The church attached to the monastery is small, but very solemn and venerable.  I went several times to muse in its still, gloomy aisle, and hear the murmuring chant of the Monks, who went through their exercises in some of the chapels.  At one time I saw them all, in long black cassocks, march in solemn order to the chapel of St. John Gualberto, where they sang a deep chant, which to me had something awful and sepulchral in it.  Behind the high altar I saw their black, carved chairs of polished oak, with ponderous gilded foliants lying on the rails before them.  The attendant opened one of these, that we might see the manuscript notes, three or four centuries old, from which they sung.

We were much amused in looking through two or three Italian books, which were lying in the traveler’s room.  One of these which our friend Mr. Tandy, of Kentucky, read, described the miracles of the patron saint with an air of the most ridiculous solemnity.  The other was a description of the Monastery, its foundation, history, etc.  In mentioning its great and far-spread renown, the author stated then even an English poet, by the name of Milton, had mentioned it in the following lines, which I copied verbatim from the book: 

    “Thick as autumnal scaves that strow she brooks
    In vallombrosa, whereth Etruian Jades
    Stigh over orch d’embrover!”

In looking over the stranger’s book, I found among the names of my countrymen, that of S. V. Clevenger, the talented and lamented sculptor who died at sea on his passage home.  There were also the names of Mrs. Shelley and the Princess Potemkin, and I saw written on the wall, the autograph of Jean Reboul, the celebrated modern French poet.  We were so delighted with the place we would have stayed another day, but for fear of trepassing too much on the lavish and unceasing hospitality of the good fathers.

So in the afternoon we shook hands with Brother Placido, and turned our backs regretfully upon one of the loneliest and loveliest spots of which earth can boast.  The sky became gradually clear as we descended, and the mist raised itself from the distant mountains.  We ran down through the same chesnut groves, diverging a little to go through the village of Tosi, which is very picturesque when seen from a distance, but extremely dirty to one passing through.  I stopped in the ravine below to take a sketch of the mill and bridge, and as we sat, the line of golden sunlight rose higher on the mountains above.  On walking down the shady side of this glen, we were enraptured with the scenery.  A brilliant yet mellow glow lay over the whole opposing height, lighting up the houses of Tosi and the white cottages half seen among the olives, while the mountain of Vallombrosa stretched far heavenward like a sunny painting, with only a misty wreath floating and waving around its summit.  The glossy foliage of the chesnuts was made still brighter by the warm light, and the old olives softened down into a silvery gray, whose contrast gave the landscape a character of the mellowest beauty.  As we wound out of the deep glen, the broad valleys and ranges of the Appenines lay before us, forests, castles and villages steeped in the soft, vapory blue of the Italian atmosphere, and the current of the Arno flashing like a golden belt through the middle of the picture.