But Who Does Not Turn To Italy Who Has The Chance Of Doing So?
What, Indeed, Do We Not Owe To That Most Lovely And Loveable
Country?
Take up a Bank of England note and the Italian language
will be found still lingering upon it.
It is signed "for Bank of
England and Compa." (Compagnia), not "Compy." Our laws are Roman
in their origin. Our music, as we have seen, and our painting
comes from Italy. Our very religion till a few hundred years ago
found its headquarters, not in London nor in Canterbury, but in
Rome. What, in fact, is there which has not filtered through
Italy, even though it arose elsewhere? On the other hand, there
are infinite attractions in London. I have seen many foreign
cities, but I know none so commodious, or, let me add, so
beautiful. I know of nothing in any foreign city equal to the view
down Fleet Street, walking along the north side from the corner of
Fetter Lane. It is often said that this has been spoiled by the
London, Chatham, and Dover Railway bridge over Ludgate Hill; I
think, however, the effect is more imposing now than it was before
the bridge was built. Time has already softened it; it does not
obtrude itself; it adds greatly to the sense of size, and makes us
doubly aware of the movement of life, the colossal circulation to
which London owes so much of its impressiveness. We gain more by
this than we lose by the infraction of some pedant's canon about
the artistically correct intersection of right lines. Vast as is
the world below the bridge, there is a vaster still on high, and
when trains are passing, the steam from the engine will throw the
dome of St. Paul's into the clouds, and make it seem as though
there were a commingling of earth and some far-off mysterious
palace in dreamland. I am not very fond of Milton, but I admit
that he does at times put me in mind of Fleet Street.
While on the subject of Fleet Street, I would put in a word in
favour of the much-abused griffin. The whole monument is one of
the handsomest in London. As for its being an obstruction, I have
discoursed with a large number of omnibus conductors on the
subject, and am satisfied that the obstruction is imaginary.
When, again, I think of Waterloo Bridge, and the huge wide-opened
jaws of those two Behemoths, the Cannon Street and Charing Cross
railway stations, I am not sure that the prospect here is not even
finer than in Fleet Street. See how they belch forth puffing
trains as the breath of their nostrils, gorging and disgorging
incessantly those human atoms whose movement is the life of the
city. How like it all is to some great bodily mechanism of which
the people are the blood. And then, above all, see the ineffable
St. Paul's. I was once on Waterloo Bridge after a heavy
thunderstorm in summer. A thick darkness was upon the river and
the buildings upon the north side, but just below I could see the
water hurrying onward as in an abyss, dark, gloomy, and mysterious.
On a level with the eye there was an absolute blank, but above, the
sky was clear, and out of the gloom the dome and towers of St.
Paul's rose up sharply, looking higher than they actually were, and
as though they rested upon space.
Then as for the neighbourhood within, we will say, a radius of
thirty miles. It is one of the main businesses of my life to
explore this district. I have walked several thousands of miles in
doing so, and I mark where I have been in red upon the Ordnance
map, so that I may see at a glance what parts I know least well,
and direct my attention to them as soon as possible. For ten
months in the year I continue my walks in the home counties, every
week adding some new village or farmhouse to my list of things
worth seeing; and no matter where else I may have been, I find a
charm in the villages of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, which in its way
I know not where to rival.
I have ventured to say the above, because during the remainder of
my book I shall be occupied almost exclusively with Italy, and wish
to make it clear that my Italian rambles are taken not because I
prefer Italy to England, but as by way of parergon, or by-work, as
every man should have both his profession and his hobby. I have
chosen Italy as my second country, and would dedicate this book to
her as a thank-offering for the happiness she has afforded me.
CHAPTER II - Faido
For some years past I have paid a visit of greater or less length
to Faido in the Canton Ticino, which though politically Swiss is as
much Italian in character as any part of Italy. I was attracted to
this place, in the first instance, chiefly because it is one of the
easiest places on the Italian side of the Alps to reach from
England. This merit it will soon possess in a still greater
degree, for when the St. Gothard tunnel is open, it will be
possible to leave London, we will say, on a Monday morning and be
at Faido by six or seven o'clock the next evening, just as one can
now do with S. Ambrogio on the line between Susa and Turin, of
which more hereafter.
True, by making use of the tunnel one will miss the St. Gothard
scenery, but I would not, if I were the reader, lay this too much
to heart. Mountain scenery, when one is staying right in the
middle of it, or when one is on foot, is one thing, and mountain
scenery as seen from the top of a diligence very likely smothered
in dust is another.
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