Leaning Tower of Pisa by Esther Singleton

CHARLES DICKENS.

From the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view of the / fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies -- with Leghorn a purple / spot in the flat distance -- is enchanting. Nor is it only distance that / lends enchantment to the view; for the fruitful country, and rich woods / of olive-trees through which the road subsequently passes, render it / delightful.

The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time / we could see, behind the wall, the Leaning Tower, all awry in / the uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in / school-books, setting forth "The Wonders of the World. " Like most / things connected in their first associations with school-books and / school-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothing like / so high above the wall as I had hoped. It was another of the many / deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the corner of St. / Paul's Church-yard, London. _His_ Tower was a fiction, but this was / reality -- and, by comparison, a short reality. Still, it looked very / well, and very strange, and was quite as much out of the perpendicular / as Harris had represented it to be. The quiet air of Pisa, too; the / big guard-house at the gate, with only two little soldiers in it; / the streets, with scarcely any show of people in them; and the Arno, / flowing quaintly through the centre of the town; were excellent. So, / I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris (remembering his good / intentions), but forgave him before dinner, and went out, full of / confidence, to see the Tower next morning.

I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it / casting its long shadow on a public street where people came and went / all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a grave, retired place, / apart from the general resort, and carpeted with smooth green turf. / But, the group of buildings clustered on and about this verdant carpet; / comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of / the Campo Santo; is perhaps the most remarkable and beautiful in the / whole world; and, from being clustered there together away from the / ordinary transactions and details of the town, they have a singularly / venerable and impressive character. It is the architectural essence / of a rich old city, with all its common life and common habitations / pressed out, and filtered away.

SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations / in children's books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, / and conveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboured / description. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of the / structure; nothing can be more remarkable than its general appearance. / In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by an easy staircase), / the inclination is not very apparent; but, at the summit, it becomes / so, and gives one the sensation of being in a ship that has heeled / over, through the action of an ebb tide. The effect _upon the low / side_, so to speak -- looking over from the gallery, and seeing the shaft / recede to its base -- is very startling; and I saw a nervous traveller / hold on to the Tower involuntarily, after glancing down, as if he had / some idea of propping it up. The view within, from the ground -- looking / up, as through a slanted tube -- is also very curious. It certainly / inclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. The natural / impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who were about to / recline upon the grass below it to rest, and contemplate the adjacent / buildings, would probably be, not to take up their position under the / leaning side; it is so very much aslant.