ITALY- 1894 457 



and Assisi, I returned to Florence, and again enjoyed 

 the society of my old friends, Professor Willard Fiske, 

 Professor Villari, with his accomplished wife, and Judge 

 Stallo, former minister of the United States in Eome. 



The great event of this stay was an earthquake. Seated 

 on a pleasant April evening in my rooms at the house 

 built by Adolphus Trollope, near the Piazza delP Inde- 

 pendenza, I heard what seemed at first the rising of a 

 storm; then the rushing of a mighty wind; then, as it 

 grew stronger, apparently the gallop of a corps of cav 

 alry in the neighboring avenue; but, almost instantly, it 

 seemed to change into the onrush of a corps of artillery, 

 and, a moment later, to strike the house, lifting its foun 

 dations as if by some mighty hand, and swaying it to and 

 fro, everything creaking, groaning, rattling, and seeming 

 likely to fall in upon us. This movement to and fro, with 

 crashing and screaming inside and outside the house, 

 continued, as it seemed to me, about twenty minutes 

 as a matter of fact, it lasted hardly seven seconds; but 

 certainly it was the longest seven seconds I have ever 

 known. At the first uplift of the seismic wave my wife 

 and I rose from our seats, I saying, &quot; Stand perfectly 

 still.&quot; Thenceforward, not a word was uttered by either 

 of us until all was over; but many thoughts came, the 

 dominant feeling being a sense of our helplessness in 

 the presence of the great powers of nature. Neither of 

 us had any hope of escaping alive; but we calmly ac 

 cepted the inevitable, thinking each moment would be 

 the last. As I look back, our resignation and perfect 

 quiet still surprise me. That room, at the corner of the 

 Villino Trollope, which an ill-founded legend makes the 

 place where George Eliot wrote &quot;Bomola,&quot; is to me 

 sacred, as the place where we two passed &quot;from death 

 unto life.&quot; 



Nearly all that night we remained near the doors of 

 the house, ready to escape any new shocks ; but only one 

 or two came, and those very light. Crowds of the popu 

 lation remained out of doors, many dwellers in hotels 



