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They seem to consist
partly of a wilderness; but the portion into which I strayed was laid out
with straight walks, lined with high box-hedges, along which there was
only a narrow margin of shade. I saw an amphitheatre, with a wide sweep
of marble seat around it, enclosing a grassy space, where, doubtless, the
Medici may have witnessed splendid spectacles.

June 11th.--I paid another visit to the Uffizi gallery this morning, and
found that the Venus is one of the things the charm of which does not
diminish on better acquaintance. The world has not grown weary of her in
all these ages; and mortal man may look on her with new delight from
infancy to old age, and keep the memory of her, I should imagine, as one
of the treasures of spiritual existence hereafter. Surely, it makes me
more ready to believe in the high destinies of the human race, to think
that this beautiful form is but nature's plan for all womankind, and that
the nearer the actual woman approaches it, the more natural she is.


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