vale, with Florence and her great
domes and towers in its lap, and across its breadth of five miles the
mountain of Fiesole. To the west it stretches away unbroken for twenty
miles, covered thickly with white villas--like a meadow of daisies,
magnified. A few miles to the east the plain is rounded with mountains,
between whose interlocking bases we can see the brown current of the
Arno. Some of their peaks, as well as the mountain of Vallombrosa,
along the eastern sky, are tipped with snow. Imagine the air filled
with a thick blue mist, like a semi-transparent veil, which softens
every thing into dreamy indistinctness, the sunshine falling slantingly
through this in spots, touching the landscape here and there as with a
sudden blaze of fire, and you will complete the picture. Does it not
repay your mental flight across the Atlantic.

One evening, on coming out of the cafe, the moon was shining so brightly
and clearly, that I involuntarily bent my steps towards the river; I
walked along the _Lung'Arno_, enjoying the heavenly moonlight--"the
night of cloudless climes and starry skies!" A purer silver light never
kissed the brow of Endymion. The brown Arno took into his breast "the
redundant glory," and rolled down his pebbly bed with a more musical
ripple; opposite stretched the long mass of buildings--the deep arches
that rose from the water were filled with black shadow, and the
irregular fronts of the houses touched with a mellow glow. The arches of
the upper bridge were in shadow, cutting their dark outline on the
silvery sweep of the Appenines, far up the stream. A veil of luminous
gray covered the hill of San Miniato, with its towers and cypress
groves, and there was a crystal depth in the atmosphere, as if it shone
with its own light. The whole scene affected me as something too
glorious to be real--painful from the very intensity of its beauty.
Three moons ago, at the foot of Vallombrosa, I saw the Appenines flooded
with the same silvery gush, and thought also, then, that I had seen the
same moon amid far dearer scenes, but never before the same dreamy and
sublime glory showered down from her pale orb. Some solitary lights were
burning along the river, and occasionally a few Italians passed by,
wrapped in their mantles. I went home to the Piazza del Granduca as the
light, pouring into the square from behind the old palace, fell over the
fountain of Neptune and sheathed in silver the back of the colossal god.

Wh