Love thy mother, then, my little child. When she is gone, there is no eye can brighten upon thee, no heart can melt for thee, like hers; then wilt thou find a void, a vacancy, a loss, that all the wealth or grandeur of the world can never fill up.
Thy mother may grow old, but her love decays not; she may grow sear at heart, and gray upon the brow, but her love for thee will be green. Think, then, in the time of her decline, of what she has suffered, felt, and known for thee; think of her devotion, her cares, her anxiety, her hopes, her fears—think, and do not aught that may bring down her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
In 1753, the Boston Common presented a singular spectacle. It was the anniversary of a society for encouraging industry. In the afternoon, about three hundred young women, neatly dressed, appeared on the common at their spinning wheels. These were placed regularly in three rows. The weavers also appeared, in garments of their own weaving. One of them, working at a loom, was carried on a staging on men’s shoulders, attended with music. A discourse was preached, and a collection taken up from the vast assemblage for the benefit of the institution.
A young child having asked what the cake, a piece of which she was eating, was baked in, was told that it was baked in a “spider.” In the course of the day, the little questioner, who had thought a good deal about the matter, without understanding it, asked again, with all a child’s simplicity and innocence, “Where is that great bug that you bake cake in?”
The Voyages, Travels, and Experiences
of Thomas Trotter.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Journey to Pisa.—Roads of Tuscany.—Country people.—Italian costumes.—Crowd on the road.—Pisa.—The leaning tower. Prospect from the top.—Tricks upon travellers.—Cause of its strange position.—Reasons for believing it designed thus.—Magnificent spectacle of the illumination of Pisa.—The camels of Tuscany.
On the 22d of June, I set out from Florence for Pisa, feeling a strong curiosity to see the famous leaning tower. There was also, at this time, the additional attraction of a most magnificent public show in that city, being the festival of St. Ranieri; which happens only once in three years, and is signalized by an illumination, surpassing, in brilliant and picturesque effect, everything of the kind in any other part of the world. The morning was delightful, as I took my staff in hand and moved at a brisk pace along the road down the beautiful banks of the Arno, which everywhere exhibited the same charming scenery; groves of olive, fig, and other fruit trees; vineyards, with mulberry trees supporting long and trailing festoons of the most luxuriant appearance; cornfields of the richest verdure; gay, blooming gardens; neat country houses, and villas, whose white walls gleamed amid the embowering foliage. The road lay along the southern bank of the river, and, though passing over many hills, was very easy of travel. The roads of Tuscany are everywhere kept in excellent order, though they are not so level as the roads in France, England, or this country. A carriage cannot, in general, travel any great distance without finding occasion to lock the wheels; this is commonly done with an iron shoe, which is placed under the wheel and secured to the body of the vehicle by a chain; thus saving the wear of the wheel-tire. My wheels, however, required no locking, and I jogged on from village to village, joining company with any wagoner or wayfarer whom I could overtake, and stopping occasionally to gossip with the villagers and country people. This I have always found to be the only true and efficacious method of becoming acquainted with genuine national character. There is much, indeed, to be seen and learned in cities; but the manners and institutions there are more fluctuating and artificial: that which is characteristic and permanent in a nation must be sought for in the middle classes and the rural population.