In the centre of the city of Milan is an artificial lake where the
Milanise dearly love to go out in beautiful pleasure yots, and in the
winter it serves for a skating rink. Milan is noted for its charitable
institutions, which owns property to the amount of forty or fifty
millions; it is a honor to her. It has flourishing colleges, lyceums,
observatories, gymnasiums, famous libraries, institutes and schools of
all kinds, and the Academy of Fine Arts is celebrated all over the
world. It has a beautiful triumphal arch, begun in 1807 and finished
in 1838. They take their own time, them old Milanise do, but when
their work is done, it is done.
Josiah thought most probable they worked by the day. Sez he, "Men are
most always more shiftless when you pay by the day."
It has very fine public gardens, and one day we went to the Campo
Santo. It is a beautiful spot; they say it has the finest sculpture
and statuary in the world. We spent some time wandering around,
resting our eyes on the beautiful marble forms on every side.
They wuz a quiet crowd, too; jest as calm and silent as them they kep'
watch over.
Some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are to be seen in
the picture galleries at Milan, the Marriage of Mary and Joseph, by
Raphael, is considered the most valuable. We went to see the fresco of
the Lord's Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, on the walls of an old
convent. But the wall is crumbled and the picture is faded and worn;
besides artists have tried to retouch it with just about as much
success as Josiah would have if he undertook to paint the sky indigo
blue, or Ury tried to improve a white lily with a coat of whitewash.
But we loved to look on it for what it wuz before Time's hand had laid
so heavy on it and artists had tried to protect it.
We wuz in Milan over Sunday and so we went to the Cathedral to
service, and agin I realized its marvellous beauty and magnitude. Its
ruff is supported by fifty-two columns, and it has eight thousand
life-sized statutes inside and outside, plenty enough for comfort even
if it wuz over-fond of statutes.
The Lazaretto, once used as a plague hospital, is now used as an
apartment-house for the poor; it has one thousand two-roomed
apartments in it, a city in itself.
Napoleon, ambitious creeter! wuz crowned king of Italy in Milan. And I
guess old Charlemaigne himself wuz, 'tennyrate a good many kings here
had the iron crown set on their forwards. I d'no what made 'em have
iron crowns, though Josiah said it would be real handy sometimes. He
said if a king wuz in a hurry, and you know they are sometimes in a
dretful hurry to be crowned before their heads are took off, it would
be real handy, for they could take the rim to a stove griddle, and
stand up some velvet pints on it and it would fit most any head. He
also spoke of a coal-scuttle.
But I said that I guessed they used iron to show that crowns are so
heavy and bore down on their heads so.
We visited Lake Como, Dorothy specially wantin' to see the palace of
Carlotta. Poor, broken-hearted Carlotta, whose mind and happiness wuz
destroyed by the shot that put an end to Maximilian's brave, misguided
life.
Poor Maximilian! poor Carlotta! victims of the foolish ambitions of an
empress, so they say. I wuz glad to throw the blossom of a pitying
thought onto their memory as I passed her house, opposite Belajio,
thinkin' that it wuz befittin' a American to do so. Tears stood in
Dorothy's eyes as we recalled the sad tragedy.
Lake Como deserves all that has been said of it, and more too. The
slopes of the mountains are dotted with vineyards, hamlets and
beautiful villas. And we see many little cabins where the familys of
organ-grinders live. Mebby the wife and children lived here of some
swarthy creeter that I've fed offen my own back steps in Jonesville
for grindin' out music for the children.
It is only a journey of eight hours from Milan to Venice, and Verona
is about half way. And it is almost like travellin' through a mulberry
grove. The valley of Lombardy is a silk-producing country and the diet
of silkworms is mulberry leaves and the trees also serve as handsome
props to the grape vines that hang from tree to tree.
Fur off, like cold, sad thoughts that will come in warm happy hearts,
we see the snow-capped mountains, and bime by it grew so cold that we
wuz glad and grateful when we had cans of hot water handed to us at
the station.
Josiah thought they wuz full of hot coffee and proposed to once that
we should take some to meetin' with us in Jonesville to warm our feet.
Sez he, "How delightful it would be, Samantha, to take a good drink of
hot coffee in meetin'."
"Yes," sez I, "it would look nice to be drinkin' in meetin'."
"Oh," sez he, "I mean to do it sly; I could scrooch down and pretend
to be fixin' my shues." But it proved to be nothin' but hot water in
the cans, but real comfortable to our feet. And the mulberry groves
put Josiah in mind of another innovation that might be made in
Jonesville ways.
