ABSTRACT
Walter Hamlin did not go to America. On leaving the Villa Arnolfini, he met at Florence some artist friends, who, in his condition of utter absence of plans, easily drew him on with them to Siena 85 and Perugia, 86 thence into the smaller Umbrian 87 cities, and finally into a wholly unexplored region between the Abruzzo and the Adriatic. 88 By the time that their sketching and article-writing expedition was at an end, the winter had come round, and more than three months had elapsed since Hamlin had parted with the Perrys. Would Hamlin return with his friends to England? He had often said that he had had enough of Italy – that he would go home and shut himself up in his studio at Hammersmith, among smoke and river-fogs, seeing not a living creature, learning Persian and studying Sufi 89 poets until next spring, when he would set off for the East, never more to return to Europe, except for the Grosvenor private view. But when the moment for return north approached, Hamlin began to hesitate; and the very day before his friends’ departure, he informed them that he had come to the conclusion that there was still some work for him to do in Italy.
