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Just at this juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called downstairs by a crying baby.  A bright idea occurred to me and I went hurriedly into the corridor where my friend was taking notes.

“Salemina,” said I, “here is an opportunity of a lifetime!  We ought to address these children in their native tongue.  It will be something to talk about in educational pow-wows.  They do not know that we are distinguished visitors, but we know it.  A female member of a School Board and the Honorary President of a Froebel Society owe a duty to their constituents.  You go in and tell them who and what I am and make a speech in French.  Then I’ll tell them who and what you are and make another speech.”

Salemina assumed a modest violet attitude, declined the honour absolutely, and intimated that there were persons who would prefer talking in a language they didn’t know rather than to remain sensibly silent.

However the plan struck me as being so fascinating that I went back alone, looked all ways to see if any one were coming, mounted the platform, cleared my throat, and addressed the awe-struck youngsters in the following words.  I will spare you the French, but you will perceive by the construction of the sentences, that I uttered only those sentiments possible in an early stage of language-study.

“My dear children,” I began, “I live many thousand miles across the ocean in America.  You do not know me and I do not know you, but I do know all about your good Pestalozzi and I love him.”

Il est mort!” interpolated one offensive little girl in the front row.

Salemina tittered audibly in the corridor, and I crossed the room and closed the door.  I think the children expected me to put the key in my pocket and then murder them and stuff them into the stove.

“I know perfectly well that he is dead, my child,” I replied winningly,—“it is his life, his memory that I love.—And once upon a time, long ago, a great man named Friedrich Froebel came here to Yverdon and studied with your great Pestalozzi.  It was he who made kindergartens for little children, jardins des enfants, you know.  Some of your grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?”

Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation which I did not in the least comprehend, but which from large American experience I took to be, “My grandmother doesn’t!”  “My grandmother doesn’t!”

Seeing that the others regarded me favourably, I continued, “It is because I love Pestalozzi and Froebel, that I came here to day to see your beautiful new monument.  I have just bought a photograph taken on that day last year when it was first uncovered.  It shows the flags and the decorations, the flowers and garlands, and ever so many children standing in the sunshine, dressed in white and singing hymns of praise.  You are all in the picture, I am sure!”

This was a happy stroke.  The children crowded about me and showed me where they were standing in the photograph, what they wore on the august occasion, how the bright sun made them squint, how a certain malheureuse Henriette couldn’t go to the festival because she was ill.

I could understand very little of their magpie chatter, but it was a proud moment.  Alone, unaided, a stranger in a strange land, I had gained the attention of children while speaking in a foreign tongue.  Oh, if I had only left the door open that Salemina might have witnessed this triumph!  But hearing steps in the distance, I said hastily, “Asseyez-vous, mes enfants, tout-de-suite!”  My tone was so authoritative that they obeyed instantly, and when the teacher entered it was as calm as the millennium.

We rambled through the village for another hour, dined at a quaint little inn, gave a last look at the monument, and left for Geneva at seven o’clock in the pleasant September twilight.  Arriving a trifle after ten, somewhat weary in body and slightly anxious in mind, I followed Salemina into the tiny cake-shop across the street from the station.  She returned the tumbler, and the man, who seemed to consider it an unexpected courtesy, thanked us volubly.  I held out my hand and reminded him timidly of the one franc fifty centimes.

He inquired what I meant.  I explained.  He laughed scornfully.  I remonstrated.  He asked me if I thought him an imbecile.  I answered no, and wished that I knew the French for several other terms nearer the truth, but equally offensive.  Then we retired, having done our part, as good Americans, to swell the French revenues, and that was the end of our day in Pestalozzi-town; not the end, however, of the lemonade glass episode, which was always a favourite story in Salemina’s repertory.

II

PENELOPE IN VENICE

This noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my hands, that I should describe her also as well as the other cities I saw in my journey, partly because she gave me most louing and kinde entertainment for the sweetest time (I must needes confesse) that euer I spent in my life; and partly for that she ministered vnto me more variety of remarkable and delicious objects than mine eyes euer suruayed in any citie before, or euer shall . . . the fairest Lady, yet the richest Paragon and Queene of Christendome.

Coryat’s Crudities: 1611

I

Venice, May 12
Hotel Paolo Anafesto.

I have always wished that I might have discovered Venice for myself.  In the midst of our mad acquisition and frenzied dissemination of knowledge, these latter days, we miss how many fresh and exquisite sensations!  Had I a daughter, I should like to inform her mind on every other possible point and keep her in absolute ignorance of Venice.  Well do I realize that it would be impracticable, although no more so, after all, than Rousseau’s plan of educating Émile, which certainly obtained a wide hearing and considerable support in its time.  No, tempting as it would be, it would be difficult to carry out such a theory in these days of logic and common sense, and in some moment of weakness I might possibly succumb and tell her all about it, for fear that some stranger, whom she might meet at a ball, would have the pleasure of doing it first.

The next best woman-person in the world with whom to see Venice, barring the lovely non-existent daughter, is Salemina.

It is our first visit, but, alas! we are, nevertheless, much better informed than I could wish.  Salemina’s mind is particularly well furnished, but, luckily she cannot always remember the point wished for at the precise moment of need; so that, taking her all in all, she is nearly as agreeable as if she were ignorant.  Her knowledge never bulks heavily and insistently in the foreground or middle-distance, like that of Miss Celia Van Tyck, but remains as it should, in the haze of a melting and delicious perspective.  She has plenty of enthusiasms, too, and Miss Van Tyck has none.  Imagine our plight at being accidentally linked to that encyclopædic lady in Italy!  She is an old acquaintance of Salemina’s and joined us in Florence, where she had been staying for a month, waiting for her niece Kitty Schuyler,—Kitty Copley now,—who is in Spain with her husband.

Miss Van Tyck would be endurable in Sheffield, Glasgow, Lyons, Genoa, Kansas City, Pompeii, or Pittsburg, but she should never have blighted Venice with her presence.  She insisted, however, on accompanying us, and I can only hope that the climate and associations will have a relaxing effect on her habits of thought and speech.  When she was in Florence, she was so busy in “reading up” Verona and Padua that she had no time for the Uffizi Gallery.  In Verona and Padua she was absorbed in Hare’s “Venice,” vaccinating herself, so to speak, with information, that it might not steal upon, and infect her, unawares.  If there is anything that Miss Van abhors, it is knowing a thing without knowing that she knows it; while for me, the most charming knowledge is the sort that comes by unconscious absorption, like the free grace of God.