IX. OUTSIDE AND IN. I 83 



Florence, iili September, 1874. 



As I correct this chapter for press, I find it is too 

 imperfect to be let go without a word or two more. 

 In the first place, I have not enough, in distin- 

 guishing the nature of the living yearly shoot, with 

 its cluster of fresh leafage, from that of the accumu- 

 lated mass of perennial trees, taken notice of the 

 similar power even of the annual shoot, to obtain 

 some manner of immortality for itself, or at least of 

 usefulness, after death. A Tuscan woman stopped 

 me on the path up to Fiesole last night, to beg me 

 to buy her plaited straw. I wonder how long straw 

 lasts, if one takes care of it ? A Leghorn bonnet, 

 (if now such things are,) carefully put away, — even 

 properly taken care of when it is worn, — how long 

 will it last, young ladies? 



I have just been reading the fifth chapter of 

 II. Esdras, and am fain to say, with less discom- 

 fort than otherwise I might have felt, (the example 

 being set me by the archangel Uriel,) " I am not 

 sent to tell thee, for I do not know." How old 

 is the oldest straw known ? the oldest linen ? the 

 oldest hemp ? We have mummy wheat, — cloth of 

 papyrus, which is a kind of straw. The paper 

 reeds by the brooks, the flax-flower in the field, 

 leave such imperishable frame behind them. And 

 Ponte-della-Paglia, in Venice ; and Straw Street, of 



