stcards is the total, which is the same as the numbers of clean and
unclean beasts proportionately represented in the ark.

Up here we are out of the deadliness of the heat, and are thankful for it.
Vineyards and olives brush the eyes between the hard, upright bars of the
cypresses: and Florence below is like a hot bath which we dip into and
come out again. At the Riccardi chapel I found Benozzo Gozzoli, not in
crumbs, but perfectly preserved: a procession of early Florentine youths,
turning into angels when they get to the bay of the window where the altar
once stood. The more I see of them, the greater these early men seem to
me: I shall be afraid to go to Venice soon; Titian will only half satisfy
me, and Tintoretto, I know, will be actively annoying: I shall stay in my
gondola, as your American lady did on her donkey after riding twenty
miles to visit the ruins, of--Carnac, was it not? It is well to have the
courage of one's likings and dislikings, that is the only true culture
(the state obtained by use of a "coulter" or cutter)--I cut many things
severely which, no doubt, are good for other people.

Botticelli I was shy of, because of the craze about him among people who
know nothing: he is far more wonderful than I had hoped, both at the
Uffizi and the Academia: but he is quite pagan. I don't know why I say
"but"; he is quite typical of the world's art-training: Christianity may
get hold of the names and dictate the subjects, but the artist-breed
carries a fairly level head through it all, and, like Pater's Mona Lisa,
draws Christianity and Paganism into one: at least, wherever it reaches
perfect expression it has done so. Some of the distinctly primitives are
different; their works inclose a charm which is not artistic. Fra
Angelico, after being a great disappointment to me in some of his large
set pictures in the Academia and elsewhere, shows himself lovely in fresco
(though I think the "crumb" element helps him). His great Crucifixion is
big altogether, and has so permanent a force in its aloofness from mere
drama and mere life. In San Marco, the cells of the monks are quite
charming, a row of little square bandboxes under a broad raftered
corridor, and in every cell is a beautiful little fresco for the monks to
live up to. But they no longer live there now: all that part of San Marco
has become a peep-show.

I liked being in Savonarola's room, and was more susceptible to the
remains of his presence than I ha