JUNE 335 



gasp and admire, and with it always the dim memory of 

 somehow having seen it all before as in a dream. The 

 churches in the fading evening light looked very solemn 

 and very beautiful portals to death perhaps rather than 

 window's into heaven. But I do not know that I liked them 

 less for that. I found Florence very little changed in its 

 general aspect, in spite of the many alterations which have 

 been such pain and grief to the English inhabitants. It 

 is almost, if not quite, unspoilable. There are trams and 

 omnibuses and incongruous things, no doubt ; but, oh ! it 

 is wonderfully unchanged from the time-worn stones of 

 its pavements to the black eaves of its roofs against the 

 brilliant sky. 



One need not be in Florence to give one's entire 

 sympathy to the good people there who are trying their 

 utmost to save the beautiful old city from destruction. 

 To destroy old streets to build hotels may defeat its own 

 object, for if Florence becomes less beautiful the demand 

 for hotel rooms may diminish ; though honestly I think 

 that, to keep up the influx of strangers, sanitary precautions 

 and a certain content among the people are more necessary 

 still. Five thousand English and other tourists left 

 Florence the week before I arrived, in consequence of a 

 very slight riot which followed on the two days' Socialist 

 outbreak at Milan. The departure of strangers means 

 ruin to the hotel-keepers and poverty to all those they 

 employ ; so my sympathy to a certain extent goes with 

 the difficulties of the Italian Government, who have to 

 consider the material benefit to the city and its people 

 that may come from wider streets and bridges. When 

 I see protests such as have appeared lately in the columns 

 of our newspapers a feeling of shame always comes over 

 me at the wholesale destruction that has gone on within 

 my memory in our own poor old London, and which few 

 people think about. For instance, the destruction of 



