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AN

EXASPERATING

SUBJECT.

tributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here-here it is frightful. IIe designed St. Peter's; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope's soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. Jolin Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven IIills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima-the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it! Dan said the other day to the guide, "Enough, enough, enough! Say no

DAN.

more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo !"

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.

But we have taken it out of this guide. He has marched us through miles of pictures and sculpture

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in the vast corridors of the Vatican; and through miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other palaces; he has shown us the great picture in the Sistine Chapel, and frescoes enough to frescoe the heavens-pretty much all done by Michael Angelo. So with him we have played that game which has vanquished so many guides for us-imbecility and idiotic questions. These creatures never suspect-they have no idea of a sarcasm.

Daniel Slate, the blank-book manufacturer, the
"Dan" of Mark Twain's "Innocents," died in New
York yesterday, aged fifty-three. Feb. 13.1882

THE ROMAN GUIDE.

289

He shows us a figure and says: "Statoo brunzo." (Bronze statue.)

We look at it indifferently and the doctor asks: "By Mi

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genteelmen! Zis is two thousan' year before he is born!"

He grows so tired of that unceasing question sometimes, that he dreads to show us any thing at all. The wretch has tried all the ways he can think of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is only responsible for the creation of a part of the world, but somehow he has not succeeded yet. Relief for overtasked eyes and brain from study and sightseeing is necessary, or we shall become idiotic sure enough. Therefore this guide must continue to suffer. If he does not enjoy it, so much the worse for him. We do.

In this place I may as well jot down a chapter concerning those necessary nuisances, European guides. Many a man has wished in his heart he could do without his guide; but knowing he could not, has wished he could get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for the affliction of his society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if our experience can be made useful to others they are welcome to it.

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ASININE GUIDES IN GENERAL.

Guides know about enough English to tangle every thing up so that a man can make neither head or tail of it. They know their story by heart-the history of every statue, painting, cathedral or other wonder they show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would-and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track, they have to go back and begin over again. All their lives long, they are employed in showing strange things to foreigners and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts children to say "smart" things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never went into ecstacies any more-we never admired any thing-we never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever since. We have made some of those people savage, at times, but we have never lost our own serenity.

The doctor asks the questions, generally, because he can keep his countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes natural to him.

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattrass. He was full of animation-full of impatience. He said:

"Come wis me, genteelmen!-come! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo!-write it himself!-write it wis his own hand!-come!"

REMARKABLE PENMANSHIP.

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He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger:

"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo!-write it himself!"

We looked indifferent-unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a painful pause.-Then he said, without any show of interest:

"Ah-Ferguson-what-what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?"

"Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!" Another deliberate examination.

"Ah-did he write it himself, or-or how?"

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"Ile write it himself!-Christopher Colombo! he's own hand-writing, write by himself!"

Then the doctor laid the document down and said:

"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that."

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IMPOTENT QUESTIONS.

"But zis is ze great Christo-"

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you musn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out! —and if you haven't, drive on !"

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something which he

thought would overcome us. He said:

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Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo!-splendid, grand, magnificent!"

He brought us before the beautiful bust-for it was beautiful-and sprang back and struck an attitude:

"Ah, look, genteelmen!-beautiful, grand,-bust Christopher Colombo!-beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!"

The doctor put up his eye-glass-procured for such occasions:

"Ah-what did you say this gentleman's name was?" "Christopher Colombo!-ze great Christopher Colombo!" "Christopher Colombo-the great Christopher Colombo. Well, what did he do?"

"Discover America!-discover America, Oh, ze devil!" "Discover America. No-that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo-pleasant name-is-is he dead ?"

"Oh, corpo di Baccho!-three hundred year!"

"What did he die of?"

"I do not know!-I can not tell."

"Small-pox, think?"

"I do not know, genteelmen !-I do not know what he die of!"

Measles, likely?"

"May be―may be—I do not know-I think he die of somethings."

"Parents living?"

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