A WALK TO IMPRUNETA 



for all things monkish that comes to those who know Italy well, I could not 

 help feeling that there must be a holy ghost, a gift of things unspeakable 

 descending in this flood of light. Near by is an avenue of cypresses that climb 

 a long hill toward the east, going from the stream to the summit. These 

 Itali.-in cypresses are the most monumental of trees; stiff as a Lombardy 

 poplar, they want grace and give none of that sense of enduring shelter 

 that belongs to our Northern trees, but like all trees they have a perfect 

 fitness for their landscape. Here the best use of a tree is to look monumental. 

 These cypresses are tiresome things when they grow wild; they look like the 

 i of Noah's Ark, but in an avenue they are like the propylaea of a temple. 



At the bridge over the Arno I stopped to watch the stream of folk going 

 to the city. An Italian town lives from day to day, so each morning the 

 carts stream in full of all sorts of stores. They are vehicles of two thousand 

 years ago, two-wheeled, of a form that we may sometimes see carved on 

 Roman monuments ; the horses and donkeys weighed down with gear that 

 helps nothing save their picturesqueness. In a quarter of an hour I saw con- 

 tributions to almost every natural need wood, charcoal, heaps of faggots 

 for the brief fire that the Italians use for cooking, crates of wine and oil, 

 wagons with boards stacked up like hay in a lattice of wooden strips ; and 

 with them a host of sturdy, cold, pinched men munching their breakfast of 

 wine and bread as they went. 



In the corners of the houses where the sun's rays were coming the people 

 huddled like barnyard fowls taking the enlivening warmth. . . . There are 

 few small dwellings and these of rather recent date. The greater part of 

 the dwellings are really strongholds that could easily be held even in modern 

 war against anything but artillery. The love of strong construction that the 

 ages of fear imposed on the people makes even the modern houses keep 

 to the fortress type. Up on the rolling table-land I find people at work in 

 the field. The Tuscan is as good a spader as the Irishman. He is an earth- 

 lover. There is no end to the brawny patience with which he cares for the 

 fat valley lands where his vines and mulberry trees share the ground with 

 grain, or gives to the rescuing of some profit from the rocky hillsides above. 

 The men and women work together in the fields. At this season they are 

 spading the richer spaces between the mulberry trees for their spring vege- 

 tables. A straight-handled spade, the staff six feet or so long, is driven into 

 the ground, the handle is shaken to and fro in a rhythmic swing, and the 

 slow, steady motion gives time for the melodious chatter that seasons all 

 labor in this cheerful land. 



In three miles of way I have passed through several clusters of villas, the 

 summer homes of Florentines. The habit of having a country as well as a 

 town house is older here than in any other land, and to the close association 



