It is the fashion in Florence and in Rome for artists to open their studios to all visitors.  It is a custom which adds much to the amusement of visitors who are really lovers of art; but it must bring with it, one would think, consequences which must sometimes be not a little trying to the painter’s or sculptor’s temper and patience.  Criticism from those who have some little pretension to the right to criticise is not always pleasant when volunteered, but criticism from such Philistines of the Philistines as often haunt the studios must be hard indeed to bear with common courtesy.  Powers invariably received such with the most perfect suavity and good-temper, but I have sometimes seen him, to my great amusement, inflict a punishment on the talkers of nonsense which made them wish they had held their tongues.  This consisted simply of defending his own practice by entering on a lecture upon the principles which ought to regulate the matter in question.  He was, I fancy, rather fond of lecturing, and would rather have liked the work of a professor of the fine arts.  I have seen people writhe under his patient and lengthy expositions, which they were as capable of understanding as so many bullocks, and which they had brought down on themselves by some absolutely absurd remark on the work before them.  I have seen such delinquents use every sort of effort to put a stop to or escape from the punishment they had brought upon themselves.  In vain:  the lecture would continue with a placid uninterruptibility which it was amusing to witness.

It was in 1854, I think, or thereabouts (for I have not at hand the means of verifying the date with accuracy, and it is of no consequence), that Mr. Hume, the since well-known medium, came to Florence.  He came to my house on the pressing invitation of my mother, my then wife and myself.  We had seen accounts of extraordinary things said to have taken place some months previously at the house of a Mr. Rymer, a solicitor living at Ealing near London, and our curiosity and interest had been so much excited that the hope of being able to witness some of these marvels was not the least among the motives of a journey that summer to England.  We obtained an introduction to Mr. Rymer, were present at sundry seances at his house at Ealing, made acquaintance with Mr. Hume, and invited him to stay for a while in my house in Florence.  He came accompanied by his friend, a son of Mr. Rymer; and both the young men were resident under my roof for about a month, leaving it to accept an invitation from Mr. Powers to make his house their home for a while.  The manifestations of phenomena produced, or supposed to be produced, by what has become known to the world as “Spiritualism,” were then only beginning to attract in Europe the very general attention which they have since that time attracted.  The thing was then new to most people.  During the month that Mr. Hume and his friend were in my house we had seances almost every