t be
accepted calmly as a valuable and characteristic link in the general
historic chain.

In another letter he was ecstatic over the Gothic brickwork of Cremona.
It was so beautiful, he said in as many words, that it made his heart
ache; not often did Raymond let himself go like that. Eager to follow
his track--and to understand, if possible, his heart, however peculiar
and baffling--I looked up, in turn, North Italian brickwork. This was
twice three hundred years old. But it had stirred other modern hearts
than Raymond's; for an English aesthete had tried (and almost succeeded)
to impose it on his country as a living mode. "Very well," I said;
"Italian brickwork may reasonably be accepted as a modern interest."

Raymond, before descending to Italy, had spent some months in Paris.
Circumstances had enabled him to frequent a few studios, and his first
letter to me from that city had been rather technical and "viewy."
Incidentally, he had seen something of the students, and had found
little to approve, either in their manners or their morals. He left
Paris without reporting any moral infractions of his own and settled
down for some stay in Florence. He was studying the language further, he
reported: a language, he said, which was easy to begin, but hard to
continue--the longer you studied the less you really knew. However, he
knew enough for daily practical purposes. His _pension_ was pleasant;
small, and the few visitors were mostly English.

But there were one or two Americans in the house, and they came home a
few months later with their account of Raymond and his ways. It was
needed; for the three or four letters that he had printed in one of our
newspapers contained little beyond descriptions of set sights--to think
we should have continued to welcome that sort of thing so long! Well,
these people reported him as conscientiously busy, for his hour each
day, with grammar and dictionary. He was also getting his hand in
painting; and he had "taken on" musical composition, even to
instrumentation. "Too many irons!" commented my lively young informant.
"And I think I should get my painting in Paris and my music in Germany."
She also said that Raymond had next to no social life--he showed hardly
the slightest desire to make acquaintances.

"An old Frenchman came to the place for a few days," she continued; "and
as he was leaving he said your friend was living in an ivory tower--the
windows few, the door narrow, and th