The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-09-15
OUR FOREIGN LETTER.
Especial correspondence of the PRBss.l
EFT 0pENCE

Especial correspondence of the PRBss]
FLORENCE.
After roaming about the silent streets of
buried cities. where imagination casts often
times an unwonted glow, and penetrating
the sepnlchres of saints and heroes, whose
faults are buried, but whose virtues painters
and poets have deified, We lost our taste for
the trivial luxuries of the present, and felt a
contempt for anything that could not boast
an antiquity Of a thousand years. Full of re-
grets, and in a sombre mood, we babe good
bye to Rome, and spent the hours of travel
to Florence in moralizing upon the vanities
of the world. Arriving in the gloom of night,
we went to bed feeling somewhat depressed
A good sleep restored our brains to their nat
ural condition, in which the good things of
this present time are not despi.ed There
was borne in upon us, from the open window
with our first consciousness Of our existence,
the merry peal of bells and the musical
voices of the gay Florentines. The whole
city seemed flooded with sunlight, in which
the people moved briskly, as if it was the
dawn of festival day. Indeed, during our
whole stay in Florence, it seemed like per-
petual gala season.
We quickly despatched our morning repast
and were mingling with the crowds. There
is one constant procession of flower girls, in
the early morning, along the Lung Arno.
When we saw their arms full of tulips, roses,
anemones and hyacinths, we would retrace
our steps to get one more sniff of the fra
GRANGE. Nature has been profuse in her
floral blessings to some, and niggardly to
others. Here red tulips and small but sweet
hyacinths grow wild. We could scarcely see
the faces of the girls for the peach bowers,
which they bore over their heads. From
Sorrento to Calais, a journey of many weeks,
we travelled through maze of peach blooms;
and after crossing the Channel, we exchanged
them for the rosy apple blossoms of England
1t is most natural for the Florentines to ex-
eel in mosaic work, and for the women to
wear gay plumes and ribbons; for God has
set before them illimitable combinations of
color in their landscape and their flowers.
Nothing can be more suggestive of poetry
than the dark waters of the Arno, which
glance in the sheen of the moonbeams, or
sparkle with the twinkling stars, which the
reflected gaslights sprinkle over its black
mirror. We luxuriated in the delicate paint
ings on ivory and porcelain, and became in
satiate with the mosaicS and jewelry; and
we took on a new craze for the exquisite
modern sculpture, with which the shop win
dows are filled. The sculptors here chisel
from the purest marble such bewitching stat
uettes of children engaged in the little af-
fairs of their innocent child life, that you
would be glad to have all the angels of the
old masters take to their wings and fly away
to parts unknown-they are SO stale and in
sipid compared with these living figures IF
our own substantial cherubs.
OF course we went to the Pitt and Auftsi
galleries, and all the dark churches. Here
we saw hundreds of poor religious paintings,
but were spell bound in the presence of some
of the noblest and most lasting works of the
artists of ancient times In the Pitt are two
hundred or more portraits the Medici fam
ly. What an incentive such an array of an
cestors, who have sat on many thrones in
Europe, and mingled in the affairs of all ma
tions, ought to have been to their sons and
daughters to use their talents wisely and sus-
tain the family honor. 1t is inexpressibly
sad to look upon this collection and read the
sequel of their dissipation and their abuse
of talents and power 1t is said that not a
solitary being is left who can take pride of
heritage in this gallery. or trace his lineage
to one member of this family group
We made pleasant call at Mr. Turner's
studio, where he has much really good work
to interest visitor. Among others we spe-
cially admired the cast of his grand statue
of Commodore Perry, which was erected in
Newport last season but the great attrac-
ton of this studio to us was the work OF the
young sculptor, Edward "haxter, whose
memory is so dear to many Portland friends.
We remember we'll the poetry of its thought,
and the delicate execution of his Loves
Young Dream" which was exhibited in Bos-
on. When we saw Meg Merriles," full of
passion and strength, his charming "Sun-
light so tender and spirituelle and the re-
pose of his unfinished "Reverie,' we mar
yelled that one who promised surely to
achieve fame, should be cut off so early in
life Mr.. Turner has preserved with broth
erly care the little Jumps of clay on which
the youthful sculptor had pressed his fitting
thoughts, like the stray verses in poets
scrap book or the sketches in an artists port
folio. We wished it had seemed wise in his
Heavenly Fathers plan to spare him to work
out in living mable all his visions OF beauty.
A drive to Certosa is one of our sunny
memories of Florence. Three miles beyond
the city walls, on a grassy hill in the midst of
an Eden of vineyards and fruit orchards,
stands this beautiful Carthusian monastery.
The farm is let out to husbandmen, who
bring in to the government their talents with
usury each year. A few old monks still have
a home here to receive guests and keep a
dispensary for the neighboring peasants.
The country folk would lose all faith in the
healing virtues of any physic that had not |
been previously blessed by the fathers. One |
of the brothers in white robes showed us |
about the costly chapels and into the crypts, |
where they all expect soon to be gathered to |
their fathers The members of this broth
erhood are supposed to practice the most rig
id self-denial, and to live in prison-likc Sc
clusion. Each monk had a suite of three
rooms, the two larger perhaps eight by ten
feet. while the inner room was not more than
five by eight feet. In this was one tiny win I
dow. put far above their heads, lest glimpse
If the outer world or stray sunbeam should
beguile them from their devotions, for surely
no living creature from curiosity to look in
upon them, would ever trouble himself to
scale the wall of the garden beneath, where I