Aug. 20 ('47).

'. . . We have spent one of the most delightful of summers
notwithstanding the heat, and I begin to comprehend the possibility of
St. Lawrence's ecstasies on the gridiron. Very hot certainly it has been
and is, yet there have been cool intermissions, and as we have spacious
and airy rooms, as Robert lets me sit all day in my white dressing-gown
without a single masculine criticism, and as we can step out of the
window on a sort of balcony terrace which is quite private, and swims
over with moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon water-melons
and iced water and figs and all manner of fruit, we bear the heat with
an angelic patience.

We tried to make the monks of Vallombrosa let us stay with them for two
months, but the new abbot said or implied that Wilson and I stank in his
nostrils, being women. So we were sent away at the end of five days. So
provoking! Such scenery, such hills, such a sea of hills looking alive
among the clouds--which rolled, it was difficult to discern. Such fine
woods, supernaturally silent, with the ground black as ink. There were
eagles there too, and there was no road. Robert went on horseback,
and Wilson and I were drawn on a sledge--(i.e. an old hamper, a basket
wine-hamper--without a wheel) by two white bullocks, up the precipitous
mountains. Think of my travelling in those wild places at four o'clock
in the morning! a little frightened, dreadfully tired, but in an ecstasy
of admiration. It was a sight to see before one died and went away into
another world. But being expelled ignominiously at the end of five days,
we had to come back to Florence to find a new apartment cooler than the
old, and wait for dear Mr. Kenyon, and dear Mr. Kenyon does not come
after all. And on the 20th of September we take up our knapsacks and
turn our faces towards Rome, creeping slowly along, with a pause at