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One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time.
One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time.
But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. Break into laughter, if you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the arches.
It was one evening in the cathedral of Pisa that GALILEO observed the vibrations of a brass lustre pendent from the vaulted roof, which had been left swinging by one of the vergers. The habitual meditation of genius combined with an ordinary accident a new idea of science, and hence conceived the invention of measuring time by the medium of a pendulum.
And is it for this the wanton mischief of some schoolboy, fired perhaps with raw notions of Transatlantic Freedom or the remote possibility of such a mischief occurring again, so easily to be prevented by stationing a constable within the walls, if the vergers are incompetent to the duty is it upon such wretched pretences, that the people of England are made to pay a new Peter's Pence, so long abrogated; or must content themselves with contemplating the ragged Exterior of their Cathedral?
But there's nothing to prevent you from taking a header at the Whispering Gallery of Saint Paul's. You'd be more talked of that way, and the vergers would be sure to show the stains made on the stones below.
The earlier months of his married life he devoted to a pleasant tour on the Continent; not wasting time in picturesque by-ways, or dawdling among inaccessible mountains, or mooning about drowsy old cathedrals, where there were pictures with curtains hanging before them, and prowling vergers who expected money for drawing aside the curtains; but rattling at the highest continental speed from one big commercial city to another, and rubbing off the rust of Bloomsbury in the exchanges and on the quays of the busiest places in Europe.
Lawrence, over seventy years of age, had grown stout and white-haired in the Cathedral's service. He was a fine figure in his purple gown, broad-shouldered, his chest and stomach of a grand protuberance, his broad white flowing beard a true emblem of his ancient dignity. He was the most autocratic of Vergers and had been allowed now for many years to do as he pleased.
Sitting on a high stool, with his back to the congregation, consisting of three old women, was the priest, on either side the vergers, one in white stole, the other in purple robe and scarlet cap, all these chanting in loud monotonous tones, and of course in Latin, now and then the harmonium giving a faint accompaniment.
If you will tell one of the vergers what is the matter with me, he will summon the Examiner of Health, who will bring a litter to convey me to the pest-house." "If you go thither your fate is sealed," replied Nizza. "I have said I do not desire to live," returned the apprentice. "Do not indulge in these gloomy thoughts, or you are certain to bring about a fatal result," said Nizza.
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