In spite of which, you will like the Baths of Lucca, just as you like Florence, for certain advantages--for the exquisite beauty, and the sense of abstraction from the vulgarities and vexations of the age, which is the secret of the strange charm of the south, perhaps--who knows?
And yet there are vulgarities and vexations even in Tuscany, if one digs for them--or doesn't dig, sometimes....
In Paris we saw Father Prout, who was in great force and kindness, and Charles Sumner, passing through the burning torture under the hands of French surgeons, which is approved of by the brains of English surgeons.
Do you remember the Jesuit's agony, in the 'Juif Errant'?
Precisely that.

Exposed to the living coal for seven minutes, and the burns taking six weeks to heal.

Mr.Sumner refused chloroform--from some foolish heroic principle, I imagine, and suffered intensely.

Of course he is not able to stir for some time after the operation, and can't read or sleep from the pain.

Now, he is just 'healed,' and is allowed to travel for two months, after which he is to return and be burned again.