the road I would repay myself by spending
ii a book half of what I had saved in travelling
expense. That would be three shillings
and sixpence. I had only time to jump upon
the platform, hurry to the railway-stall and
take—partly for the name's sake of its
author, partly because the price was fitted to
my notion—a volume of Leigh Hunt's Stones
in Verse. With that in my hand I regained
my seat; the door was beaten in after me;
the second bell rang, and the engine heaved
us out into the misty weather.

For a time my sad thoughts were my only
company. I paid no attention to the chimneys
among which we passed, or to the meaning
of the noise made by my companions, or
to the talisman against dullness that reposed
upon my lap. A stench aroused me suddenly.
The train was passing near the
Thames at Lambeth, and getting among the
pest manufactories. I looked out of window,
and saw them through the rain. Close by
the line of rail were miserable garret
windows; back yards choked with enormous
dust-heaps; tumble-down sheds and
despondent poultry.

"Call this May, sir? " cried my neighbour,
shivering uncomfortably. "I hope you
don't object to tobacco?"

I smiled faintly. Nothing disgusts me
more than the addition of the smoke of bad
tobacco to an atmosphere already loaded with
the smoke out of the damp bodies and clothes
of dirty men. But I am bound to love my
fellow-creatures, and be courteous to them.
I smiled faintly and opened my book, to
begin Leigh Hunt's Story of Rimini:

"The sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May
round old Ravenna's clear-shown towers and
bay—a morn the loveliest which the year has
seen, last of the spring, yet fresh with all its
green. For a warm eve and gentle rains at
night have left a sparkling welcome for the
light. And there's a crystal clearness all
about—the leaves are sharp, the distant hills
look out. A balmy briskness comes upon
the breeze, the smoke goes dancing from
the cottage trees; and when you listen you
may hear a coil of bubbling springs
about the grassier soil; and all the scene, in
short—earth, sky, and sea, breathes like a
bright-eyed face, that laughs out openly."

Thereat I was myself almost ready to
laugh out openly with ease and pleasure:
for my heavens and my earth were changed.
I did not raise my eye from the page of the
poet to look freely out upon the broad
horizon whence my heart was gladly stirred
to see "the far ships, lifting their sails of white
like joyful hands, come up with scattered
light—come gleaming up, true to the wished-
for day, and chase the whistling brine and
swirl into the bay."

Those words stand in the book line under
line because they are poetry; but they speak
quite as well to the heart written like
prose, straight on together—also because
they are poetry. Never mind that. What
do the ships bring?—why are the people who
make holiday all crowding to Ravenna? It
is because there "peace returning and
processions rare, princes and donatives and faces
fair, and, to crown all, a marriage in May
weather, are summonses to bring blithe souls
together. For on this great glad day,
Ravenna's pride, the daughter of their prince,
becomes a bride, a bride to ransom an exhausted
land; and he whose victories have obtained
her hand has taken with the dawn—so flies
report—his promised journey to the expecting
court, with hasting pomp and squires of
high degree, the bold Giovanni, lord of
Rimini." And having told me this, the poet
took me down into the streets of the gay
city, filled my ears with the stir of feet, the
hum, the talk, the laugh, callings and clapping
doors; filled my eyes with the spectacle
of armed bands making important way,
gallant and grave, the lords of holiday;
caused me to note the greetings of the
neighbours; to pass through the crowds of
pilgrims chanting in the morning sun; to see
the tapestry spread in the windows, and
fair dames who took their seats
with upward gaze admired—some looking
down, some forwards or aside; some
readjusting tresses newly tied: some turning
a trim waist, or o'er the flow of crimson
cloths hanging a hand of snow; but all with
smiles prepared and garlands green, and all
in fluttering talk impatient for the scene.
Glorious fortune for a poor fellow like me
to chance to be at Ravenna on a day like
that! The train stopped. "Clapham!
Clapham! " shouted a far distant voice.
Strange that I should have been able to hear
at Ravenna the voice of a man shouting
at Clapham!

I paid not much heed to the marvel; for
there was Duke Guido seated with his fair
daughter over the marble gate of his palace;
there was the square before them kept with
guards; there were knights and ladies on a
grass plot sitting under boughs of rose and
laurel, and in the midst, fresh whistling
through the scene, a lightsome fountain starts
from out the green, clear and compact, till at
its height o'errun, it shakes its loosening
silver in the sun. The courtly knights are
bending down in talk over the ladies, and the
people are all looking up with love and wonder
at the princely maid, the daughter of Duke
Guido, the bride sought with so much pomp
by a bridegroom whom she never saw, the
sad and fair Francesca.

Now the procession comes with noise of
cavalry and trumpets clear, a princely music
unbedinned with drums; the mighty brass
seems opening as it comes; and now it fills
and now it shakes the air, and now it bursts
into the sounding square. I saw the whole
of it. In magic verse the story-teller caused
trumpeter and heralds, squires and knights,
to prance before me. Mine was a front place