ide," and toiled unceasingly for the good of man and
the love, of God. Casa Guidi heard the whispering of "One Word More,"
the echo of which is growing fainter and fainter to the ear, but
subtiler to the soul; and looking up at _her_ house, we hear the murmur
of a poet's voice, saying,--

"God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her."

The unsuspected prophecy of "One Word More" has been fulfilled,--

"Lines I write the first time and the last time,"--

for Destiny has given to them other than the author's meaning: because
of this destiny, we pass from the shadow of Casa Guidi with bowed head.

It is a beautiful custom, this of Italy, marking the spot where noble
souls have lived or died, that coming generations may learn to venerate
the greatness of the past, and become inspired thereby to exalted deeds
in the present. We of America, eagerly busy jostling the elbows of
To-Day, have not even a turn of the head for the haunts of dead men whom
we honor. No tablets mark their homes; and indeed they would be of
little profit to a country where mementos of "lang syne" are never
spared, when the requirements of commerce or of real estate issue their
universal mandate, "Destroy and build anew!" America shakes all dust
from off her feet, even that of great men's bones; though indeed Boston,
which is not wanting in esteem for its respectable antecedents, has made
a feeble attempt to do honor to the Father of his Country. The tablet is
but an attempt, however, which has become thoroughly demoralized by
keeping company with attorneys' signs and West-India goods; the bouquet
of law-papers, _plus_ coffee and tobacco, has deprived the salt of its
savor.

Far different is it in Florence, where the identical houses still
remain. Almost every street bears the record of a great man. To walk
there is to hold intimate communion with departed genius. What traveller
has not mused before Dante's stone? The most careless cannot pass
Palazzo Buonarotti without giving a thought to Michel Angelo and his
art. An afternoon's stroll along the Lung' Arno to drink in the warmth
of an Italian sunset is made doubly suggestive by a glance at the house
where set another sun when the Piedmontese poet-patriot, Alfieri, died.
We never passed through the Via Guicciardini, as clingy, musty, and
gloomy as the writings of the old historian whose palace