JUNE 337 



of the ages to come. In the eighteenth century, ruins as 

 such were admired even to the extent of making artificial 

 ones, and the landscape painters not only steeped all 

 Nature's bright colours in black and brown, but painted 

 the ruined columns under thunderclouds, with Eoman 

 soldiers in togas walking about. And our grandfathers 

 bought and admired their pictures ! 



June 6th. When I was young in Florence a great 

 mystery hung over the convent of San Marco, as women 

 were not allowed to visit it, and we young ones thought 

 of it principally in connection with its perfumery shop, 

 where the Iris-root powder and pale pink lip-salve were 

 better than anywhere else. It was with a real feeling of 

 curiosity that I saw the interior and the famous frescoes 

 that have survived so many centuries. I found them 

 very sweet and child-like these decorations of the little 

 cells by the humble Christian monk ; but I suppose I had 

 expected too much, for as works of art they disappointed 

 me. In the little square surrounded by the cloister of 

 San Marco, where Fra Girolamo sat sotto un rosajo di 

 rose Damaschine preaching to his contemporaries, the 

 monks or rather, I suppose, some unimaginative official 

 who has charge of the public buildings in Florence, has 

 planted, instead of ^ the gentle damask Eose and the 

 Lavender and Rosemary, a huge flourishing Deodar. No 

 doubt this tree is beautiful enough on the high steep sides of 

 the Lower Himalayas, but with its symmetrical growth, 

 and the size to which it has already attained, it is a most 

 unsightly and inappropriate object in the restricted 

 cortile of Savonarola's monastery. It puts everything out 

 of all proportion, and is such an anachronism ! Deodars 

 are quite modern trees in Europe, and are not pretty 

 even in villa gardens. I do wish it could be cut down ; 

 plain, daisy-spangled turf would be much better. Nothing 

 is so striking or so general as the want of imagination in 



z 



