h we visited, is of wonderful beauty. The
walls are entirely encrusted with _pietra dura_ and the most precious
kinds of marble. The ceiling is covered with gorgeous frescoes by
Benevenuto, a modern painter. Around the sides, in magnificent
sarcophagi of marble and jasper, repose the ashes of a few Cosmos and
Ferdinands. I asked the sacristan for the tomb of Lorenzo the
Magnificent. "Oh!" said he, "he lived during the republic--he has no
tomb; these are only for Dukes!" I could not repress a sigh at the
lavish waste of labor and treasure on this one princely chapel. They
might have slumbered unnoted, like Lorenzo, if they had done as much for
their country and Italy.

_December 19._--It is with a heavy heart, that I sit down tonight to
make my closing note in this lovely city and in the journal which has
recorded my thoughts and impressions since leaving America. I should
find it difficult to analyze my emotions, but I know that they oppress
me painfully. So much rushes at once over the mind and heart--memories
of what has passed through both, since I made the first note in its
pages--alternations of hope and anxiety and aspiration, but _never_
despondency--that it resembles in a manner, the closing of a life. I
seem almost to have lived through the common term of a life in this
short period. Much spiritual and mental experience has crowded into a
short time the sensations of years. Painful though some of it has been,
it was still welcome. Difficulty and toil give the soul strength to
crush, in a loftier region, the passions which draw strength only from
the earth. So long as we listen to the purer promptings within us, there
is a Power invisible, though not unfelt, who protects us--amid the toil
and tumult and soiling struggle, there is ever an eye that watches, ever
a heart that overflows with Infinite and Almighty Love! Let us trust
then in that Eternal Spirit, who pours out on us his warm and boundless
blessings, through the channels of so many kindred human hearts!

CHAPTER XXXIX.

WINTER TRAVELING AMONG THE APPENINES.

_Valley of the Arno, Dec 22._--It is a glorious morning after our two
days' walk, through rain and mud, among these stormy Appenines. The
range of high peaks, among which is the celebrated monastery of
Camaldoli, lie just before us, their summits dazzling with the new
fallen snow. The clouds are breaking away, and a few rosy flushes
announce the approach of the sun. It has rained during