eBooks Base 2000

But, the Feast of St. John, like the Carnival, is but a meagre
semblance of festivity, kept alive factitiously, and dying a lingering
death of centuries. It takes the exuberant mind and heart of a people to
keep its holidays alive.
I do not know whether there be any populace in Florence, but I saw none
that I recognized as such, on this occasion. All the people were
respectably dressed and perfectly well behaved; and soldiers and priests
were scattered abundantly among the throng. On my way home, I saw the
Teatro Goldoni, which is in our own street, lighted up for a
representation this Sunday evening. It shocked my New England prejudices
a little.
Thus forenoon, my wife and I went to the Church of Santa Croce, the great
monumental deposit of Florentine worthies. The piazza before it is a
wide, gravelled square, where the liberty of Florence, if it really ever
had any genuine liberty, came into existence some hundreds of years ago,
by the people's taking its own rights into its hands, and putting its own
immediate will in execution.


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