ea lost in a silver
mist, the mysterious blue hills, listening to the songs of the maidens
in the gardens. Thus watching the summer pass by, caught by her beauty,
lying on an old wall beautiful with lichen and the colours of many
autumns, suddenly you may be startled by the stealthy, unconcerned
approach of a great snake three feet long at least, winding along the
gully by the roadside. Half fascinated and altogether fearful, you watch
her pass by till she disappears bit by bit in an incredibly small
fissure in the vineyard wall, leaving you breathless. Or all day long
you will lie under the olives waiting for the coolness of evening,
listening to the sound of everlasting summer, the piping of a shepherd,
the little lovely song of a girl, the lament of the cicale. Then
returning to Pietrasanta, you will sit in the evening perhaps in the
Piazza there, quite surrounded by the old walls, with its mediaeval air,
its lovely Municipio and fine old Gothic churches. Here you may watch
all the city, the man and his wife and children, the young girls
laughing together, conscious of the shy admiration of the youth of the
place; and you will be struck by the beauty of these people, peasants
and workmen, their open, frank faces, their grace and strength, their
unconcerned delight in themselves, their air of distinction too, coming
to them from a long line of ancestors who have lived with the earth, the
mountains, and the sea.

Then in the early morning, perhaps, you will enter S. Martino and hear
the early Mass, where there are still so many worshippers, and then,
lingering after the service, you will admire the pulpit, carved really
by one of those youths whose frankness and grace surprised you in the
Piazza on the night before--Stagio Stagi, a native of this place, a fine
artist whose work continually meets you in Pietrasanta. Indeed, in the
choir of the church there are some candelabra by him, and an altar,
built, as it is said, out of two confessional boxes. In the Baptistery
close by are some bronzes, said to be the work of Donatello, and some
excellent sculptures by Stagio; while, as though to bear out the hidden
paganism, some dim memory of the old gods, that certainly haunts this
shrine, the font is an old Roman _tazza_, carved with Tritons and
Neptune among the waves; but over it now stands another supposed work of
Donatello, S. Giovanni Battista, reconciled, as we may hope, with those
whose worship he has usurped.

The f