Mr. and Mrs. Browning have taken up their residence in Florence, a place in every way congenial to them. I know that thousands of her unknown friends across the water will rejoice to hear that the health of Mrs. Browning improves with every year spent in Italy. Yet she is still very delicate,--but a frail flower, ceaselessly requiring all the sheltering and fostering care, all the wealth and watchfulness of love, which is round about her....
Yesterday I saw, for the first time, the grand, antique group of Niobe and her children. Of these wonderful figures, by far the most noble and pathetic are those of the mother and the young daughter she is seeking to shield. Oh, the proud anguish, the wild, hopeless, maternal agony, of that face haunts me, and will haunt me forever.
I afterwards saw the Mercury of John of Bologna,--a marvel of beauty, grace, and lightness. We visited the treasure-room of the Pitti palace, and saw all the Grand Duke's plate, among which are several magnificent articles by Benvenuto Cellini. In the evening we drove in the Cascine, and to the Hill of Bellosguardo, from whence we had an enchanting view of Florence and the Val d'Arno,--and so the day ended. To-day we have made the tour of the churches. In the solemn old cathedral, whose wonderful dome was the admiration and study of Michael Angelo, there were extraordinary religious ceremonies, on the occasion of some great festa. Some archbishop or other officiated in very gorgeous robes, of course,--in capital condition, and looking indolent, proud, and stupid, as another matter of course. The court came in great state and pomp, with much trumpeting and beating of the drum. The Grand Duke was accompanied by the Grand Duchess and his household, by the Guardia Nobile, and by numerous ladies and gentlemen of high rank, all in full dress. Those ball costumes of the courtly dames--gay silks and lace, diamonds, flowers, and plumes--looked strange enough after the uniform and decent sombreness of the dress prescribed for the "functions" of St. Peter's.
The Grand Duke is a man of ordinary size, and appears not far from seventy years of age, though it is said he is hardly sixty. His hair and moustaches are nearly white, and he wears the white coat of the Austrian uniform, and so looks more miller-like than majestic. There was a sort of sullen sadness in his air, which I confess I was rather gratified to remark,--remembering all the treachery of the past, and beholding all the degradation of the present. The Grand Duchess is a dignified-looking woman enough, but the ladies in attendance on her to-day dazzled alone with their diamonds.