JUNE 351 



bright strong colour blue skies and yellow sunsets, 

 purple mountains and brilliant flowers. These they find 

 in spring and autumn, to their hearts' content ; but summer 

 in Florence is mellow and veiled, and very tender in 

 colour, truly represented in Mason's pictures, and so 

 totally unlike the typical water-colour drawings of Italy 

 from the brush of Eichardson or Aaron Penley, much the 

 fashion fifty years ago. 



At one villa I saw a pond of lovely Burmese goldfish, 

 quite different from any I had ever before seen alive, and 

 exactly resembling the fish in Japanese drawings and 

 Chinese bowls little fat bodies, and large swimming 

 bladders, and long waving tails which made their move- 

 ments very swift and graceful. They were fed with little 

 bits of wafer, the same as that used in Catholic churches and 

 also used all over the Continent for wrapping up powders so 

 that you should not taste the medicine. The fish pounced 

 on these delicate morsels with extraordinary rapacity 

 and greed. I have never dared feed the goldfish in my 

 fountain, as they remain so much healthier with only the 

 natural food they are able to procure. Where the foun- 

 tains are kept very clean, the best food for them, if these 

 wafers cannot be procured, is crumbled vermicelli. 



June 17th. My time was half over in Florence 

 before I went to the picture galleries at all not because 

 I did not wish to go, but there was so much else to see 

 and enjoy and admire. It is almost useless to speak of 

 the pictures themselves. Those who have seen them 

 know what they are ; and to those who have not, no words 

 would convey any idea. It was very interesting to me to 

 realise how my own taste had altered. The outside of the 

 Pitti, grand and massive as the building is, gives me no 

 pleasure. Under the archway, and beyond the public 

 entrance into the building, there is a little yard where 

 a wonderful sight can be obtained of the Arabesque 



