in the circle above the chapel door. Never pass near the market without
looking at it; and glance from the vegetables underneath to Luca's
leaves and lilies, that you may see how honestly he was trying to make
his clay like the garden-stuff. But to-day, you may pass quickly on to
the Uffizii, which will be just open; and when you enter the great
gallery, turn to the right, and there, the first picture you come at
will be No. 6, Giotto's "Agony in the garden."

I used to think it so dull that I could not believe it was Giotto's.
That is partly from its dead colour, which is the boy's way of telling
you it is night:--more from the subject being one quite beyond his age,
and which he felt no pleasure in trying at. You may see he was still a
boy, for he not only cannot draw feet yet, in the least, and
scrupulously hides them therefore; but is very hard put to it for the
hands, being obliged to draw them mostly in the same position,--all the
four fingers together. But in the careful bunches of grass and weeds
you will see what the fresco foregrounds were before they got spoiled;
and there are some things he can understand already, even about that
Agony, thinking of it in his own fixed way. Some things,--not
altogether to be explained by the old symbol of the angel with the cup.
He will try if he cannot explain them better in those two little
pictures below; which nobody ever looks at; the great Roman sarcophagus
being put in front of them, and the light glancing on the new varnish
so that you must twist about like a lizard to see anything.
Nevertheless, you may make out what Giotto meant.

"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" In what
was its bitterness?--thought the boy. "Crucifixion?--Well, it hurts,
doubtless; but the thieves had to bear it too, and many poor human
wretches have to bear worse on our battlefields. But"--and he thinks,