When the Austrian
troops were occupying Florence, one of the white-coated officers had
planted himself in the Piazza in front of the tower, and was gazing at
it earnestly, lost in admiration of its perfect beauty. "_Si svita,
signore_," said a little street urchin, coming up behind him--"It
_unscrews_, sir!" As much as to say, "Wouldn't you like just to take
it off bodily and carry it away?" But, as I said, to apprehend the
aptitude of the _gamin's_ sneer, one must have oneself looked on the
absolute perfection of proportion and harmony of its every part, which
really does suggest the idea that the whole might be lifted bodily in
one piece from its place on the soil Whether the Austrian had the
wit to answer "You are blundering, boy! you are taking me for a
Frenchman," I don't know!
But I was saying, when the mention of the celebrated tower led me into
telling, before I forgot it, the above story, that Florence was of all
the cities of Europe, that in which one might be likely to see
the greatest number of old, and make the greatest number of new
acquaintances. I lived there for more than thirty years, and the
number of persons, chiefly English, American, and Italian, whom I knew
during that period is astonishing. The number of them was of course
all the greater from the fact that the society, at least so far as
English and Americans were concerned, was to a very great degree a
floating one.
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