Sez he, "These silk raisers git rich as mud and jest see the number of
caterpillars we have to hum; they might jest as well be put to work on
sunthin' that will pay as to be eatin' up young squashes and
cowcumbers for us to plant over." Sez he, "Their work is worse than
wasted on us."
Sez I, "These silkworms hain't like our caterpillars, Josiah."
"Well, they may make silk of a different color, but who cares for that
when diamond dyes are so cheap, and if we wanted red silk we could
try feedin' em on red stuff, beets, and red russets and such. Why,"
sez he, "with Ury's help I could start a caterpillar bizness that
would be the makin' of me. And oh, how I would love to robe your
figger, Samantha, in silk from my own caterpillars."
"Well, well," sez I, "let's not look ahead too much." Sez I, "Look
there up the mountain side and see the different shades of green
foliage and see what pretty little houses that are sot there and see
that lovely little village down in the valley."
So I got his mind off. The costooms of the peasant wimmen are very
pretty, a black bodice over a white chemise with short full sleeves
and bright colored shirts, and hat trimmed with long gay ribbons.
The men wear short, black trousers, open jackets and gay sashes,
broad-brimmed white hats with long blue ribbons streamin' down. Josiah
sez to me admirin'ly, "How such a costoom would brighten up our
cornfield if I and Ury appeared in 'em."
Sez I, "Ury would git his sash and hat ribbons all twisted up in his
hoe handle the first thing."
"They might be looped up," sez Josiah, "with rosettes."
We read about travel bein' a great educator, and truly I believe that
no tourist ever had any more idees about graftin' foreign customs onto
everyday life at home than Josiah Allen did. Now at Lake Como where we
see washerwomen at their work. They stood in the water with their
skirts rolled up to their knees, but they still had on their white
chemisettes and black bodices laced over them and pretty white caps
trimmed with gay ribbins.
And Josiah sez, "What a happy day it would be for me and Ury if we
could see you and Philury dressed like that for the wash-tub; it would
brighten the gloom of Mondays considerable."
Well, they did look pretty and I d'no but they could wash the clothes
jest as clean after they got used to it, but I shouldn't encourage
Philury to dress up so wash-days.
And it wuz jest so when we see on Lake Como its swarm of pleasure
gondolas glidin' hither and yon with the dark-eyed Italian ladies in
bright colored costooms and black lace mantillys thrown over their
pretty heads and fastened with coral pins, and the gondoliers in gay
attire keepin' time to the oars with their melogious voices. Josiah
whispered to me:
"What a show it would make in Jonesville, Samantha, to see you and me
in a gondola on the mill-dam, I with long, pale blue ribbins tied
round my best beaver hat and you with Mother Allen's long, black lace
veil that fell onto you, thrown graceful over your head, and both of
us singin' 'Balermy' or 'Coronation.' How uneek it would be!"
"Yes," sez I, "it would be uneek, uneeker than will ever come to
pass."
"Well, I d'no," sez he, "Ury and me could make a crackin' good gondola
out of the old stun boat, kinder hist it up in front and whittle out a
head on it and a neck some like an old gander's. We could take old
High Horns for a model, and we could make good oars out of old
fish-poles and broom-handles, and you own a veil, and blue streamers
don't cost much--nothin' henders us from showin' off in that way but
your obstinate sperit."
But I sez, "I shall never appear in that panoramy, never."
"Oh, well," sez he, gayly, "Jonesville has other females beside you,
more tractable and more genteel. Most probable Sister Celestine
Bobbett and she that wuz Submit Tewksberry would love to float in a
gondola by the side of one of Jonesville's leadin' men."
I looked full in his face and sez, "Has foreign travel shook your
morals till they begin to tottle? Have I got to see a back-slidden
Josiah?"
Sez he, real earnest, "You are the choice of my youth, the joy of my
prime of life."
"Well, then," sez I, "shet up!" I wuz out of patience with his giddy
idees, and wouldn't brook 'em.
We laid out to go from Milan to Genoa till we changed our plans. I
thought it wuzn't no more'n right that we should pay Columbus that
honor, for I always wondered, and spoze always shall, what would have
become of us if we hadn't been discovered. I spoze we should have got
along some way, but it wouldn't have been nigh so handy for us. I
presoom mebby Josiah and I would have been warwhoopin' and livin' in
tepees and eatin' dogs, though it don't seem to me that any colored
skin I might have could have made me relish Snip either in a stew or
briled. That dog is most human.
