the intimates of all sojourners and passengers; and if I have any
regret in the matter, it is that I did not more diligently study them
when I could. The opportunity once lost, seldom recurs; they are all
but as transitory as the Object of Interest itself, I remember
that years ago when I first visited Cambridge, there was an old man
appeared to me in the character of Genius of the College Grounds, who
showed me all the notable things in our city,--its treasures of art,
its monuments,--and ended by taking me into his wood-house, and sawing
me off from a wind-fallen branch of the Washington Elm a bit of the
sacred wood for a remembrancer. Where now is that old man? He
no longer exists for me, neither he nor his wood-house nor his
dwelling-house. Let me look for a month about the College Grounds, and
I shall not see him. But somewhere in the regions of traveller's faery
he still lives, and he appears instantly to the new-comer; he has an
understanding with the dryads, who keep him supplied with boughs from
the Washington Elm, and his wood-house is full of them.

Among memorable custodians in Italy was one whom we saw at Pisa, where
we stopped on our way from Leghorn after our accident in the Maremma,
and spent an hour in viewing the Quattro Fabbriche. The beautiful old
town, which every one knows from the report of travellers, one yet
finds possessed of the incommunicable charm which keeps it forever
novel to the visitor. Lying upon either side of the broad Arno, it
mirrors in the flood architecture almost as fair and noble as that
glassed in the Canalazzo, and its other streets seemed as tranquil
as the canals of Venice. Those over which we drove, on the day of
our visit, were paved with broad flag-stones, and gave out scarcely a
sound under our wheels. It was Sunday, and no one was to be seen. Yet
the empty and silent city inspired us with no sense of desolation. The
palaces were in perfect repair; the pavements were clean; behind those
windows we felt that there must be a good deal of easy, comfortable
life. It is said that Pisa is one of the few places in Europe where
the sweet, but timid spirit of Inexpensiveness--everywhere pursued by
Railways--still lingers, and that you find cheap apartments in those
well-preserved old palaces. No doubt it would be worth more to live in
Pisa than it would cost, for the history of the place would alone be
to any reasonable sojourner a perpetual recompense, and a princely
income far