r morning, we may see a
world-famous city, which has hardly changed its outline since the days
of Columbus, seeming to stand as an almost unviolated symbol, amidst the
flux of human things, to remind us that we still resemble the men of the
past more than we differ from them, as the great mechanical principles
on which those domes and towers were raised must make a likeness in
human building that will be broader and deeper than all possible change.
And doubtless, if the spirit of a Florentine citizen, whose eyes were
closed for the last time while Columbus was still waiting and arguing
for the three poor vessels with which he was to set sail from the port
of Palos, could return from the shades and pause where our thought is
pausing, he would believe that there must still be fellowship and
understanding for him among the inheritors of his birthplace.

Let us suppose that such a Shade has been permitted to revisit the
glimpses of the golden morning, and is standing once more on the famous
hill of San Miniato, which overlooks Florence from the south.

The Spirit is clothed in his habit as he lived: the folds of his
well-lined black silk garment or _lucco_ hang in grave unbroken lines
from neck to ankle; his plain cloth cap, with its _becchetto_, or long
hanging strip of drapery, to serve as a scarf in case of need, surmounts
a penetrating face, not, perhaps, very handsome, but with a firm,
well-cut mouth, kept distinctly human by a close-shaven lip and chin.
It is a face charged with memories of a keen and various life passed
below there on the banks of the gleaming river; and as he looks at the
scene before him, the sense of familiarity is so much stronger than the
perception of change, that he thinks it might be possible to descend
once more amongst the streets, and take up that busy life where he left
it. For it is not only the mountains and the westward-bending river
that he recognises; not only the dark sides of Mount Morello opposite to
him, and the long valley of the Arno that seems to stretch its grey
low-tufted luxuriance to the far-off ridges of Carrara; and the steep
height of Fiesole, with its crown of monastic walls and cypresses; and
all the green and grey slopes sprinkled with villas which he can name as
he looks at them. He sees other familiar objects much closer to his
daily walks. For though he misses the seventy or more towers that once
surmounted the walls, and encircled the city as with a regal diad