I always felt real grateful to Columbus and knowed he hadn't been used
as he ort to be. And then Mother Smith left me a work-bag, most new,
made of Genoa velvet, and I awfully wanted to git a little piece more
to put with it so's I could make a bunnet out of it. But Dorothy
wanted to see Verona and her wish wuz law to the head of our party,
and when the head of a procession turns down a road, the rest of the
procession must foller on in order to look worth a cent. Miss Meechim
said that it wuz on her account that he favored Dorothy so. But it
wuzn't no such thing and anybody could see different if their eyes
wuzn't blinded with self-conceit and egotism. But take them two
together and there is no blinders equal to 'em. They go fur ahead of
the old mair's, and hern are made of thick leather.
Well, Robert thought we had better go on to Venice, stopping at Verona
on the way and so on to Naples, and then on our way back we could stop
at Genoa, and we all give up that it wuz the best way.
I always liked the name of Verona. Miss Ichabod Larmuth named her
twins Vernum and Verona. I thought it would be a real delicate
attention to her to stop there, specially as we could visit Genoa
afterwards.
Well, havin' such a pretty name I felt that Verona would be a real
pretty place, and it wuz. A swift flowing river runs through the town
and the view from all sides is beautiful. The fur off blue mountains,
the environin' hills, the green valleys dotted with village and
hamlet, made it a fair seen, and "Jocund day stood tip-toe on the
mountain tops."
But to sweet Dorothy and me, and I guess to the most of us, it wuz
interestin' because Juliet Montague, she that wuz Juliet Capulet, once
lived here. I spoke on't to Josiah, but he sez:
"The widder Montague; I don't remember her. Is she any relation of old
Ike Montague of North Loontown?"
But I sez: "She wuzn't a widder for any length of time. She died of
love and so did her pardner, Romeo Montague."
"Well," said Josiah, "that shows they wuz both sap heads. If they had
lived on for a spell they would got bravely over that, and had more
good horse sense."
Well, I spoze worldlings might mock at their love and their sad
doings, but to me the air wuz full of romance and sadness and the
presence of Juliet and Romeo.
The house where she once lived wuz a not over big house of brick, no
bigger nor better than Bildad Henzy's over in Zoar, and looked some
like it.
Josiah said it wuz so silly to poke clear over to Italy to see this
little narrer house when we could see better ones to home any day.
Miss Meechim said that it didn't look so genteel as she expected, and
Arvilly made a slightin' remark about it.
But Robert Strong said kinder low, "He laughs at scars who never felt
a wound." His eyes wuz on Dorothy's sweet face as he spoke.
And in her soft eyes as she looked at him I could almost see the
meanin' of Juliet's vow, "To follow thee, my lord, throughout the
world."
We didn't go to Friar Laurence's cell where Mr. and Miss Romeo
Montague wuz married and passed away, not knowin' exactly where it
wuz, old Elder Laurence havin' passed away some time ago, but we did
go to the place they call her tomb; we rung a bell in the iron gate,
paid a little fee, and was led by the hired girl who opened the gate
to the place where they say she is buried. But I d'no as this is her
tomb or not; I didn't seem to feel that it wuz, 'tennyrate the tomb
don't look much like what her pa said he would raise above 'em:
"A statue of pure gold; that while Verona by that name is known, there
shall no figure at such rate be set as that of true and faithful
Juliet." Josiah not havin' come up to the mark in the way of sentiment
at the house of Capulet, overdid the matter here; he took out his
bandanna, and after flourishing it enough to draw everybody's
attention to it, pressed it to his eyes and sort o' sithed.
But I doubted his grief, though he made such elaborate preparations
for it, and I told him so afterwards. He acted real puggicky and sez:
"Can't I ever please you, Samantha? At the widder Montague's Pa's you
thought I wuzn't sentimental enough, and I thought you would be
tickled enough to have me shed tears at her tomb."
"Did you shed tears, Josiah?" sez I.
But he waved the question off and continued, "The guide told me that
folks usually wep' some there, and I expected you all would, you are
all so romantik and took up with the widder Montague and her pardner.
I took the lead, but none of you follered on."
"Well," sez I, "if you felt like weepin', Josiah, I wouldn't want to
break it up, but to me it looked fur more like a waterin' trough than
it did like a tomb."
"Well, you know how it is in the older part of the Jonesville
buryin'-ground, the stuns are all tipped over and broke. Mr. and Miss
Capulet have been dead for some time and probable the grave stuns have
gone down."
Well, being kinder rousted up on the subject, I quoted considerable
poetry about Romeo and Juliet, and Josiah bein' kinder huffy and
naterally hatin' poetry, and real hungry, too, scorfed at and made
light on me. He kep' it up till I sez:
"William Shakespeare said there wuz Two Gentlemen of Verona, and I
should be glad, Josiah Allen, to think you made the third one; but a
true gentleman wouldn't make light of his pardner or slight her
reminiscences."
