[Illustration: THE NEXT MORNING.]
Looking these venerable MSS. over, I noticed that the custom of writing
with a violet pencil on both sides of the large foolscap sheet, and then
folding it in sixteen directions and carrying it around in the pocket for
two or three centuries, is not a late American invention, as I had been
led to suppose. They did it in Italy fifteen centuries ago. I was
permitted also to examine the celebrated institutes of Gaius. Gaius was a
poor penman, and I am convinced from a close examination of his work that
he was in the habit of carrying his manuscript around in his pocket with
his smoking tobacco. The guide said that was impossible, for smoking
tobacco was not introduced into Italy until a comparatively late day.
That's all right, however. You can't fool me much on the odor of smoking
tobacco.
The churches of Verona are numerous, and although they seem to me a little
different from our own in many ways, they resemble ours in others. One
thing that pleased me about the churches of Verona was the total absence
of the church fair and festival as conducted in America. Salvation seems
to be handed out in Verona without ice cream and cake, and the odor of
sancity and stewed oysters do not go inevitably hand in hand. I have
already been in the place more than two days and I have not yet been
invited to help lift the old church debt on the cathedral. Perhaps they
think I am not wealthy, however. In fact there is nothing about my dress
or manner that would betray my wealth. I have been in Europe now six weeks
and have kept my secret well. Even my most intimate traveling companions
do not know that I am the Laramie City postmaster in disguise.
The cathedral is a most imposing and massive pile. I quote this from the
guide book. This beautiful structure contains a baptismal font cut out of
one solid block of stone and made for immersion, with an inside diameter
of ten feet. A man nine feet high could be baptized there without injury.
The Venetians have a great respect for water. They believe it ought not to
be used for anything else but to wash away sins, and even then they are
very economical about it.
[Illustration]
There is a nice picture here by Titian. It looks as though it had been
left in the smoke house 900 years and overlooked. Titian painted a great
deal. You find his works here ever and anon. He must have had all he could
do in Italy in an early day, when the country was new. I like his pictures
first rate, but I haven't found one yet that I could secure at anything
like a bed rock price.
A Great Upheaval.
I have just received the following letter, which I take the liberty of
publishing, in order that good may come out of it, and that the public
generally may be on the watch:
William Nye, Esq.--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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