I understood that by their aid Mr. Hart had modeled a bust from life in the incredible space of two days!  I further understood that Mr. Hart’s portrait-busts are remarkable for their correct likeness, which of course they must be if they are mathematically correct in their proportions.  Many of the artists in Florence have the bad taste to make sport of this machine; but if Mr. Hart’s portrait-busts are what they have the reputation of being, this sport is only a mask for jealousy.  Mr. Hart is extremely sensitive to the light manner Mr. Powers and others have of speaking of this invention.  One day he was much annoyed when a visitor, after examining the machine very attentively for some time, exclaimed, “Mr. Hart, what if you should have a man shut in there among those points, and he should happen to sneeze?”

The Pitti Palace was one of my favorite haunts, and I often spent whole hours there in a single salon.  There I almost always saw Mr. G——­, a German-American, copying from the masters; and he could copy too!  What an indefatigable worker he was!  Slight and delicate of frame, he seemed absolutely incapable of growing weary.  He often toiled there all day long, his hands red and swollen with the cold, for the winter, as I have before remarked, was unusually severe.  For many days I saw him working on a Descent from the Cross by Tintoretto—­a bold attempt, for Tintoretto’s colors are as baffling as those of the great Venetian master himself.  This copy had received very general praise, and one day I took a Lucca friend, a dilettante, to see it.  Mr. G——­ brought the canvas out in the hall, that we might see it outside of the ocean of color which surrounded it in the gallery.  When we reached the hall, Mr. G——­ turned the picture full to the light.  The effect was astounding.  It was so brilliant that you could hardly look at it.  It seemed a mass of molten gold reflecting the sun.  “Good God!” exclaimed G——­, “did I do that?” and an expression of bitter disappointment passed over his face.  I ventured to suggest that as everybody had found it good while it was in the gallery, this brilliant effect must be from the cold gray marble of the hall.  G——­ could not pardon the picture, and nothing that the Italian or I could say had the least effect.  He would hear no excuse for it, and, evidently quite mortified at the debut of his Tintoretto, he hurried the canvas back to the easel.  The sister of the czar of Russia was greatly pleased with this copy, and proposed to buy it, but whether she did or not I forgot to ascertain.

Alone as I was in Florence, cultivating only the acquaintance of Italians, yet was I never troubled with ennui.  I read much at Vieussieux’s, and when I grew tired of that and of music, I made long sables on the Lung Arno to the Cascine, through the charming Boboli gardens, or out to Fiesole.  Fiesole is some two miles from Florence, and once on my way there I stopped at the Protestant burying-ground and pilfered