POETRY.

Friday, 26th.

You are now beginning to comprehend the poetry of school, Enrico; but at present you only survey the school from within. It will seem much more beautiful and more poetic to you twenty years from now, when you go thither to escort your own boys; and you will then survey it from the outside, as I do. While waiting for school to close, I wander about the silent street, in the vicinity of the edifice, and lay my ear to the windows of the ground floor, which are screened by Venetian blinds.

At one window I hear the voice of a schoolmistress saying: "Ah, what a shape for a t! It won't do, my dear boy! What would your father say to it?" At the next window there resounds the heavy voice of a master, which is saying: "I will buy fifty metres of stuff at four lire and a half the metre and sell it again." Further on there is the mistress with the red feather, who is reading aloud: "Then Pietro Micca, with the lighted train of powder." From the adjoining class-room comes the chirping of a thousand birds, which signifies that the master has stepped out for a moment.

I proceed onward, and as I turn the corner, I hear a scholar weeping, and the voice of the mistress reproving and comforting him. From the lofty windows issue verses, names of great and good men, fragments of sentences which inculcate virtue, the love of country, and courage. Then ensue moments of silence, in which one would declare that the edifice is empty, and it does not seem possible that there should be seven hundred boys within; noisy outbursts of hilarity become audible, provoked by the jest of a master in a good humor.