The Innocents Abroad


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were. But its varied scenes and its manifold incidents will linger  
pleasantly in our memories for many a year to come. Always on the wing,  
as we were, and merely pausing a moment to catch fitful glimpses of the  
wonders of half a world, we could not hope to receive or retain vivid  
impressions of all it was our fortune to see. Yet our holyday flight has  
not been in vain--for above the confusion of vague recollections, certain  
of its best prized pictures lift themselves and will still continue  
perfect in tint and outline after their surroundings shall have faded  
away.  
We shall remember something of pleasant France; and something also of  
Paris, though it flashed upon us a splendid meteor, and was gone again,  
we hardly knew how or where. We shall remember, always, how we saw  
majestic Gibraltar glorified with the rich coloring of a Spanish sunset  
and swimming in a sea of rainbows. In fancy we shall see Milan again,  
and her stately Cathedral with its marble wilderness of graceful spires.  
And Padua--Verona--Como, jeweled with stars; and patrician Venice, afloat  
on her stagnant flood--silent, desolate, haughty--scornful of her humbled  
state--wrapping herself in memories of her lost fleets, of battle and  
triumph, and all the pageantry of a glory that is departed.  
We can not forget Florence--Naples--nor the foretaste of heaven that is  
in the delicious atmosphere of Greece--and surely not Athens and the  
broken temples of the Acropolis. Surely not venerable Rome--nor the  
green plain that compasses her round about, contrasting its brightness  
with her gray decay--nor the ruined arches that stand apart in the plain  
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