The Pitti Palace was one of my favorite haunts, and I often spent whole hours there in a single salon. There I almost always saw Mr. G----, a German-American, copying from the masters; and he could copy too! What an indefatigable worker he was! Slight and delicate of frame, he seemed absolutely incapable of growing weary. He often toiled there all day long, his hands red and swollen with the cold, for the winter, as I have before remarked, was unusually severe. For many days I saw him working on a Descent from the Cross by Tintoretto--a bold attempt, for Tintoretto's colors are as baffling as those of the great Venetian master himself. This copy had received very general praise, and one day I took a Lucca friend, a dilettante, to see it. Mr. G---- brought the canvas out in the hall, that we might see it outside of the ocean of color which surrounded it in the gallery. When we reached the hall, Mr. G---- turned the picture full to the light. The effect was astounding. It was so brilliant that you could hardly look at it. It seemed a mass of molten gold reflecting the sun. "Good God!" exclaimed G----, "did I do that?" and an expression of bitter disappointment passed over his face. I ventured to suggest that as everybody had found it good while it was in the gallery, this brilliant effect must be from the cold gray marble of the hall. G---- could not pardon the picture, and nothing that the Italian or I could say had the least effect. He would hear no excuse for it, and, evidently quite mortified at the début of his Tintoretto, he hurried the canvas back to the easel. The sister of the czar of Russia was greatly pleased with this copy, and proposed to buy it, but whether she did or not I forgot to ascertain.