Sez he: "Reminescin' on a empty stomach is deprestin', and don't set
well."
Well, it had been some time sence we had eat, and Tommy wuz gittin'
hungry, too, so we returned to the tarven.
In the afternoon we went to see the old Roman amphitheatre. It wuz
probably built not fur from A.D. Jest think on't! Most two thousand
years old, and in pretty good shape yet! It is marble, and could
accommodate twenty thousand people. All round and under it is a arch,
where I spoze the poor condemned prisoners wuz kep' and the wild
beasts that wuz to fight with 'em and kill 'em for the pleasure of the
populace. Miss Meechim got dretful worked up seein' it, and she and
Arvilly had words, comparin' old times and new, and the different wild
beasts they encourage and let loose on the public. Arvilly's views,
tinged and shadowed as they always are, by what she's went through,
they both got mad as hens before they got through.
There are ruins of a large aqueduct near, which wuz flooded with
water, I spoze, for acquatic sports way back, mebby back to Anna D, or
before her. Some say that early Christians were put to death in this
amphitheatre, but it hain't very clearly proved.
Well, we only stayed one day at Verona, and the next day we hastened
on to Venice.
Josiah told me that he wanted to go to Venice. Sez he: "It is a place
from what I hear on't that has a crackin' good water power and that is
always the makin' of a town, and then," sez he, "I've always wanted to
see the Bridge of Size and the Doggy's Palace." Sez he: "When a city
is good enough to rare up such a palace to dogs it shows there is
sunthin' good 'bout it, and I dare presoom to say there hain't a dog
amongst 'em any better than Snip or one that can bring up the cows any
better."
Josiah thinks we've got the cutest dog and cat in the world. He has
spent hours trainin' 'em, and they'll both start for the cow paster
jest the right time and bring up the cows; of course, the cat can't do
much only tag along after the dog; she don't bark any, it not bein'
her nater to, but it looks dretful cunnin'. Sez Josiah, "I wouldn't be
ashamed to show Snip off by the side of any of the dogs in the Doggy's
Palace."
Sez I, coldly, "How do you spell dogs, Josiah Allen?"
"Why, dog-es, doggys."
Sez I, "The palace was rared up by a man--a Doge--the Doges wuz great
men, rulers in Venice."
"I don't believe a word on't," sez he. "It is rared up for dogs, and
I'm thinkin' quite a little of rarin' up a small house with a steeple
on't for Snip. He deserves it."
Well, there wuzn't no use in argyin'; I knew he would have to give up
when he got there, and so he did. And it wuz jest so with the Bridge
of Sighs, that has, as Mr. Byron said, "A palace and a prison on each
side."
Josiah insisted on't that it wuz called the Bridge of Size, because it
wuz the most sizeable bridge in the world. But it is no such thing; it
don't begin, as I told him, with the Brooklyn Bridge; why, it hain't
no longer than the bridge between Loontown and Zoar, or the one over
our creek, but I presoom them who passed over this bridge to execution
gin deep, loud sithes--it wuz nateral they should--so the bridge wuz
named after them sithes.
Josiah said if that wuz fashionable he should name the bridge down
back of the barn the Bridge of Groans, it wuz such a tug for the
horses to draw a load over it. Sez he, "I almost always give a groan
and so does Ury--Bridge of Groans." Sez he, "that will sound uneek
and genteel in Jonesville."
But mebby he won't do it; he often makes plans he don't carry out and
he gits things wrong--he did the very first minute we got there.
We arrove in Venice about the middle of the afternoon, and as Robert
had writ ahead for rooms, a man wuz waitin' with a sizeable gondola to
take us to our tarven.
When Josiah see it drawin' nigh he sez to me, _soty vosy_, "Never,
never, will I ride in a hearse; I wouldn't in Jonesville and I won't
in Italy; not till my time comes, I won't."
But I whispered back agin to keep still, it wuzn't a hearse. But, to
tell the truth, it did look some like one, painted black as a coal.
But, seein' the rest of us embark, he, too, sot sail in it. He didn't
have to go a great ways before it stopped at our tarven, which wuz
once a palace, and I kinder hummed to myself while I wuz washin' me
and puttin' on a clean collar and cuffs:
"'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam," puttin' the main
emphasis on palaces. But Josiah catched up the refrain and sung it
quite loud, or what he calls singin':
Be it ever so humbly,
There's no place like hum.
He looked round the vast, chilly, bare apartment, the lofty walls, the
marble floors, with here and there a rug layin' like a leaf on a
sidewalk, and I kinder echoed it. Sez he feelin'ly and sort of
plaintively, "I'd ruther have less ornaments and more comfort."
