Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/183

Rh most beautiful flowers on his grave. One of the handsome sisters is about to be married.

“We hesitated long,” they said, “before we gave our consent, but———&c.” It seemed as if all the four sisters married in this one. Thus they were all one in sisterly love. Their father had taught them to be thus attached to each other. All that was good was the work of the father. Blessings on him, and on all fathers who resemble him!

Zürich has given Switzerland and the world many distinguished men, amongst whom, Gessner—a monument to whose honor, stands upon one of the tree-crowded peninsulas between the Sihl and the Limmat, which during his lifetime was his favorite promenade,—Zwingli, Pestalozzi, and Lavater, are the most generally known. Many distinguished Italian refugees also, during the period of the Reformation, added lustre the hospitable city; amongst these, is the pious Tellicare, who, during his life of eighty years, “never experienced three days of sorrow, and not a single one of anger.” A rare life!—Italian family names are borne at this day by many of the most esteemed families of Zürich.

Let me here make reference, and prefer a request to the authors of certain books which I value very highly, because no books seem to me more difficult to compile—I mean guide books. They show us the way to towns and places, and give us the names of hotels, cafés, and promenades. But they very seldom tell us what memorable persons, what benefactors of their country and mankind, have been born and lived in these cities. And yet, this it is, which would give to a town or