Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/627

1858.] But a rose she had worn on my grave-sod Were more than long life with the rest!

'Twas a smile, 'twas a garment's rustle, 'Twas nothing that I can phrase,— But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, And put on her looks and ways.

Were it mine, I would close the shutters, Like lids when the life is fled, And the funeral fire should wind it, This corpse of a home that is dead.

For it died that autumn morning When she, its soul, was borne To lie all dark on the hillside That looks over woodland and corn.

[ not think it probable that I should have a great many more talks with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much as I could into every conversation. That is the reason why you will find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to tell at least once, as I should not have a chance to tell them habitually, at oar breakfast-table.—We're very free and easy, you know; we don't read what we don't like. Our parish is so large, one can't pretend to preach to all the pews at once. Besides, one can't be all the time trying to do the best of one's best; if a company works a steam fire-engine, the firemen needn't be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top of the flagstaff. Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a little. Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will find out when you get through this paper.]

Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am thinking of travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy. Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking. I can prove some facts about travelling by a story or two. There are certain principles to be assumed,—such as these:—He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues.—To-day's dinner subtends a larger visual angle than yesterday's revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to me than the biggest of Dr. Gould's private planets.—Every traveller is a self-taught entomologist.—Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension; an old joke tells better among friends travelling than at home,—which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, rather than increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps —to your pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows—on the road from Milan to Venice.—Cœlum, non animum, travellers change their guineas, but not their characters. The