not wholly undirected. I found an
intelligent guide, who was at the same time an old acquaintance. The
whirligig of time brings about, not merely its revenges, but also its
compensations and coincidences. Twenty-two years ago, when I was
studying German as a boy in the old city of Frankfort, guests from the
South of France came to visit the amiable family with whom I was
residing. There were M. Laurens, a painter and a musical enthusiast, his
wife, and Mademoiselle Rosalba, a daughter as fair as her name. Never
shall I forget the curious letter which the artist wrote to the manager
of the theatre, requesting that Beethoven's _Fidelio_ might be given
(and it was!) for his own especial benefit, nor the triumphant air with
which he came to us one day, saying, "I have something of most
precious," and brought forth, out of a dozen protecting envelopes, a
single gray hair from Beethoven's head. Nor shall I forget how Madame
Laurens taught us French plays, and how the fair Rosalba declaimed Andre
Chenier to redeem her pawns; but I might have forgotten all these
things, had it not been for an old volume[A] which turned up at need,
and which gave me information, at once clear, precise, and attractive,
concerning the streets and edifices of Palma. The round, solid head,
earnest eyes, and abstracted air of the painter came forth distinct from
the limbo of things overlaid but never lost, and went with me through
the checkered blaze and gloom of the city.

The monastery of San Domingo, which was the head-quarters of the
Inquisition, was spared by the progressive government of Mendizabal, but
destroyed by the people. Its ruins must have been the most picturesque
sight of Palma; but since the visit of M. Laurens they have been
removed, and their broken vaults and revealed torture-chambers are no
longer to be seen. There are, however, two or three buildings of more
than ordinary interest. The _Casa Consistorial_, or City Hall, is a
massive Palladian pile of the sixteenth century, resembling the old
palaces of Pisa and Florence, except in the circumstance that its roof
projects at least ten feet beyond the front, resting on a massive
cornice of carved wood with curious horizontal caryatides in the place
of brackets. The rich burnt-sienna tint of the carvings contrasts finely
with the golden-brown of the massive marble walls,--a combination which
is shown in no other building of the Middle Ages. The sunken rosettes,
surrounded by raised