elsewhere and rent their tombs to other parties--such being the fashion
in Italy,) and between times we used to go and stand on the bridges and
admire the Arno. It is popular to admire the Arno. It is a great
historical creek with four feet in the channel and some scows floating
around. It would be a very plausible river if they would pump some water
into it. They all call it a river, and they honestly think it is a
river, do these dark and bloody Florentines. They even help out the
delusion by building bridges over it. I do not see why they are too good
to wade.

How the fatigues and annoyances of travel fill one with bitter prejudices
sometimes! I might enter Florence under happier auspices a month hence
and find it all beautiful, all attractive. But I do not care to think of
it now, at all, nor of its roomy shops filled to the ceiling with snowy
marble and alabaster copies of all the celebrated sculptures in Europe