mean to revisit Europe, and heard him answer, not uncheerfully, taking
hold of his white hair, "It is getting rather too late in the evening
now." If any old age can be cheerful, I should think his might be; so
good a man, so cool, so calm, so bright, too, we may say. His life has
been like the days that end in pleasant sunsets. He has a great loss,
however, or what ought to be a great loss,--soon to be encountered in the
death of his wife, who, I think, can hardly live to reach America. He is
not eminently an affectionate man. I take him to be one who cannot get
closely home to his sorrow, nor feel it so sensibly as he gladly would;
and, in consequence of that deficiency, the world lacks substance to him.
It is partly the result, perhaps, of his not having sufficiently
cultivated his emotional nature. His poetry shows it, and his personal
intercourse, though kindly, does not stir one's blood in the least.

Little Pennini, during the evening, sometimes helped the guests to cake
and strawberries; joined in the conversation, when he had anything to
say, or sat down upon a couch to enjoy his own meditations. He has long
curling hair, and has not yet emerged from his frock and short hose. It
is funny to think of putting him into trousers. His likeness to his
mother is strange to behold.


June 10th.--My wife and I went to the Pitti Palace to-day; and first
entered a court where, yesterday, she had seen a carpet of flowers,
arranged for some great ceremony. It must have been a most beautiful
sight, the pavement of the court being entirely covered by them, in a
regular pattern of brilliant lines, so as really to be a living mosaic.
This morning, however, the court had nothing but its usual stones, and
the show of yesterday seemed so much the more inestimable as having been
so evanescent. Around the walls of the court there were still some