THE CAMPANILE. 89 



honorable shelter in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace. But 

 a thousand years in the sight of man is a good deal, after all ; 

 and this is not the original Marangona. The old one may 

 have cracked as other bells crack. Such as it is, however, you 

 have its portrait. 



Now it may be remarked by way of digression that an 

 European becomes attached to his bells in a way that we can 

 hardly conceive. The casting of bells is not on the other side 

 of the Atlantic a trade mereh^ ; it is a branch of high art. It 

 has its traditions and is practised reverently. The bells are 

 tuned. And they are struck with a wooden clapper — a prac- 

 tice enormously conducive both to longevity and sweetness of 

 tone. It does not look well.- From the window of Giotto's 

 Tower in Florence, high up, there projects an unsightly arm of 

 rather rough hewn wood, from the end of which a rope passes 

 slanting down through a hole in the masonry. The rope is 

 pulled ; the arm begins to sway up and down. Then at the 

 window there is seen a black mass appearing and disappearing 

 and a great, big, swinging, banging block of wood. But the 

 sound that of an Easter morning floats out upon the air, no 

 man that has heard it will ever forget. Shall I give you an 

 idea when I say that there is no consonant at the beginning of 

 the "boom." It is a soft, firm, rolling wave that comes in 

 upon the ear, filling it and filling the atmosphere. 



I do not know who wrote the eight lines that shall follow. 

 I never saw them in their place, but I hardly can remember 

 the time when I did not know them by heart. 



" Fur, far, o'er hill and dell, 

 On the wind stealing, 

 List to the Convent Bell 

 ]Monrnftilly pealing. 

 Hark ! hark ! It seems to say : 

 As melt these sounds away, 

 So life's best joys deca}' 

 While new their feeling." 



There mav be those who would hear a morning and evening 



