full height out of the plain through which the Arno curves in the
stateliest crescent of all its course.

The day had turned finer than any other day I can now think of in my
whole life, and I was once more in Pisa without the care for its history
or art or even novelty which had corroded my mind in former visits. I
had been there twice before--once in 1864, when I had done its wonders
with all the wonder they merited, and again in 1883, when I had lived
its memories on the scene of its manifold and mighty experiences. No
distinct light from that learning vexed my present vision, but an
agreeable mist of association, nothing certain, nothing tangible
remaining, but only a gentle vague involving everything, in which I
could possess my soul in peace. In this glimmer I recognized a certain
cabman as having been waiting there from the dawn of time, with his
dark-eyed little son, to make me his willing captive at something above
the tariff rates, but destined by the same fate to serve me well, and to
part with me friends at the close of the day for a franc more than the
excess agreed upon. It costs so small a sum to corrupt the common
carrier in Italy that I hold it wrong to fail of any chance, and this
driver had not only a horse of uncommon qualities, but he spoke a
beautiful Tuscan, and he had his Pisa at his fingers' ends.

[Illustration: 47 THE CATHEDRAL, BAPTISTERY, AND LEANING TOWER, PISA]

We were of one mind about driving without delay to the famous group
which is without rival on the earth, though there may be associated
edifices in the red planet Mars that surpass the Cathedral, the Leaning
Tower, the Baptistery, and the Campo Santo at Pisa. What genius it was
imagined placing them in the pleasant meadow where they sit, just beyond
the city streets, I do not know, but it was inspiration beyond any
effect of mere taste, and it commanded my worship as much the last as
the first time. The meadow still swims round them and breaks in a foam
of daisies at their feet; for I take it that it is always mid-April
there, and that the grass is as green and the sun as yellow on it as the
afternoon we saw it. The sacred edifices are as golden as the light on
them, and there is such a joyous lift in the air that it is a wonder
they do not swing loose from their foundations and soar away into the
celestial blue. For travellers in our willing mood there was, of course,
the predestined cicerone waiting for us at the door of the cat