to speak Tuscan. I have nothing to
do with what Italians from other provinces may prefer. But pure, racy
Tuscan--the Tuscan tongue that we have inherited--is spoken as I speak
it--or ought to be!"

I had gathered together, partly for my own pleasure, and partly in the
course of historical researches, a valuable collection of works on
_Storia Patria_, which were sold by me when I gave up my house there.
The reading of Italian, even very crabbed and ancient Italian which
might have puzzled more than one "elegant scholar," became quite easy
and familiar to me, but I have never attained a colloquial mastery
over the language. I can talk, to be sure, with the most incorrect
fluency, and I can make myself understood--at all events by Italians,
whose quick, sympathetic apprehension of one's meaning, and courteous
readiness to assist a foreigner in any linguistic straits, are
deserving of grateful recognition from all of us who, however
involuntarily, maltreat their beautiful language.

But the colloquial use of a language must be acquired when the organs
are young and lissom. I began too late. And besides, I have laboured
under the great disadvantage that my deafness prevents me from sharing
in the hourly lessons which those who hear all that is going on around
them profit by.

Besides the above-mentioned historical works, I wrote well nigh a
score, I think, of novels, which also had no great, but a fair, share
of success. The majority of them are on Italian subjects; and these,
if I may be allowed to say so, are good. The pictures they give of
Italian men and women and things and habits are true, vivid, and
accurate. Those which I wrote on English subjects are unquestionably
bad. I had been living the best part of a life-time out of England; I
knew but little comparatively of English life, and I had no business
to meddle with such subjects. But besides all this, I was always
writing in periodical publications of all sorts, English and American,
to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if brought
together, would exceed that of all the many volumes I am answerable
for. No! my life in that Castle of Indolence--Italy--was not a
_far-niente_ one!

We were great at picnics in those Florence days. Perhaps the most
favourite place of all for such parties was Pratolino, a park
belonging to the Grand Duke, about seven miles from Florence, on the
Bologna road. These seven miles wave almost all more or less up hill,
a