discretion to avoid the trouble of making your will every night;
for once falling out else would break your neck perfectly. But if
you die in it, this comfort you shall leave your friends, that you
dy'd in clean linnen.

Whatsoever their estates be, their houses must be fair. Therefore from
_Amsterdam_ they have banisht seacoale, lest it soyl their buildings,
of which the statelier sort are sometimes sententious, and in the
front carry some conceit of the Owner. As to give you a taste in these.


Christus Adjutor Meus;
Hoc abdicato Perenne Quero;
Hic Medio tuitus Itur.


Every door seems studded with Diamonds. The nails and hinges hold a
constant brightnesse, as if rust there was not a quality incident to
Iron. Their houses they keep cleaner than their bodies; their bodies
than their souls. Goe to one, you shall find the Andirons shut up in
net-work. At a second, the Warming-pan muffled in Italian Cutworke. At
a third the Sconce clad in Cambrick.

The absence of any lively traffic on the canals, as in Venice, has this
compensation, that the surface is left untroubled the more minutely
to mirror the houses and trees, and, at night, the tramcars on the
bridges. The lights of these cars form the most vivid reflections
that I can recollect. But the quiet reproduction of the stately black
façades is the more beautiful thing. An added dignity and repose are
noticeable. I said just now that one desired to learn the secret of