I sez, "It is very grand and spacious."
And he sez, "I'd give the hull of the space and throw in the grandeur
for a good big fire and a plate of your nut cakes."
But I sez soothin'ly, "It is sunthin', Josiah, to live in a palace;"
and I drawed his attention to the mosaic work on the floor, and the
massive furniture covered with inlaid work.
And he sez, "I'd ruther have less work laid into the furniture and
some decent food laid into my stomach."
Oh, what a appetite that man has got! It had kep' active all the way
from Jonesville around the world and wuz still up and a-doin'. Well,
he can't help it. He acted real obstrupulous and onhappy. He has such
spells every little while. I mistrusted and he just as good as owned
up to me that it wuz partly owin' to his bein' dressed up all the
time; it wuz a dretful cross to him. He wears frocks to hum, round
doin' the barn chores, and loose shues, but now of course he had no
reprieve from night till mornin' from tight collars and cuffs and his
best shues.
But then, he had restless spells to hum and onhappy ones, and acted;
and I told him he did and he disputed me right up and down. He didn't
feel very well, anyway; he had told me that mornin' early how he pined
for Jonesville, how he longed to be there, and how he didn't care for
a thing outside of them beloved presinks. And I told him it wuzn't
reasonable. Sez I, "Enjoy Jonesville while you are there and now enjoy
Europe whilst you are here."
Sez he, with a real sentimental look, "Oh, Jonesville, how happy I'll
be if I ever see thee agin! How content, how blessed!"
Sez I, "You wuzn't always happy there, Josiah; you oft-times got
restless and oneasy there."
"Never!" sez he, "never did I see a onhappy or a tired day there in my
life."
But he did. He got down-casted there jest as he did here. I knowed how
often I had soothed and comforted his sperits by extra good meals. But
he wouldn't own up to it, and seein' he looked so gloomy and deprested
I went to work and episoded some right there, whilst I wuz comin' my
hair and dressin', in hopes that it would bring a more happy and
contented look onto his liniment, for what will not a devoted pardner
do to console her consort?
Sez I, "Josiah, life is a good deal like the Widder Rice's yarn I've
heard Ma Smith tell on. She wuzn't a smooth spinner and there would be
thick bunches in her yarn and thin streaks; she called 'em gouts and
twits. She'd say, 'Yes, I know my yarn is full of gouts and twits, but
when it's doubled most likely a gout will come aginst a twit and make
it even.'"
And I eppisoded to myself and to Josiah, "That is a good deal like
life. The good of this world seems onequally divided some times, but
the rich has troubles and the poor have compensations. The poor man
has to git up early and toil all day, but if he hates to leave his bed
so early mornings, his sleep is sweet while he rests, and his labor
makes his food taste good and nourishes his strength, while the rich
man who can lay till noon, turns on his restless pillow and can't
sleep night or day. And while he has plenty to buy rich viands he has
no appetite to eat or health to digest his food.
"The morning song of the lark sounds sweet to the laborer as it rises
over the dew-spangled fields, as he goes forth to his daily toil,
while the paid songs the rich man hears palls on his pleasure-tired
senses. At home you have rest of body, and in travel you have
education and variety; yes, the gouts and twits in life even up pretty
well and the yarn runs pretty smooth offen the reel of Time to the
traveller and the stay-at-home, the rich and the poor."
Josiah wuz brushin' his back hair with two brushes (one would have
been plenty enough), and he kep' on with his employment and sez
without lookin' up:
"I wonder where the Widder Rice's grandson, Ezra, is? He wuz out to
the West the last I hearn on him."
There it wuz! My eloquence had rolled offen him like water from a tin
eavespout; hadn't touched him at all nor uplifted him, though I felt
real riz up. You know you can talk yourself up onto quite a hite if
you try; but Josiah wuzn't moved a mite from the place he'd stood on.
Well, that wuz one of the gouts in my yarn of life, but a twit wuz
near by--it had its compensation. He worships me! And I went on and
eppisoded to myself to bring myself up to the mark as I wadded up my
back hair. Sez I to myself: "If Josiah had the eye to see the onseen
eagles soarin' up in the sky above his head, mebby he would also see
my faults too plain. If he could hear in winter midnights the murmur
of dancin' waters and the melogious voice of the south wind blowin'
over roses and voyalets, he might also hear the voice of Distrust. If
he had the wisdom of Solomon he might also have his discursive
fancies, his various and evanescent attachments. But as it is, his
love is stiddy and as firm as a rock. So the gouts and the twits
evened each other up after all, and the yarn run pretty smooth."