should think, without difficulty, for instance, 'Murray's Handbook
to Northern Italy,' though rather dear (12_s._), would give you
sufficiently full information upon the ecclesiastical glories both of
Pisa and of this beautiful Florence, from whence I write to you.... I
will answer for the harmony of the bells, as we lived within a stone's
throw of them, and they began at four o'clock every morning and
rang my dreams apart. The Pasquareccia (the fourth) especially has
a profound note in it, which may well have thrilled horror to the
criminal's heart.[160] It was ghastly in its effects; dropped into
the deep of night like a thought of death. Often have I said, 'Oh, how
ghastly!' and then turned on my pillow and dreamed a bad dream. But if
the bell founders at Pisa have a merited reputation, let no one say as
much for the bellringers. The manner in which all the bells of all
the churches in the city are shaken together sometimes would certainly
make you groan in despair of your ears. The discord is fortunately
indescribable. Well--but here we are at Florence, the most beautiful
of the cities devised by man....

In the meanwhile I have seen the Venus, I have seen the divine
Raphaels. I have stood by Michael Angelo's tomb in Santa Croce. I
have looked at the wonderful Duomo. This cathedral! After all, the
elaborate grace of the Pisan cathedral is one thing, and the massive
grandeur of this of Florence is another and better thing; it struck
me with a sense of the sublime in architecture. At Pisa we say, 'How
beautiful!' here we say nothing; it is enough if we can breathe. The
mountainous marble masses overcome as we look up--we feel the weight
of them on the soul. Tesselated marbles (the green treading its
elaborate pattern into the dim yellow, which seems the general hue of
the structure) climb against the sky, self-crowned with that prodigy
of marble domes. It struck me as a wonder in architecture. I had
neither seen nor imagined the like of it in any way. It seemed
to carry its theology out with it; it signified more than a mere
building. Tell me everything you want to know. I shall like to answer
a thousand questions. Florence is beautiful, as I have said before,
and must say again and again, most beautiful. The river rushes through
the midst of its palaces like a crystal arrow, and it is hard to tell,
when you see all by the clear sunset, whether those churches, and
houses, and windows, and bridges, and people walking,