I did, indeed, remember me of an old bronze lamp, by Vincenzo
Possenti, hanging from the roof, which I now revered the third time, at
intervals of twenty years; from its oscillation Galileo is said to have
got the notion of the pendulum; but it is now tied back with a wire,
being no longer needed for such an inspiration. Mostly in this last
visit I took Pisa as lightly as at the first, when, as I have noted from
the printed witness, I was gayly indifferent to the claims of her
objects of interest. If they came in my way, I looked at them, but I did
not put myself much about for them. I rested mostly in the twilight of
old associations, trusting to the guidance of our cicerone, whom, in
some form or under some name, the reader will find waiting for him at
the cathedral door as we did. But I have since recurred to the record of
my second visit in 1883, with amazement at the exact knowledge of events
shown there, which became, in 1908, all a blur of dim conjecture. It
appears that I was then acquainted with much more Pisan history than any
other author I have found own to.
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