just above my head, while the other two were above him, ascending by means of little iron bars fastened in the marble.  The priests were very much amused, and the German said:—­“This is the first time I ever learned chimney-sweeping!” We emerged at length into a hollow cone, hot and dark, with a rickety ladder going up somewhere; we could not see where.  The old priest, not wishing to trust himself to it, sent his younger brother up, and we shouted after him:—­“What kind of a view have you?” He climbed up till the cone got so narrow he could go no further, and answered back in the darkness:—­“I see nothing at all!” Shortly after he came down, covered with dust and cobwebs, and we all descended the chimney quicker than we went up.  The old priest considered it a good joke, and laughed till his fat sides shook.  We asked the sacristan why he sent us up, and he answered:—­“To see the construction of the Church!”

I attended service in the Cathedral one dark, rainy morning, and was never before so deeply impressed with the majesty and grandeur of the mighty edifice.  The thick, cloudy atmosphere darkened still more the light which came through the stained windows, and a solemn twilight reigned in the long aisles.  The mighty dome sprang far aloft, as if it enclosed a part of heaven, for the light that struggled through the windows around its base, lay in broad bars on the blue, hazy air.  I would not have been surprised at seeing a cloud float along within it.  The lofty burst of the organ, that seemed like the pantings of a monster, boomed echoing away through dome and nave, with a chiming, metallic vibration, that shook the massive pillars which it would defy an earthquake to rend.  All was wrapped in dusky obscurity, except where, in the side-chapels, crowns of tapers were burning around the images.  One knows not which most to admire, the genius which could conceive, or the perseverance which could accomplish such a work, On one side of the square, the colossal statue of the architect, glorious old Brunelleschi, is most appropriately placed, looking up with pride at his performance.

The sunshine and genial airs of Italy have gone, leaving instead a cold, gloomy sky and chilling winds.  The autumnal season has fairly commenced, and I suppose I must bid adieu to the brightness which made me in love with the land.  The change has been no less sudden than unpleasant, and if, as they say, it will continue all winter with little variation, I shall have to seek a clearer climate.  In the cold of these European winters, there is, as I observed last year in Germany, a dull, damp chill, quite different from the bracing, exhilarating frosts of America.  It stagnates the vital principle and leaves the limbs dull and heavy, with a lifeless feeling which can scarcely be overcome by vigorous action.  At least, such has been my experience.