MAY 325 



more lasting impression, by going straight from home 

 and spending the whole time in one place. 



Everyone warned me so much against the heat I 

 should find in Italy in June. But I began my disappoint- 

 ment by finding the Alps all cloud and rain, and, in spite 

 of its being the last days of May, the weather was quite 

 cold. At Turin the sky was as inky black as in London. 

 The torrents were bursting, and the roads floating with 

 water over black mud. As we got near Genoa, of which 

 absolutely nothing can be seen from the railway, it was 

 like a gray July day at home, the hay cut and the Acacias 

 in flower. 



The journey along the seashore is a most irritating 

 series of tunnels. When I arrived at Florence, all 

 loneliness was at an end. Kind friends met me, and we 

 drove through the town, which I had not visited, except 

 for one night, since I was twenty. In the gray damp 

 drizzle it did not look its best, but no weather can spoil 

 the majestic appearance of the Ilex and Cypress avenue 

 outside the Boman gate the approach to what was once 

 a Medicean villa. Through this we had to drive to reach 

 the village of Arcetri, where my journey ended. 



The joy of being once more in Italy was indeed great ; 

 my pension close to the Torre del Gallo was a large, 

 fine house, quite empty. All the upper floor was my 

 own, and I could roam from room to room and enjoy the 

 most beautiful views conceivable. The whole country 

 is like a gigantic rockwork hill and vale and sloping 

 sides and varied aspects, and all that can be imagined 

 as perfect for the growth of vegetation. I was rather 

 disappointed at the excessive greenness of everything on 

 my arrival. Even the Olives, in spite of the green corn 

 underneath them, looked green not gray from the 

 masses of small yellow flowers that covered them. One 

 cannot look at all this redundant vegetation without 



