244 Travels in Italy- 



did not banish all feeling of disappointment. It was impossible 

 not to say something a little beyond common thanks. She bowed 

 in return ; and I thought I read in her expressive eyes that I had 

 not offended ; I was encouraged to ask the favour of Signore 

 Miaroni's address in the country — Con gran piacere vi lo daro. — 

 I took a card from my pocket; but her window was rather too 

 high to hand it. I looked at the door: Forzi e aperta. — Creio 

 che si, she replied. If the reader is an electrician, and has fiovrn 

 a kite in a thunder-storm, he will know that when the atmo- 

 sphere around him becomes highly electric, and his danger 

 increases, if he does not quickly remove, there is a cobweb sensa- 

 tion in the air as if he was enclosed in an invisible net of the 

 filmiest gossamer. My atmosphere, at this moment, had some 

 resemblance to it ; I had taken two steps to the door, when a 

 gentleman passing opened it before me and stood upon the 

 threshold. It was the lady's husband; she was in the passage 

 behind, and I was in the street before him, she said, Ecco un 

 Signore Inglese che ha bisogno d'una dirizione a Signore Mairioni. 

 The husband answered politely that he would give it, and taking 

 paper and pencil from his pocket, wrote and gave it me. 

 Nothing was ever done so concisely : I looked at him askance, and 

 thought him one of the ugliest fellows I had ever seen. An ill- 

 natured bystander would have said that his presence pre- 

 vented a farming, from becoming a sentimental, traveller. 

 Certain it is, one now and then meets with terrible eyes in Italy: 

 in the north of Europe they have attractive powers, here they 

 have every sort of power; the sphere of the activity of an eye 

 beam is enlarged, and he who travels as I do for the plough 

 must take care, as I shall in future, to keep out of the reach of it. 

 From the ramparts of the town, below the house of the Count 

 de Brembate, there is a prospect of fertile land hardly to be 

 equalled. In front, to the south, a range of Apennines rises above 

 the fog that hangs over a part of the plain. To the west, an 

 immense curve of the Alps that bound the Milanese and Pied- 

 mont; their heads uninterruptedly in snow form one of the 

 finest mountain-barriers to be imagined. To the east, the view 

 an unbroken, unlimited level. This vast plain, at one's feet, 

 seems a level wood, with towns, churches, towers, and houses. 

 Near Bergamo, the angle of vision permits the fields to be seen, 

 and therefore more picturesque. Similar features must give 

 similar prospects, this resembles that of the Superga. It is as 

 hot to-day, and every one of sunshine, as in England in June. 

 18/A. Yesterday I agreed with a vetturino to take me this 



